'Alex vs. America': All the States She's Battled So Far

Five seasons and innumerable dishes ago, host Eric Adjepong began inviting the country’s best chefs to converge on Alex Guarnaschelli’s kitchen and try to send her packing. Its massive, state-by-state illuminated map (with her name at the top, of course) has been just as busy as she has, since Eric has summoned challengers from all over America to try to take her down. Read on for a where’s-where of all the road trippers who have repped for their regions at Alex’s house.

Executive chef and five-time James Beard Award nominee Laura Cole didn’t mince words when she came south with her chef's knives: “Salmon is part of our DNA in Alaska, and I’m here to take down Alex.”

“You’re from Alaska, and we’re doing salmon?” Alex groaned. “Come on, man!”

Laura is also a farmer and a rancher, and she made a point of connecting the coast to the land in her cooking by encrusting her salmon fillet with mushrooms and serving it with an earthy, ferrous beetroot barbecue sauce that incorporated salmon jerky, then anchoring the dish with a parsnip puree. “These are ingredients that I’m able to grow in Alaska, and I feel that it connects the land to the sea,” she explained.

Judge Brooke Williamson picked up the story she was telling: “My salmon is beautifully cooked [and] I appreciate the earthiness that the mushroom lends.”

It came through loud and clear for Alex as well. “Living in Alaska [and] being a rancher, she embraced the earthiness of the vegetables in a way that I think she does in her everyday life.” Alas, a regional root veggie proved to be Laura’s undoing: that beetroot barbecue sauce struck the judges as a bit too sweet, and she was eliminated in the survival round.

Many a son or daughter of the Grand Canyon State has faced Alex in her arena, but we’re spotlighting a little-known up-and-comer named — kidding, kidding — Food Network’s own Scott Conant (of Scottsdale, Arizona; no relation). He has judged Chopped more than 200 times and beaten Alex there twice as a fellow contestant. “I’ve known Alex for over 25 years,” he said. “Alex hasn’t beaten me in competition! She’s beaten me in life, maybe, but not competition!”

While Scott calls Arizona home, he’s no regionalist; he served up the refined Italian food that’s his signature (and created Okinawa sweet-potato gnocchi with capon broth) for the elimination round, then leaned on expertise from his Turkish in-laws for a gorgeous money-round preparation of lamb kefta with charred dandelion greens, salsa and yogurt sauce. Chopped mainstays are from everywhere, you see. “With people like this, there are two things that matter,” Alex explained. “One, not losing, and two, winning.”

On that note, we’d like to report a sweep: Alex beat Scott for the first and second time ever, taking both wins in one whirlwind episode. “I’m proud of myself, but I’m also proud of these relationships; Chopped is something I will forever be connected to and grateful for,” she said.

The James Beard Foundation considers Bentonville’s own Rob Nelson an authority on hog cookery, and he greeted as an Arkansas pork pro should: “Go Hogs!” Tasked with preparing a tenderloin with apple chips, he reached for a skillet: “I made cornbread because I used to watch my grandmother and my granddad make it all the time back in the day,” he explained.

“I cannot — how bold is that?!” Alex sputtered. “Cornbread? Is he nuts?! Respect; that looks gorgeous.”

“Mad respect,” Eric agreed.

Ironically, Rob’s pork expertise dried out in the extreme environment of competition cooking; his tenderloin (served with cornbread, spicy green beans and spicy green sauce) had dried out by the time it reached the judges, who deemed it “underwhelming compared to the cornbread.” The latter would prove to be his legacy, and Alex saluted the riskiness of preparing it under duress. “He represented where he comes from,” she said.

Sacramento’s Chris Barnum-Dann, Napa’s Sarah Heller and San Diego’s Carlos Anthony were posing for a portrait here, sure, but let’s be honest: they were smiling and chatting happily at all times. “First observation, all three chefs are very friendly and now [that I know the theme is] California, it all makes sense,” Alex observed. “In New York, we’re under the bed eating a lobster roll, but in California they’re out in the sun. Not my people but I love them; I love the exuberance about food, not overdoing it.” She threaded the needle between East Coast fried delicacies and less-is-more California cookery by preparing a beach-casual basket of Malibu-shack-worthy breaded prawns and oysters, a strategic move that was enough to send Anthony packing (while still smiling). Chris, however, took the round by charming the judges with a private-beach-caliber seafood salad: “What is more California than salad?” He was breezy about the victory: “To beat Alex in even one round is super fun.”

Alex put her head down and took things to the next level for the money round: “The more chatty they get, the more I want to win this round,” she New Yorkered. Charged with making a grilled food-truck dish featuring oranges, she won the day with Korean fusion tacos and blood orange sorbet served in the oranges themselves, because subtlety was for beach kids. “California is closed because of that dish,” judge Troy Johnson (San Diego) declared.

As chef de cuisine at Vail’s legendary Sweet Basil and an alumna of three Michelin-starred restaurants, Taylor Frankel brought a science degree and her hometown’s New American pedigree to a modernist battle with Alex. Competition-based confidence was new to her, but she was a quick study: Challenged with making a cloche-topped dish that tasted but didn’t look like fish and chips, she served up seared halibut with a “banging” tartar sauce, crispy malt vinegar fingerling potatoes and Meyer lemon foam (and judge Marcel Vigneron confirmed that her sauce was indeed banging). After triumphing in the first round, she set the parameters of a cold, fruity appetizer battle — and won again. Taylor returned in Season 5 as one of Alex’s worst nightmares — that is, someone who beat her — and won the survival round a second time. So much for Coloradans' outdoorsy-and-mellow reputation.

Connecticut chef Adam Greenberg is both a competition aficionado — he’d logged multiple Food Network wins and was a Chopped Grand Champion by the time he arrived at Alex’s house — and a “king of crustaceans,” as his family owned four lobster traps and he once worked in a restaurant where he began each day shelling 50 lobsters. Both of those influences were in evidence in the kitchen: “You’ve got to beat the best to be the best, that’s sort of my motto,” he said. “I know I’m going to beat Alex today because I just have experience, lobster is my wheelhouse and she’s standing in my way right now!”

He made a point of using every part of the lobster in his grilled lobster fideos with lobster roe butter, but he flew a bit too close to the sun and overcooked his tail; Alex took first place to his second in the elimination round, then tried to get in his head by ceding control of the money-round parameters. “[Adam] keeps saying, ‘Today is going to be the day, Alex!’” she noted. “I don’t think so, Adam; I don’t think so.” In a head-to-head, second-round surf-and-turf meetup, Adam’s regional expertise won him some favor (as he knew he needed to make his roll absolutely soggy with butter), but Alex’s masterful use of the 25-minute time frame carried her to victory.

Appropriately enough, Alex’s first-ever sweet challenge featured the human ray of sunshine that is Miami’s Karina Rivera, who first began taking baking classes in Mexico. (Alex: “You came from where chocolate was born? I am dead in the water tonight!”) She was, as it happens, since Karina created romantic, milk-chocolate macarons with salted-caramel ganache that you simply couldn’t help loving. “Karina’s macaron was one of the most delicious I’ve ever had in my life, and she was exciting to watch,” Alex admitted.

Karina then created a golden-chocolate molten carrot cake that judge and chocolatier Jonathan Grahm called the best cake he’d had in his life(!) — and won the whole darn show. “I’m never happy to lose,” Alex said. “This? I’m happy.” That was foreshadowing, mind you, as Karina returned in the Season 5 finale for a pastry battle and beat Alex in the first round all over again. But who could resist the charm with which she triumphs?

“Alex cooks with such precision,” Atlanta chef and restaurant owner Demetrius Brown said, “and I’m going to beat her with pure creativity.” His confidence with the competition’s star ingredient was clear from the start, as he performed a 40-minute high-wire act of creating sweet potato gnocchi seared with beef tallow and a tri-tip confit, two time-sensitive preparations that could have gone terribly wrong (like Alex’s first steak, which she had to discard and recook with only six minutes remaining). Judge Michael Voltaggio loved the naturally salty sea beans Demetrius served and pronounced his gnocchi the best use of sweet potato: “I thought it was going to be a gummy mess, but it’s super light and pillowy!” The tri-tip, unfortunately, wasn’t as successful; the judges were looking for a char, and that ambitious confit left the meat a bit oily.

"Aloha" meant hello and goodbye when Alex faced a third-season island incursion from Honolulu chef and restaurateur Jon Matsubara; O’ahu restaurant owner, Iron Chef and 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing Season 3 winner and her longtime friend Lee Anne Wong; and Waimea chef and restaurant owner Ippy Aiona. Hoping to tread water while her opponents surfed through a first round of preparing kanpachi and breadfruit for a five-star entree, she prepared seared fish topped with scallions, chives and breadfruit chips served over breadfruit puree with seasoned carrots. Surviving by the skin of her teeth when Ippy displeased the judges by leaving the skin on his fish, she dove into the money round with a plan to turn Hawaiian steak (that is, canned ham) into a breakfast-worthy topping for a pork schnitzel crusted with taro chips. It was innovative for sure, but Jon’s front-and-center celebration of the ham for its own sake was tough to beat. “We’re the canned-ham capital of the world,” he noted. “I used to eat it all the time, and you know, I really like Hawaiian steak as-is.” Served with spectacular hash and elevated eggs, it was a real-deal Hawaiian breakfast.

Alex respected that authenticity. “You celebrated your culture, and you won. I thought this was inspiring,” she said.

After triumphing over two fellow James Beard Award winners and Alex in Season 3, Chicago’s own Jonathon Sawyer returned to try and repeat his feat with other would-be two-timers in Season 5. “Nobody — and I mean nobody — beats Alex twice in her house,” he said. “But I’ve won before, and I can win again!” Confronted with the proteins they’d cooked in their previous appearances, the challengers chose the wagyu beef from Jonathon’s episode and created upscale appetizers. Jonathon was reflective as he considered that first appearance: “That victory really meant a lot to me and showed that this best version of myself is the one that I want to show to everybody,” he said. Though his dish was one of the judges’ bottom two, all of the competitors survived to compete in the money round (for the first time ever).

That ranking lit a fire under Jonathon, and he concocted ballpark-worthy, tofu-based chili cheese fries that represented Chicago honorably — but his “Lincoln log” potato situation outshone the tofu that needed to headline the dish, and he fell short of a second victory. No matter; in this case (and in this company), he truly was just happy to be there.

First Mile Kitchen executive chef and owner Nick Korbee had a layer of New York City edge under his Midwestern cred: Before moving to Wichita, he opened NYC’s beloved Egg Shop (and wrote the cookbook on it, thank you very much). That said, “I’ve never won anything in my life!” he laughed. “I’ve done a lot of restaurants, I’ve written a lot; it would be amazing to say I beat an Iron Chef.” He prepared a beautifully composed chawanmushi, or savory steamed egg custard, with spicy bacon, yuzu kosho and lobster salad — and left his kitchen alarmingly tidy as he did so. “I’ve never seen a station with less food on it in my life,” Alex marveled. “One lemon, a scallion — this guy’s good for food costs!” Judged against another chef’s chawanmushi in an impromptu battle of the composed Japanese breakfasts, Nick got points for innovation: “OK, there is a really creative chef back in the kitchen making brunch today,” judge Michael Voltaggio noted. That said, his dish was deemed too yuzu-forward when the eggs and bacon needed to feel prominent — and he returned to Wichita winless.

Joining a murderers’ row of pastry chefs looking to take Alex down in Season 3, JJ Bakes & Co. owner (and Best Baker in America Season 4 champion) Jackie Joseph was ready to rumble: “I have never cooked against an Iron Chef [and] never thought I would, but coming off of a show like Best Baker in America I feel like I have a shot to one-up her!” She knew she had the chops to take the win. “Pastry [is] a science; it’s not something that you can just a little of this, a little of that; it is like an equation! It’s very, very different than your normal cooking.” Jackie sailed through the survival round with a lighter-than-air dark-chocolate cremeux and blood-orange galette that looked like modern sculpture, then focused on bringing the win home by bringing home to the competition. Tasked with highlighting berries and corn, “I’m going to Kentucky,” she said. “I’m going to make almond and cornmeal cake with blackberry-bourbon Chantilly cream; bourbon gives sweetness and acidity.” The judges noted that her technique was flawless, but they yearned for more blackberry in her dish; she’d have to try her luck again to bring a win back to Louisville.

As executive chef of Henderson, Louisiana’s Crawfish Town, USA, Johnnie Gale heads up a team that serves more than 15,000 pounds of crawfish each week. “I’m born and raised in South Louisiana,” Johnnie said. “Alex is from New York City; what could she possibly know about shellfish that I don’t?”

“I think these competitors in particular have a serious advantage with shellfish,” Alex conceded. Her expertise, on the other hand, was in competition. Tasked with serving up prawns and canned oysters in a bowl, she knew just how to celebrate the former and make the latter presentable.

“Oh, I got it going on over here!” Johnnie sang. “New York does not scare me! Alex does not scare me! She might be from a big city, but I’ve got a bigger soul, ’cause I am from Louisiana.” She created a gorgeous prawn-head etouffee with a smoked andouille and oyster crumble and did her state proud: “The depth of flavor definitely speaks to 45 minutes [of cooking time],” judge Tiffani Faison noted. “The cook on the shrimp is really delicious, lot of great flavor in here — but is a skillet a bowl?”

Tiffani and fellow judge Tetsu Yahagi decided that it was not, and that ruling plus a few execution errors sent Johnnie home in the first round. Alex, in turn, went on to beat chefs from Maine and Hawaii in the money round — for that competition expertise can be a killer.

Jordan Rubin is the co-owner of three Maine restaurants that feature seafood, and at Portland’s Mr. Tuna, he and his team plow through more than 150 pounds of lobster every week each summer. “Maine’s the lobster capital of the world! I used to trap lobsters with my boat; I’m so familiar with working with lobster I can break down a lobster with my eyes closed,” he said. No pressure, Alex! “Jordan is, like, the poster boy for lobster,” she conceded.

Jordan made use of every last bit of his lobsters in the money round by marinating and grilling their tails, creating an oil with their bodies and blanching their claws for a grilled lobster corn succotash with lobster chip-poblano puree. He was on his game, but he confessed that “it’s a little nerve-wracking seeing how calm [Alex] is.”

Judge Antonia Lofaso recognized Jordan’s first-round fluency: “This today is definitely the nicest grilled lobster.” The money round wasn’t nearly so successful for him, for in creating a fried and breaded cutlet for lobster katsu, he both overcooked and underseasoned his dish. Back north he went after a third-place finish.

Eric invited a whole podium’s worth of Tournament of Champions victors to flesh out Alex’s fifth-season premiere nightmares, including Season 3 champ and Boston heavyweight Tiffani Faison (who’s also a four-time James Beard Award nominee for Best Chef: Northeast, a Top Chef finalist and a Chopped judge; hell, she’s even been an Alex vs. America judge. That said, “It’s been a minute since I’ve competed, and so I feel nervous,” she said. Charged with preparing a nutty cod and cabbage dish, she made the ultra-comforting Szechuan poached dish she orders when she’s back home in Boston after traveling — and she notched a survival-round win with it.

For the money round, Tiffani set the competition table with monkfish, kohlrabi, a box grater and smokiness. She created a stunning presentation of smoked shoyu monkfish with lapsang kohlrabi puree, charred kohlrabi pistou and tobacco onions, offered up to the judges like the world’s tastiest terrarium. That earned her first place (and $10,000) as a champion among champions, and her sweep was complete. “It’s so thrilling for sure, but I also feel just this incredible, this immense relief to beat the other two champs,” Tiffani said. The Boston girl was queen of the sharks.

Cool-as-a-cucumber Kyle Schutte — who mentored under Richard Blais and was the first chef to win $25,000 on Cutthroat Kitchen — came from Detroit to demonstrate his skill with preparing fruit. Charged with creating a savory dish featuring stone fruit and fruitcake, he grilled and pickled peaches, then blended up braising liquid from a pressure cooker full of pork to transform the cake and serve it up with coffee-and-coriander-braised slab bacon. That dish took top honors in the first round, and he went for broke in the money round by creating dried-pineapple udon to serve as a lunch dish with époisses, a cheese he had quite literally never tasted before. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to show what I have against an Iron Chef,” he said. Alex was able to beat him with a classic one-two punch of tomato soup and grilled cheese, but Kyle’s boldness and facility with fruit repped Motor City and all of Michigan with flair.

After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu and training in Florence, Gustavo Romero began racking up accolades in Minneapolis with Nixta, a culinary teleporter that takes Minnesotans directly to Mexico. He took Alex to school with his first-round offering of an egg and chorizo guajolota, a central Mexican street-food classic he prepared as an enchilada inside of a bolillo roll wrapped up like a sandwich. “I cannot believe [we’re] saying ‘guajolota’ on American television,” judge Daniela Soto-Innes said with delight. He took top honors in the survival round, then set the stage for the money round by selecting street food prepared with land-based protein and huitlacoche. Alex leaned on a core memory of the quesadilla her mother’s caretaker, Lucia Vasquez, had prepared to comfort them both, and that authenticity carried her to victory over Gustavo’s huarache. “One of the great things about being a competitor is tearing pages from all the playbooks in your life,” she said.

Like Alex, Biloxi restaurateur Austin Sumrall is a classically trained chef — “but this is a competition on Southern food,” he noted, and focused on both giving his ingredients their due and repping his region. To Eric’s delight, he served up a stone-cold classic meat-and-three — that is, one meat entree served with three side dishes. His chicken-fried chicken with grits, braised collards, fried okra and cornbread spoke to family tradition. “My mom all the way through my great-grandmother used to make fried okra, so I’m dicing rounds of it because that’s exactly how my mom would have made it,” he said. His somewhat-controversial choice to plate rather than paper his picnic-style dish landed him in third place for the survival round, but Austin didn’t mind; he was going to cook his food.

For his money-round dish, he prepared grits and grillades (above), a braised pork dish full of the mushrooms he remembered foraging as a kid. “I grew up on a farm; coming in from hunting, there’d be a big pot of grits and grillades on the stove,” he said. That plate redeemed him, and he landed in first place in the money round. “It’s a privilege and an honor to beat Alex,” he said. “I think my win here today put Mississippi on the culinary map; you can’t beat that!”

Listen, the Alex vs. TOC episode was harrowing for a lot of reasons. Both Mei Lin and Tiffani Faison (who swept the match) were fierce competitors, but the reigning TOC champ — Nevada’s own Antonia Lofaso, a food-competition juggernaut, frequent Alex vs. America judge and Alex’s dear friend — had quite literally agreed never to compete against each other. (“But we are,” Alex noted wryly.)

Antonia felt that heat: “Today is actually going to be the hardest version of a culinary competition that we’ve ever had. Like, there’s no room to breathe today,” she said. She squeaked through the survival round with seared cod in coconut broth with shaved cabbage; the judges wanted a bit of acid to balance out her dish’s fattiness, but she’d have another chance to come out on top. And she did, sort of: Her second-round dish of monkfish with kohlrabi puree and kohlrabi fritter impressed her friend. “This is so you,” Alex said. “It’s so pretty, it’s so inviting. It’s nice to have competitors like this on the show!”

Alex would eat her words, as Antonia took second place behind Tiffani, knocking her friend into third place at the end of the competition. “We’re in rare space right now; this rarely happens on AVA,” Eric noted.

Acclaimed executive chef Britnie Lia helms The Sassy Biscuit Co., a bruncherie in Dover, New Hampshire, and combines a Southern upbringing with sea-coast confidence. “I’m here to show Alex this is how brunch is going down,” she announced. Fast-talking and quick on her feet in a sweet-and-savory money-round bout that tasked her with using coffee and a waffle iron, she spent her 35 minutes whipping up a biscuit-pressed waffle and fried chicken with coffee-candied bacon and egg. An aggressive blackberry jam kept the win from her grasp, but she kept on swinging in the money round and produced potato-fried shrimp and grits along with a potato biscuit with red-eye gravy. Though she landed in third place again, “You really are a sassy biscuit,” Alex told her.

A third-generation Italian with her own pasta company who had beaten Bobby Flay, Britt Rescigno rolled in from Tuckerton’s Delaware Avenue Oyster House like a Jersey Shore tidal wave. She squared off against Alex in Season 2’s premiere episode, where competitors entered the survival round preparing a Sunday supper with pasta and canned beef. “I know Alex is making homemade pasta, but don’t tell her this: I make it every day,” Britt joked. She loved the Bolognese she created with the canned beef after adding subtlety with guanciale and ground veal: “This tastes like Italy; I’m definitely going there when I beat Alex!” The judges went back and forth, finally ranking Alex’s fettuccine and ragu above Britt’s dish, but the chefs were neck and neck as they moved to the money round.

Britt’s second, also-sexy dish: striped bass with broken olive vinaigrette and a fennel salad. “Tastes like the Italian coast made from a New Jerseyan,” she said. Once again, her dish was neck and neck with Alex’s offering — but the judges were not enamored with the Amaro caramel she reduced and swiped around the edge of her plate, and Alex triumphed. “You’ve been nipping at my heels all day!” she told Britt. Indeed, all in all, Britt considers her Alex vs. America appearance a win.

Alex owes her knowledge of Southwestern food to Bobby Flay; Jenni Ford (executive chef of The Love Apple in Taos, New Mexico) owes hers to being a second-generation chef who’s cooked the cuisine for 27 years (and become a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: Southwest along the way). “These chefs have a niche understanding of a regional cuisine and the authenticity of their expertise is something I can’t keep up with; if I have a chance to win, it’s only by simply outcooking them,” Alex noted.

Faced with preparing a sunset meal with fresh chiles and frozen-and-spiralized butternut squash, Alex created a relleno-with-a-twist as a Bobby homage, and Jenni stuffed Hatch green chiles — peppers that are synonymous with New Mexican cuisine — with onions, peppers and pork sausage (above). “I love Southwest food because it always brings love and people together,” she said. “It’s more for, like, community [and] family.”

The judges wished she’d peeled the peppers after roasting them, and she had to battle her way up from third place in the survival round; when she presented a grilled chicken enchilada with spicy avocado crema, her competition was enchanted. “I hope she wins, and I never say that,” Alex confessed. Alex and Jenni took second and third place in the money round, but Alex couldn’t help complimenting Jenni’s work again: “I loved your dish,” she said. There’s that Southwest cuisine bringing people together — even in Alex’s chef-eat-chef kitchen.

“Normally I just want to win because I’m competitive, but in this case the stakes are very different — because it’s my home state and it’s where I grew up and this is my house,” Alex said. “I literally grew up in Midtown Manhattan, so I love [this theme]! I mean, sort of!" She faced off against three fellow New Yorkers whose food she knew very well: Rande Rogers, the second-generation chef and owner of Sisters, a storied Caribbean restaurant in Harlem; Melanie Shurka, a Chopped champion and chef/owner of Kubeh, a Middle Eastern and Jewish hot spot in the West Village; and Fernando Scarpati, a third-generation Italian chef and owner of Ferdi, also in the West Village. They first prepared a stadium-friendly dish with jumbo shrimp and a cinnamon-shelled candy apple, and Alex won the judges’ approval with a shrimp roll with salt and vinegar chips and apple slaw (then wet their whistles with a bourbon and candy-apple-juice slushy; when in doubt, give New Yorkers cold booze at the ballpark). Rande’s Guyanese chow mein with Trinidadian glazed shrimp repped the city’s magnificent fusion scene, but it was a plated dish, not a stadium dish, and he went home.

For Round 2, Alex created a chicken-cutlet sandwich with mozzarella and pesto, turning stewed onions into a condiment with mozzarella-whey giardiniera and offering a picnic-friendly dessert of Cara-Cara-orange-and-Campari sorbet served in a fruit shell. “That’s how New Yorkers are; they aim to always have an ‘aha!’ moment,” she explained. She won again, to her delight and relief. “This one I’m really excited about! This one had to be mine.”

“I’m from little old Charlotte, North Carolina, but you know what? We have some pretty awesome food down there,” said chef and restaurateur Chris Coleman (a man who beat Bobby Flay using cottage cheese, of all things). Charged with serving up a bowl of funky cheese and cheese puffs, he whipped up cheesy rice porridge; “really, this is going to be North Carolina in a bowl,” he said. “I’m using Carolina Gold rice today, which represents the rice culture of the Carolinas.”

The judges saluted his dish for its “pure funk,” but they felt that the cheese got lost when consumed with bacon-braised greens and baby vegetables; he avoided elimination but would have to focus for the money round. “I made it through cooking my food, so I’m just going to keep making my food,” he said, and served up his grandmother’s biscuit recipe with a cooking-competition twist (above). Behold caramelized white-chocolate biscuits with robiola ice cream and raspberry-apricot-fruit-leather puree. “It’s an honor to do my grandmother’s biscuits on national TV,” Chris added.

Judge Michael Voltaggio thought Chris’ ice cream was incredible — the best cheese ice cream he’d ever had, in fact. That earned him the competition’s first-ever tie (with Alex); little old Charlotte, North Carolina, wasn’t messing around.

The fourth season kicked off with Alex vs. America’s “most powerful room of chefs we’ve had to date,” as Alex herself put it; she faced off against three dear colleagues, including Ohio’s own culinary gladiator, Michael Symon (who won 34 battles on Iron Chef and has opened 16 restaurants). “Alex should watch out today, because I still like to win,” he said. The chefs chose to spend 45 minutes preparing a lamb and bread appetizer, and Michael’s gameplay kicked in immediately: he prepared both the lamb and the bread two ways, offering up seared lamb loin with skordalia, a lamb-fat crouton and dukkah vinaigrette.

Judge Geoffrey Zakarian — an Iron Chef himself — was impressed. “As an appetizer, you want an acid; it’s there. You want something smooth; it’s there. It’s almost like this person…”

“…is an Iron Chef,” Eric laughed.

Michael won the survival round and chose the challenge of preparing three courses with artichokes in 50 minutes; he prepared artichoke and yellowtail crudo, artichoke ravioli and wagyu with artichoke — and he wasn’t shy about showing his work. “Everyone’s crazy, I feel like everyone’s in the weeds, it’s not just me!” he yelped. “The tears are real! I’m tired, I cooked my [bleep] off and I want to win! Anybody else pee their pants a little bit?!”

All of that artichoke, sweat and pee paid off, as Michael pulled off a first-place finish. “To win today against three chefs that I have a tremendous amount of respect for and to be able to make a $10K donation to my charity and maybe help some people in need — I feel pretty good,” he said. “I can’t wait to have Alex over for some yellowtail crudo!”

Oklahoma City powerhouse Kevin Lee first brought his Korean-steakhouse-style thunder to Alex’s house way back in the first season, when an unexpected win in a beef battle transformed him into a competitive cook. “Winning Alex vs. America Season 1, it was really like a dream come true,” he recalled. “And after winning, I opened my own restaurant for the first time, and it really gave me the confidence to do what I do today!”

He returned to the arena as one of Alex’s Season 5 kitchen nightmares, and was one of three winners back to take her down for a second time. “The chefs that have beaten me before [theme] really pisses me off,” she later laughed. “As far as I'm concerned, they beat me and then they vanish into nowhere and I never see them again! […] But to have those people come back and remind me of my own losses, that's a tough one for me, that's ruthless.”

Spoiler alert: In a field so fierce that all of the chefs made it through the elimination round for the first time ever, Kevin notched top-two berths both times (with a wagyu beef tartare with blue cheese foam and a potato nest, then a Korean fried-tofu sandwich) and won the whole dang competition, becoming the show’s first two-time champion. “I never thought in my life that I would take down chef Alex in her own show,” he marveled. “Now here I am, [a] two-time Alex vs. America champion; nobody can take that from me!”

Oregon phenom Cyrus Ichiza helms vegan concepts that have numbered among Portland’s 38 Essential Restaurants three years in a row and is all about embracing difficulty. “My vegan food has blown people away; what does Alex know about no meat? Oregon is all about trying the newest obscure thing,” he said. “Vegan food has always fallen into that.”

Tasked with building a smothered dish around jackfruit, he opted to prepare a jackfruit and banana spring roll in ginataan, a warm Filipino coconut soup with sweet potatoes, jackfruit, taro and plantains. “I love that [this] did not go savory; jackfruit when it’s ripe, I call it nature’s Juicyfruit,” said judge Fariyal Abdullahi. “I really love that this chef used fresh jackfruit,” agreed fellow judge Jet Tila. That said, the taro chips he’d needed to incorporate felt like an afterthought, and Cyrus didn’t survive the round. “Respect for the risks you took,” Alex told him.

Iron Chef Jose Garces opened his first restaurant in Philadelphia in 2005, and the rest, as they say, is history; he’s opened 14 more restaurants all over the country, won a James Beard Award in 2009 and has 15 Iron Chef America wins. “Chefs are like schools of fish,” Alex observed. “It’s kind of fun when you swim with your own school — we all get along really well — but I think we all secretly want to destroy each other.” Jose loaded up his pressure cooker to prepare beer-braised lamb stew with guajillo chiles and a merguez croquette. “I’m loving taking on chef Guarnaschelli; I’ve never actually battled her, so I’m pretty excited about that,” he said. His croquette was a fantastic opening move for their first meeting: “I think Jose’s soup looks stunning and he made croquettes, which I love,” she said. Judge Simon Majumdar (who’s weighed in on 50 Iron Chef battles) confirmed its quality: “That, for me, is one of the best I’ve ever had.”

In the three-course second round, Jose demonstrated his versatility by offering up artichoke ceviche, crispy artichokes and wagyu with artichoke puree. Simon thought the Hamachi in his ceviche leveled the competition up, and both judges agreed that in any other competition he would have won; instead, he came in third behind his old friends (who all secretly want to destroy each other).

Shaun Brian — the chef and co-owner of Charleston’s forward-thinking CudaCo. Seafood House restaurant-market — entered Alex’s arena intent on blinding her with science. He approached his dish, which needed to taste but not look like fish and chips and incorporate soy lecithin and a cloche with an experimental spirit, and he created quick-cured halibut with a citrus and passionfruit emulsion, potato whip, a sous-vide egg and pecan smoke that rolled out of his cloche like theatrical fog. “This is a very futuristic dish,” said judge and molecular-gastronomy enthusiast Marcel Vigneron, “[but it] does not remind me of fish and chips; wasn’t what the challenge was?” The judges appreciated his creativity, but it just wasn’t within the task’s parameters; “you don’t see a lot of passionfruit at the pub,” they noted.

While the cooking Alex tackled in her fifth-season Thai battle was worlds away from her wheelhouse, the company couldn’t have been more familiar. She faced Arnold Myint, who’d taken his very first culinary course from her (and whose updated incarnation of International Market, his parents’ storied restaurant, received the official Thai cuisine seal of approval from The Ministry of Commerce and Royal Thai Government). “Arnold was my student [and] I know his skill level, so this is making sense,” she said.

Arnold led off with yum mama, an herbaceous, seafood-studded pasta salad made with ramen noodles, and it went straight to the judges’ hearts: “This is probably my favorite dish every time I go back home,” said judge Penny Chutima. He won — and his former teacher was eliminated in the survival round for the first time ever, a result that both thrilled and shocked the competitors. “I’m elated, very emotional; I cooked the food of my family and my people, and I wanted to do Thailand proud,” Arnold said.

“You know, I was once Arnold’s teacher and maybe it’s time for Arnold to teach me a thing or two,” Alex conceded. “Pissed? Yes. Gracious? Yes.”

For his second dish, Arnold used fishy, fermented pla ra sauce to prepare beef with papaya salad and sticky rice. “This is Arnold gameplay at its finest,” noted fellow competitor Jet Tila (since Arnold’s from northeastern Thailand, as is the sauce he picked for the second round). Alex, in turn, began to enjoy herself; losing was dreadful, but not having anything to worry about in the money round was pretty great. “This is fun, not panicking! Just hands in your pockets!”

Arnold secured the second-round win as well, and both he and his former teacher couldn’t have been more pleased. “I’m so proud of my Thai culture and heritage, and I’m just happy that I got to share that,” he said.

Courtney Lindsay heads up multiple smash-hit, Southern-comfort vegan joints in Houston, of all places. “People don’t always think vegan when they think Texas; they always think big meats,” Courtney said. “I do big, bold flavors; my life is a no-meat challenge!” He knew he could transform the survival round’s star ingredients — jackfruit and taro chips — by patiently building layers of flavor with everything from veggies and herbs to coconut aminos and soy sauce, and he served up “mox-tail” stew with herbed new potatoes and bull’s-blood microgreens. “Ooh, did this person cheat?” said judge Fariyal Abdullahi. “This is the first dish that gave me the umami that I want in a meat dish, that sometimes plant-based dishes don’t do,” said fellow judge Jet Tila. The meatless maestro from Texas was the undisputed winner. “I just beat Alex Guarnaschelli after watching her for so many years, and for me to come and beat her in the first round — I feel great!” he said.

In a second round of steakhouse-worthy mushrooms prepared with a meat mallet, Courtney prepared a trompe l’oeil filet of lion’s mane mushroom with charred broccolini and lump “crab” with a potato puree (above) that nearly walked away with the overall win — but Alex dug in and roared back with roasted and grilled stuffed portobellos and onion rings (with “a bucket of dairy,” as she put it). She won with flavor rather than cleverness, but she’d take it.

Named National Pastry Chef of the Year by the American Culinary Federation and Utah Pastry Chef of the Year three years in a row, Adalberto Diaz (of Salt Lake City’s Fillings and Emulsions) led off with a judge-aweing coconut macaron sandwich with pineapple sorbet. “Somebody was swinging for the fences,” said Duff Goldman. “Chef Al” triumphed in that round, then chose to make a Thanksgiving-worthy dessert on a cone with jalapeño, as one does. He created and scooped spiced pumpkin ice cream into a vanilla waffle cone, then served it with cranberry-jalapeño sauce; “my ice cream is beautiful,” he said with confidence. Alex, by contrast, was forced to abandon her cone batter and her tuile failed — but the judges deemed her granita the best use of jalapeño, and she carried the day.

“I would have liked to give you money,” she told chef Al, “and I don’t say that lightly!”

Deploying spice to devastating effect in both her Richmond-based, cult-favorite Keya’s Snacks and in pastry competitions (as the Season 7 Spring Baking Championship winner), bold-as-you-please Keya Wingfield was ready to make waves at Alex’s place. “The strategy is to stick to what I know! I know flavor, I’m a flavor girl, I call myself the Flavor Queen,” she explained.

Given 60 minutes to create a sweet, high-end tahini dish, she launched into a white chocolate fudge cake with tahini swirled directly into her cake batter and tamarind caramel. “I’ve been baking for 15 years,” she said, “so I’m qualified to beat Alex; there’s no doubt about that.” She also made a chikki, a brittle Indian cookie; “this is another way that I include my culture and my heritage, and what I grew up eating.” The other three chefs built their desserts around tart shells, and while Alex saluted her for the iconoclasm — “I love that we all made tarts and Keya said ‘no’” — the judges didn’t find her presentation as high-end, and she went home. “I’m hoping one of [the other challengers] takes the prize!” she said.

Seattle chef and Chopped champ Jhonny Reyes slings Afro-Latin soul food that packs a punch, and he tells it like it is: “I cook some of the most flavorful food in the Pacific Northwest,” he said. Charged with creating a medium-spicy, crispy white rice dish in 40 minutes, he dished up arroz con gandules, or rice and pigeon peas, with pickled habaneros and micro cilantro. As he tasted his dish, Eric caught him in a “confirmed shake and shimmy”; “I was excited!” Jhonny replied. Hoping to rise from a third-place finish in the first round, he prepared rice congri, or Cuban black beans and rice, that he rolled with rice paper into a kimbap atop a verdant Puerto Rican recaito salsa. “My strategy is to stay true to my flavors,” he said, and after a wild cook in which Alex didn’t finish for the first time ever, Johnny ceded the win to Sugar Sungkamee.

Eric threw two Washington, DC, chefs at Alex for a fifth-season, seven-chef battle royale: she faced Kevin Tien, a five-time James Beard Award nominee and executive chef and owner of Moon Rabbit, and his Michelin-trained sous chef, Paola Serrano. He grew up in a Vietnamese-Cuban household, and she hails from Venezuela; their combined influences repped the nation’s capital well. “Of all the themes [this season], this is by far the most challenging,” Alex said.

Kevin and Paola used dried shrimp, beef jerky and just 30 minutes to create a Vietnamese fish curry with shrimp salt, Hamachi and jerky papaya salad, a formulation that earned them second place behind another pair; they could do better than that, and they knew it.

For the money round, they prepared seasoned grilled pork with bulgogi and miso-apple coleslaw puree; “I’m used to Kevin’s crazy ideas,” Paola said. “They might be a little unusual, but I feel like it’s going to work out.” They did indeed, and the team won it all — which meant Paola would get to visit her family in Venezuela for the first time in eight years. “It really took everything that we both had to beat chef Alex,” Kevin said.

“If I see groups of three coming down the stairs, I’m leaving!” Alex replied.