Culinary Class Wars is topping Netflix's global charts with views surpassing 3 Million! This is no ordinary show; it is perhaps every food competition enthusiast's dream series.
While the highlight is producing impeccable dishes worthy of being served in a fine-dining restaurant, the show also deeply focuses on the difference in skill between The White Spoon Chefs and The Black Spoon Chefs.
The series has several renowned bigwigs from the South Korean culinary realm who are staking their reputations to participate in Culinary Class Wars. From Michelin Star owners to winners of Iron Chef - it’s the creme de la creme under one roof against upcoming prodigies of gastronomy.
Apart from good old kitchen rivalry and minor scruffs and disagreements, viewers are beyond impressed by the judging! A forum on Reddit discusses an array of reasons that set Culinary Class Wars apart from other reality cooking shows!
Disclaimer: This article is solely based on the author's opinion. Reader discretion is advised.
Why Culinary Class Wars has praise-worthy judging methods
1) The judges are blindfolded
Blindfolding judges isn’t exactly a new hype in cooking shows - it’s been going on since the dawn of MasterChef. However, the ordeal is a very rare occasion, something Culinary Class Wars has normalized.
At the show's beginning, the host, Baek or Chef Baek Jong-Won (also a judge), clarifies that he and Chef Ahn Sung-Jae will be completely blindfolded during the tasting.
This leaves no room for judgment of food visually. The judge will augment their senses to the textures and flavor palates of the dish they’re indulging in. The judge would be able to better differentiate tastes of sweet, spicy, salt, umami, sour, and bitter and understand the amalgamation of flavors.
2) The identity of contestants is concealed
Another bombshell in Culinary Class Wars is the concealed identity of The White Spoons and The Black Spoons. This means that even if the judges weren’t blindfolded, they were completely in the dark about the chef who concocted their meal.
This criterion eliminates potential bias, especially because some Black Spoon chefs have worked with either or both judges.
Similarly, for the impressive White Spoons, there’s no room for favoritism either early on in the competition or later. Criticism would entirely depend on whether or not the food judges are eating is nothing short of divine, raw, and unfiltered critique.
3) The results of voting are announced together instead of individually
Voting is a huge criterion in judging a competition to decide who goes forward and who doesn’t. In Culinary Class Wars, the voting scheme is rather unorthodox - instead of being selected and critiqued individually, judges reveal a final review at the end of the cook.
Chefs Jong-Won and Jung-Sae are judges in the series because they can remember dishes, flavors, and cuisine while tasting nearly 100 dishes and delivering unbiased judgments.
4) Dishes are served in an amuse-bouche manner
How you plate food speaks volumes about the kind of chef you are - at least, that’s what multiple cooking shows follow. However, in Culinary Class Wars, instead of serving various dishes, focusing on clean plating and visually stunning presentation - the entire dish needs to be an amuse-bouse or minimalistic.
This means a single bite needs to have everything encapsulating the dish’s textures and flavors. This encourages creativity and fine-tunes them into packing flavors into petite bites - transforming them into flavor bombs. Additionally, this method of judging minimizes food wastage.
5) Contestants are judged solely on the taste of their food
Last on the list is the ethos of any existing cooking show - the rule is no different on Culinary Class Wars: Taste. The blindfold and small bites contribute to enhancing the judge’s ability to taste unique flavors and fairly judge a contestant.
At the beginning of episode 1, Chef Jong-Won stresses this phenomenon most and claims he solely judges a contestant based on taste and nothing more.
This is a huge plus point for both judges and chefs: Judges get a glimpse into a chef’s technique for flavor profiling and skill to enhance its depth, while chefs get an opportunity to learn it.
Culinary Class Wars is now streaming on Netflix!
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