One thing about Alex Guarnaschelli is she does not like to lose. The Iron Chef also enjoys intense competition, so expect plenty of drama in Season 5 of Alex vs. America, which returns Tuesday, October 7 on Food Network. Alongside her is fellow chef Eric Adjepong who will be bringing out another crop of top chefs trying to take down Alex. Each themed episode features some of the toughest in the game trying to dethrone Alex in two cooking rounds where the survivor earns bragging rights and $15,000.
Guarnaschelli will have to have her knives and skills sharp with the table not set in her favor right out of the gates. During the October 7 premiere it’s “Alex vs. Tournament of Champions” where she’ll take on close friends and colleagues Antonia Lofaso, Tiffani Faison and Mei Lin. Adding to the drama is a blind tasting with judges Cat Cora and Susan Feniger deciding “if these conquerors of the randomizer will be the first to knock Alex out of the competition.”
Before the games begin, we caught up with Guarnaschelli to give a taste of what’s to come.
How does it feel to see the show take off the way it has?
Alex Guarnaschelli: I’m ecstatic because I don’t think a lot of people get an opportunity to have a moment in their work where a lot of what they’ve been working towards, or a lot of what I’ve been working towards, could culminate so beautifully. For me, this show just means so much. It’s a show where I get to share my thoughts with my work, my strategy. I honestly can’t believe there is an interest in it. You kind of peek your head around the corner and think, “really?” So that’s exciting.
Being put in this kind of experience, you’re really putting yourself out there. How do you think this show has helped when it comes to taking critiques and using it to better yourself, even at this stage of the game? Do you find this show has helped in terms of reacting when you may not win?
I don’t know that I’ve grown. Would growing mean that I’m not competitive anymore? Like you’ve made your peace with it, you know what I’m saying? An instance where you find me sitting under a giant oak tree in the dirt eating an apple enlightened. I don’t know if that is ever going to happen. That’s something to admit to yourself. This sort of I am what I am, and this is what I am. I see this show has uncovered the competitive nature of chefs.
I love the idea that we can all come into an arena and compete with one another in the name of fun and all grow from what we cook and what we do with ingredients…Like, “wow, you had corn, and that’s what you made with it.” I can’t tell you how many times this season where I turned to Erik and said, ‘if you put me in a room with this ingredient for 100 years, I would have never made what this chef has made.” That’s really exhilarating. That’s something for me and Erik that goes beyond the competition and the wins and losses and all of that.
Chef Alex Guarnaschelli, as seen on Alex vs America, Season 5.
The producers still find new ways to challenge you and surprise you. How much feedback do you give in terms of recruiting?
They quite bluntly don’t share any of that with me. If they did, I would have many thoughts, which is why they don’t ask me. Quite honestly, I do not participate in the choice of ingredients, chefs, judges, or themes at all. Initially in the beginning during that first season, it was so anxiety-producing for me. It was anxiety, anxiety, all day long. Who is going to be there? What are they going to give me? What if they give me something I don’t like or know how to use? Now I’m just enjoying it. I would have done anything to find out what we were cooking, for example, two seasons ago. Now I just really look forward to it because it’s really fun. I think when you enter into a community of people who have agreed to come into this environment and experiment with food in this way, it’s really fun. I never thought I’d say that.
Now that said, and listen to me my friend, I do not like to lose. I’d never mind losing to someone, quite honestly, except for maybe sometimes. So in that way, maybe I can enjoy that someone won. I can not enjoy what I lost. I take that home. I’m my own world’s toughest critic. I think for me, of course, I’m forever a judge of Food Network shows and food television. I love to judge. I think it is an artform. For me personally, and I don’t speak for anybody but myself, I just like to compete to also stay really fresh as a judge. I think when you are participating in the process you’re judging as a student and a teacher, it forever makes you better at both. For me, that’s interesting.
You haven’t lost in the first round. Does that add more pressure?
It seems to have pissed the producers off. They seem to be worked up about it. I’m really happy about it. I don’t often win the first round by the way. I may not have gotten eliminated, but I don’t always win by any means. In that way, if you don’t win in the first round, you don’t control the choices in the second round. I find I actually do better when someone picks all the stuff, which is so weird to me. You would think someone competitive would want to control everything. There is something about relinquishing control and rising from the ashes above and beyond that where I really actually like even more. There is more pressure. More pressure to keep it that way. More pressure to not be judged if it is that way. Everything comes with its own bag of rocks.
I think it’s funny to see the online discourse when there is a sort of win streak. These folks question if this kind of show is fixed. How do you take that in?
It isn’t. All I care about is that people watch and enjoy the show. That’s all we can do. All we can do is make an honest show. I think people can argue that if I really cared about my image and how I looked, you’ve seen me. I’ve cut the tip of my finger off. I’ve been crying my eyes out. I’ve been laughing my head off. It’s a lot of vulnerability. I don’t think that type of range of emotion and experience I’m looking to share with an audience could come without an honest show.
People can also tend to read through things if you’re not genuine on TV.
Sometimes my daughter watches the show, and I can’t watch it. My daughter is like, “oh boy mom, this is either going to end your career or take it to the next level.’ I’m like, “well, which is it?” She is like, “I don’t know. I’ll get back to you [laughs].”
Talk to me about the premiere. Does it mean more when it’s someone you’re close with competing against you?
Yes, people are coming over to my house for dinner, and I better make the best dish. There is this weird thing of welcome, now get to the business of losing. That doesn’t make sense does it? It’s like welcome, and now you’re not welcome. There is this push-pull with all of that, which I think is interesting for the viewer to see.
Anything you can tease of what or who is to come?
I think viewers really enjoy when there are familiar faces. I think the viewers really enjoy it when they see a lot of different chefs from different shows together. If they know the history, and then see us compete, that’s interesting to them. And there is a lot of that this season. I think the viewers are really going to enjoy that. It’s quite a season. It’s dramatic. The drama sort of appeared on the set out of nowhere. You can’t fake drama. You can’t ask it to come to dinner. It just arrived. I would say in this season it took a seat at the head of the table.
Chef Alex Guarnaschelli and Chef Eric Adjepong. Alex vs America. (Courtesy of Food Network)
Who would you bring on to face if you could choose?
There are a lot of people from this season. I’ll start there. I have a little list I think of people. I really was happy to have Michael Symon because he is someone I love to compete against. Beyond that, hmm. I don’t know if I have a specific list. I’d have to think about that.
No hit list?
There is a hit list, but so much of it gets hit this season honestly. I’m sort of scrambling to answer you because most of my hit list is on this season. I can’t say anything more. I’m dying to, but I know better. Let’s just say your questions are great. Thanks for really just knowing about the show and interviewing me in a way that shows me you do. It means a lot.
I mean we did talk about a love of In-N-Out Burger last year for Ciao House. So we have history.
We go way back
You mentioned Eric earlier. He has had such success with the Food Network, even signing a new mult-year exclusive deal with them. How is it to work with him?
I love that. I have watched him on Top Chef. When we were putting Alex vs. America together, I personally requested him. He was the only person I asked for to host the show. That’s how it happened. How do I feel about it? I get it. I think his success is warranted, and I am happy to see it. I love the guy. He is like a brother to me.
You have other shows. One of the ones that has resonated is The Kitchen. How is it seeing people on social media replicate your dishes the same way you might have had done back in the day?
I think it’s great. I think anyone who watches something on TV and then makes it, this is something as old as time. My mother did that when I was a kid with Julia Child shows. I think if people can take direct inspiration from what they buy, cook, and eat at home with their families, I don’t know a bigger compliment. And I don’t know a bigger intention that the show could have beyond that. It’s exactly what a show like The Kitchen is designed to do. It’s designed to say, “hey, sit in the living room with us. We’re in the living room. Coffee is on. We’re making stuff.” Then their takeaway is to replicate that. It’s a big deal to go to the store and buy a lot of ingredients. Food is expensive. It takes time. Time is expensive. Then for someone to recreate something we created on the show, honestly, I can’t think of anything the show wants to do more than to create those opportunities for American families.
Alex vs. America Season 5 premiere, October 7, 9/8c, Food Network