Alex Guarnaschelli was crowned the winner of The Next Iron Chef: Redemption tonight after beating Amanda Freitag in a head-to-head battle in kitchen stadium. Alex Guarnaschelli will be going against UK Iron Chef Judy Joo next Sunday at 9pm on Iron Chef America.The first challenge of the episode had the competitors cooking a meal for a last supper. Nate Appleman got haddock (Simon's ingredient), Alex Guarnaschelli got sea urchin (Donatella's ingredient), and Amanda Freitag got chicken (Geoffrey's ingredient) as their ingredients. Amanda Freitag was the clear winner of this challenge, and the judges decided to eliminate Nate Appleman from the competition due to the clams he added to his haddock dish.
This put Amanda Freitag against Alex Guarnaschelli for the final challenge in kitchen stadium, with the winner being crowned the Next Iron Chef. The challenge had sets of ingredients based on current Iron Chefs: Southwestern for Bobby Flay, Mediterranean for Michael Symon, and Japanese for Masaharu Morimoto. They needed to pick 3 ingredients from each set of ingredients for their dish, which was meant to show respect to the Iron Chef's who were going to be judges of this battle. We only got to see the chefs cooking for about two minutes as they tried to cram everything into a 1 hour episode. After tasting all of the food, the judges decided that Alex Guarnaschelli's three courses were better and she was chosen as the winner of The Next Iron Chef: Redemption.
Based on the poll on the site from earlier this week, most wanted either Amanda Freitag or Alex Guarnaschelli to win. I think most of us were not suprised to see Alex going against Amanda in the final challege, and the Food Network getting another female Iron Chef. Many think Alex Guarnaschelli was the chosen one from the beginning.
What do you feel about the results tonight? Happy that Alex Guarnaschelli won?
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Clearly fixed; they are both good tv personalities and it is great to have a woman IC; but according to the judges' comments Freitag seemed to cook better and more consistently than anyone during the whole competition.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad there is another female Iron Chef, since Chef Cora never seems to be on the show. But I think there can be little doubt that this competition was a set up from the beginning. I think worse than the fact that it was a set up, is the fact that FN didn't even attempt to make it look legit. It was fairly obvious from the beginning what the result was supposed to be.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that the results were fixed by the network. Some of the chefs simply didn't produce good food and I highly doubt they purposely took a dive.
ReplyDeleteSo happy for alex, that woman can cook nuff said!!!!
ReplyDeleteI like Alex but I'm surprised they would have had Chef Zakarian on the judging panel. I like him, like his food but he no doubt had a closer relationship with two of the other chefs than the other 8 *and* both o them ended up in the final. Even if there was no fix (and I'm not surprised the winner wasn't picked from the begging), it looks a bit hinky. I still thinkChef Falknewr shou;d have won. She's audacious and very skilled.
ReplyDeleteGo Alex! I don't care if it was fixed or not (and in all reality it probably wasn't, the chefs that went home had crappy dishes, except falkner) she had the most drive and wanted redemption the most and her food while not the most creative was from her heart and cooked with passion.
ReplyDeleteSo rigged! She's been a sous chef in kitchen stadium since Geoffrey won. They liked what they saw in her and decided to make some money airing a redemption show to get her where they wanted her. My personal favorite was Faulkner. She has more TV personality than Alex who seems "stuffy."
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's any doubt that Chef Falkner is a way better chef than anyone who competed in the Redemption competition. Between Alex and Amanda, I'm glad Alex won because I simply love her; however, I think Amanda is probably the better chef. With that said, I would have had a hard time watching Amanda Freitag--something about her demeanor and personality. So, yes, I think it was fixed, because of Alex's relationship with Chef Zakarian, because Bobby Flay produced her show, "Alex's Day Off," and because Bobby Flay and Michael Symon are best friends.
ReplyDeleteIn the end I expected a woman to finally win.. but amongst the 3, I expected it to be more between Faulkner and Freitag (those 2 performed the best overall and I believe did a better job throughout the season than Guarnaschelli). Although the ending battle was close, its bothersome that Freitag won 4 total challenges and then lost to Guarnaschelli in the end. Everyone will always be bitter about Faulkner(but theres a part of me thinking she may be a part of the next Chopped All Stars and perhaps get her revenge on these Chopped Judges gone Iron Chef! Or perhaps she may be featured as a judge since it seems a lot of Next Iron Chef alums judge the show) ... theres a part of me unhappy that Guarnaschelli won but at the same time it was expected of her to win.. but really her overall performance on the show wasnt as impressive and thats why it feels completely rigged for her. But the other reality is I believe all 3 female chefs should have been the top 3 but obviously it was somewhat rigged to get Faulkner out to make it easier for Guarnaschelli (and perhaps Freitag but I believe Freitag was clearly doing great on her own merit and not because Faulkner was out but some may argue because Appleman was saved they were able to push each other to the top 3...)
ReplyDeleteCongrats to Guarnaschelli, would of loved to see Freitag or Faulkner as Iron Chef though
Congratulations to Alex Guarnaschelli for her win, we were rooting for her! Truthfully, I would've been happy for Amanda Freitag or Elizabeth Faulkner to win too. I love all three women, and really admire their amazing cooking styles and skills. All three of them appealed more to my family than the male chefs chosen to compete this year.
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to get into the SPECULTIONS that the show is fixed, unless we all want to re-hash the way Michael Symon personally saw to it that Roert Irvine was booted off last season so quickly. I really felt with this season, the chefs won or failed their challenges based on the luck of the draw, with whatever horrible or bizzarre ingredient they had to work with. If you want to see a Next Iron Chef competition decided without any accusations of fixing, they should let it be a straight-shooting cooking challenge. Everyone cooks crab, lobster, prime rib, etc., and whoever cooks it best, wins. But that's not what happens anymore--the chefs have to cook with different ingredients, or off-the-wall stuff like peppermint candies for a savory dish?!? In the end, I felt like the judges just had to choose which dish they liked enough to want to eat again, because they certainly weren't comparing who cooked the same ingredient better.
This year, luck was with Alex, so I'm happy for her. I hope that next time, luck will shine on Amanda or Elizabeth, because they both deserve it, as well. As for the Iron Chef series, why don't they start offering two new episodes a week, like Saturdays AND Sundays, as there are now so many Iron Chefs, we only see some of them cook once a season, if that.
I don't think the chefs too a dive but there were some questionable eliminations and the eventual winner cooked inconsistently throughout the competition. How Amanda Frietag or Elizabeth Falkner didn't win is still a mystery to me.
ReplyDeleteI noticed what sucked is that Flay was obviously biased for Guarnaschelli .. I would like to say he may have some resentmeng toward Freitag only because she ALMOST beat him in their respective Iron Chef battle.. she only lost by 1pt. (Actually irony is Falkner and Guarnaschelli also lost by 1pt during their respective battles against Cat Cora) ... Zakarian wasnt as biased he was pretty equally fair for both but everyone knows hed support Guarnaschelli before Freitag... I think Symon also went with Guarnaschelli... and I feel like the main supporters for Freitag were Donatella anf Morimoto (you could tell he was more impressed by Freitag's creativity)... so that leaves Mujumdar but honestly i dont know how this works .. the show makes it seem like they vote by writing a name down but what if there were a tie? Sooo theres probably a point system involved or like everyone else would suspect that it was rigged production already knew who they wanted and desipite Freitag overall doing better... they based it all on the final battle which was very unfortunate for Freitag since she clearly should have won for her overall merit
ReplyDeleteThere was never any doubt that a female would win.. I predicted this from episode one. It was clear that the men were just there to keep the PC police happy. FN had to find a replacement for Cat Cora after her drunken car wreck earlier in the year. Most of these shows along with Top Chef are all rigged and controlled by the producers. It is WWF of cooking and we are the patsy's that watch it.
ReplyDeleteHow can you win after being at the bottom or middle of the pack the entire season. What a fix. SHe was clearly not in the top few chefs.
ReplyDeleteThis whole thing was so framed! Alex has been in the bottom two for so many times, I mean I know that doesn't matter.... but Amanda did great each time and also on the very last challenge Amanda was way more creative than Alex. And I agree with people who question Zakarian's place on the panel, judging his sue chef! Why not have Batali as a judge and get Anne as Next Iron Chef??!! I love Alex but Amanda deserved it. And Chef Faulkner was the best, it surprising that she left so early in the competition.... worst season of Next Iron Chef.... ever!
ReplyDeleteI agree. The result was rigged. Biased judging. Fans of ICA deserves better. Falkner was one of the best, as well as Mehta who got robbed by simple ordinary dishes like salad (fusion episode), worst season!!!!
ReplyDeleteI knew when I watched the next to last episode Alex would win since
ReplyDeleteshe is Geoffrey's "right-hand" when he is on Iron Chef.
Of course he is biased to her and he should have never been one of the judges.
Really poor judgement by the Iron Chef organization to allow him to be a judge!
I will never watch Iron Chef again (many of my friends feel the same way).
We now know it is rigged too!
Does no one have any integrity anymore?
Certainly not Geoffrey or the Iron Chef bunch.........
I'll be very honest. I love Alex to pieces, and rooted for her from day 1. But I was VERY surprised to see that in the end she actually won. Once I saw that Faulkner was eliminated, I expected Freitag to win. Even though I love Alex, had she had gone against Falkner in the end, chances are Alex would have lost... oh well, C'est la vie
ReplyDeleteWhile I am a fan of Alex, I do not feel that she was rightfully the winner. Amanda Freitag won more challenges and always had the best tasting dishes (according to what was shown on the tube). I really wanted Nate Appleman to win but Amanda Freitag really should have won. Probably won't watch this in the future and it's discouraging to think that it was "rigged".
ReplyDelete