With the rising popularity of Kpop and K Drama in recent years, it would only be a matter of time that there would be a program about another very popular topic - food. The problem is that Korean cuisine isn't as popular as many other Asian cuisines, any successful Korean cooking program would have to offer more than just cooking. The Culinary Class War from Netflix seems to have achieved this.
Source : Netflix
If you've watched the Squid Game, you'll know what a 100 people big production looks like. Imagine now it's not 100 people playing games, but 100 chefs cooking!! The Culinary Class War is a battle between 100 of Korea's best chefs. 20 of them are the White Spoons, established famous celebrity chefs. They face 80 Black Spoons, professional chefs from all walks of life in Korea. The Black refers to the underdogs who have nothing to lose when pitched against the White Spoons.
The whole setup is very Squid Game like, especially in the first round where the 80 Black Chefs have to cook for one of the 20 places to get through to the next round. It was quite some scene to see 40 workstations set up, each complete with ample prep and cooking area.
The production scale, all in the studio, continues throughout the show right up till the very final round. We saw 20 massive double door fridges in the studio, a fully stocked convenience store, 3 pop up restaurants, a fish stall complete with many fish tanks and fresh seafood, and a meat stall with so many different cuts of meat that you can feed hundreds of people. And in the penultimate round, a gigantic crate of tofu was lowered from the ceiling into the studio.
This trailer will give you a bit of idea on the setup.
The Judges
The judges on the show are Paik Jong-won a well known Korean chef and restauranteur and TV personality, and Anh Sung-jae, chef at Korea's only 3 star Michelin restaurant. Paik and Anh are quite different judges and I think this has to do with their very different backgrounds. Paik is more traditional Korean, and prefers homely tasty food, but is also very receptive to surprises. Personally I think he seems easier to please and is less picky. Anh was born in Korea but grew up in America, and served in the US Army for two years before starting his culinary career. He focuses on the background of the meal, often asking contestants what's the process behind the creation of the dish, and the best way to eat it. He's more stringent of the two when scoring. Their background means often often they score differently, and this shows how subjective things can be.
Source : Netflix
There were a couple of rounds that involved other people, on a large scale as well. Like 100 tasters, all wearing masks (very Squid Game again), and 20 food KOL/influencers. This added a bit more balance to the judging process.
The Contestants
The 20 White Spoons are some of the top Korean chefs from different cuisines, and with many accolades under their belt already. They're probably not very wel known outside of Korea, but when they were introduced, the Black Spoons recognized them and many were in awe of the chance to compete with these outstanding chefs.
Many of the 80 Black Spoons already run their own restaurants or eating establishments, and some are very successful already. They also included a popular YouTuber and a school dinner lady. Most people will think the Black Spoons doesn't stand a chance against the White Spoons, after all they've all proved themselves to get to the top of the game. However, that didn't seem to deter the Black Spoons, as some of them battled their way alongside the White Spoons to get to the final round for the 300 million KRW prize. That's around USD230,000, a significant amount of money, even for the famous White Spoons.
Source : Netflix
My Thoughts
The Culinary Class War first aired on Netflix on 17 September this year, and the final was on 8 October. There were 12 episodes. I enjoy watching MasterChef each year, but after so many years, I find the format a little stale. The Culinary Class War was like a breath of fresh air. I liked how they added a lot of twists in each round making things exciting and unpredictable.
Normally on cooking shows, the contestants cook their favourite dishes, or create dishes from certain ingredients, or cook under pressure for many diners. We had that here as well, as it is fundamentally a cooking show after all. When you have 80 chefs and you need to eliminate 60, you can't do a lot other than ask them to cook their best dish.
Once the 20 Black Spoons got through to the next round, things started to get more interesting, and that's when the White Spoons started the competition as well. I won't talk in detail about the format or the winners as I don't want to spoil it for anyone, let's just say some of White Spoons didn't make it to the final 8, and some Black Spoons got through. Underdogs do have a chance of winning over famous celebrity chefs.
The show rank No. 1 on Netflix’s Global Top 10 TV (Non-English) list for three consecutive weeks, Source and ranked top 10 in 28 countries. Within Korea it's become so popular that even before the final was aired, numerous YouTubers and bloggers reviewed the show, the final contestants and their restaurants. It's not surprising that when the list of restaurants came out, they all saw a surge of bookings.
Korean cuisine isn't as widely known as other Asian cuisines like Chinese, Japanese, Thai or Vietnamese. Many may know kimchi but that's about it when asked about Korean food. I think the Culinary Class War has definitely helped to create more awareness about Korean food. And when you have chefs like judge Anh Sung-jae pushing boundaries to create Korean dishes fusioned with his American upbringing, as well as Edward Lee, one of the White Spoon contestants who is another Korean celebrity chef in America, I think it won't be long before Korean cuisine becomes more popular around the world.
The Winner
Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil things and tell you who it is. I'd recommend you to watch the show yourself to find out, because it is a good show. The only thing I will say is that I'm not 100% convinced the winner should have been the winner. I mean he/she is a good chef, as are all the finalist, but I think the winner was 'made' the winner for promotion, commercial and rating reasons as well as his/her culinary skills.
All video and photo credits are to Netflix apart from the last one
Bonkers! But if it's anything as good as half the stuff Korea puts out, it's worth a look.
Scale wise it's very impressive, and I like the twist they have, plus they really push the chefs!
Wuaoo what a pleasure to read a post of yours on these topics.
I haven't seen this series and maybe if it weren't for your review I wouldn't be interested since cooking is not something that calls my attention, however your comparison with the squid game is very attractive, I saw that series in two days.
Movies about food and cooking, I have seen few but some very good ones like hunger and the hole, I recommend them.
Excellent review, thank you @livinguktaiwan
You don't like food!!! 😮
Have you watched Physical 100? Also by Netflix. That's good as well, I watched it after Culinary Class War
Jejejej 🤣 I don't like cooking, food siii.
I haven't seen it, another one for the to-do list.
At the moment, the second season of Master Chef is on TV in Serbia. There are much fewer participants and amateurs are cooking, which is quite nice, and very interesting...
I've been watching MasterChef for many years, it's pretty successful I think, and is available in many countries around the world
I'm always down for a good cooking show. We get a lot of them here in the US on the Food Network. I think pretty much 60% of the shows on the channel are competitions these days.
I've watched some of the food and cooking shows from America mainly, like those eating ones, they're pretty crazy!
Yeah they definitely are! I think they are slowly moving away from the eating competition ones.
It is a must watch for me! Thanks for sharing and bringing it up!
Hope you enjoy it
I love it!!! Thanks for bringing it here
You're welcome
I haven't seen this but will have a gander for some clips on YT. The wife no longer has NEtflix since they banned us sharing accounts between about 20 random people lol
My current favourite cooking channel is Aaron and Claire who are a Korean couple and the thing that led me to Korean food is how unfussy it is and the fact there are so many dishes that use potatoes and onions. Happy days, for an Englishman abroad, that's my kind of Asian food!
Hope you're having a great week :-)
Haha! You were really pushing it with 20 random people!!
Aaron and Claire crept up on my YouTube feed a few times, their stuff is nice and simple and creative.
They share subscriptions for everything here, then the wife gets cross because I wont let her near any of my devices !
Interesting, I must admit I used to watch alot of celebrity chef cooking way back in the day, but have not watched any for years.
This also took me back many years when I was working in Newbury. We have a group of 6 Engineers who I was to host for a few weeks. Incredibly hard when they spoke no English! Anyway I took them ot London many times, and once to a Korean restaurant. What I do remember was having one dish that was raw shredded beef complete with a cracked raw egg put on the dish when it was brought to the table!