“I’m watching Culinary Class Wars on Netflix and YELLING AT MY LAPTOP”.
“Sorry for all the texts. My brain is exploding.”
“Has the chicken man appeared yet?”
“Literally everything in this show is brutal!”
“Culinary warfare!!!”
These are just some of the texts our my Broadsheet colleague Jo Walker and I have sent each other since starting Culinary Class Wars, which debuted on Netflix at the end of September.
The new Korean show is a cutthroat reality competition between 100 chefs, who are divided into two teams: 20 White Spoons and 80 Black Spoons. The White Spoons are famous, established chefs. The Black Spoons are underdogs trying to win ₩300 million (AU$328,000) and get their names out there – literally. The White Spoons – an impressive group that includes Youtuber Seonkyoung Longest, James Beard Award-winner Edward Lee and Chef and My Fridge star Choi Hyun-seok – are all referred to by their names, while the Black Spoons are only referred to by nicknames.
Some of my favourite Black Spoons (some more for their nicknames than their kitchen skills) include Auntie Omakase #1, Genius Restaurateur, Comic Book Chef, God of Seasoning, Self-Made Chef, B-Grade Chef, Kordon Ramsay, Smile Chef and King Bibim. Mr Bibim acts more like a member of the band Sparks than a culinary professional.
They’re judged by a good cop in celebrity chef and chain restaurant mogul Paik Jong-won (aka Baek Jong-won) and a bad cop in Anh Sung-jae, the chef and owner of Mosu, the only three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Korea.
The show is best described as a turbocharged Iron Chef meets Physical 100 and Squid Game. And it made me realise just how stuffy the old rinse-and-repeat reality food competition shows have become. Anh and Paik can be brutally honest, but the contestants respect them so much that their put-downs are usually respectfully received.
As Broadsheet’s Melbourne food and drink editor I was, of course, thrilled to discover that one Black Spoon was nicknamed “Melbourne’s Best” - and that the title was bestowed upon Alt Pasta Bar chef and owner Mino Han, who I immediately contacted.
Be warned: there are mild spoilers ahead.
Han says he was approached by the producers to be on the show because they were familiar with his Seoul brunch cafe Ummd. He tells Broadsheet he knew there would be 100 competitors, but had no idea there would be 20 famous chefs competing as White Spoons.
“It was shocking, but at the same time, I was like, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be fun’,” he says. While the reveal we see on screens is dramatic, Han says “they didn’t exaggerate it at all, it was exactly like that.”
For the first knockout round, which sadly saw Melbourne’s Best eliminated, Han made two signature dishes. The first was handmade mafaldine with Moreton Bay bugs, nduja tomato sauce and a basil pesto from the Alt menu; the second was a dessert made of French toast from his restaurant in Seoul.
Han says he thinks making the French toast was his fatal mistake. Contestants were given 100 minutes and first-round dishes were judged depending on who finished cooking first. “I should have done, something a bit simpler in a shorter amount of time, so I’d get judged faster”, he says.
“It was sitting for almost 40 to 50 minutes, so by the time [Anh] came to my section to judge, it was like one big piece of flour and water just mushed together.”
He only has one real regret about his time on the show, though. “I should have been a little bit more active on the show so [the cameras would] catch me more, and my parents would get to see me more.”
Netflix is releasing new episodes weekly rather than dropping them all at once. So while Han reassures me the winner is “really good”, us average Melburnians and the rest of the world have to wait to find out who takes home the glory.