The popular Food Network competition show “24 in 24: Last Chef Standing” is back for another season, putting chefs head-to-head for 24 hours straight.
Yes, as the name suggests, “24 in 24: Last Chef Standing” puts 24 chefs to the test for 24 straight hours, with tasks centered around skill, creativity and stamina. Every hour, someone is eliminated, and the last chef standing at the end of the season goes home with $75,000.
The show is hosted by chefs Michael Symon and Esther Choi. This season’s competitors are Elia Aboumrad, Brittanny Anderson, Gabe Bertaccini, Samantha Cruz, Leslie Daniel, Richie Farina, Ilan Hall, Stephanie Izard, Kevin Lee, Arturo Leighton, Laurence Louie, Star Maye, Kelsey Murphy, Marc Murphy, Nini Ngyuen, Kathleen O’Brien, Damaris Phillips, Michele Ragussis, Zurisadai “Zuri” Resendiz, Jonathan Sawyer, Ashleigh Shanti, Lawrence “LT” Smith, Bryan Voltaggio and Dara Yu.
Compared to other competition shows, Symon says that “24 in 24” is by far the most realistic to what chefs actually go through in the kitchen.
“Most chefs at some point in their life have opened up a restaurant whether it’s one of their own or for someone else. When a restaurant opens, you don’t sleep for 2 or 3 days, that’s just how it works,” said Symon. “I think for a lot of viewers at home, they’re like ‘Oh my God, these chefs are up for 24 straight hours.’ But the realization is, in our lives as chefs, all of us have done that at some point in our careers. After season one, I probably got 300 texts from chef friends of mine saying ‘I want in,’ because when they watch the show, they’re like, ‘This is what happens in real life, and now people can see it.’”
As the season goes on, the competing chefs will have to face all the different aspects of being a chef, with challenges facing skills such as simplicity, resourcefulness, artistry, adaptability, teamwork, risk taking and elevation. As the challenges go on and the fatigue starts to set in, Symon says that common sense is the first thing to go out the window.
“You get so locked into what you’re doing, you sometimes forget about the simple things. The chefs that go farthest in this competition are the chefs that are very technically sound, because their technique doesn’t slide, so to speak, but a lot of times what you’ll see is when people start getting really exhausted, some of the simplest tasks in the kitchen start to go away,” said Symon. “It’s like, ‘Oh my god, I forgot to put salt in that!’ That’s the first thing you learn as a chef, but when people start getting tired, those things start to slip.”
When looking at the competitors this season and last season, Symon noted that though the younger chefs “have a bit more spring in their step,” the more seasoned chefs have an easier time pushing through the first wall of the competition.
“Marcel [Vigneron, winner of “24 in 24: Last Chef Standing” season 1] was not the youngest chef on season one — he’s been around longer than a lot of the chefs — but once he was able to push in that wall, his experience and seasoning carried him to victory,” said Symon. “There is this kind of breaking point, I think, around we’ll say like 12 to 18 hour point, where if you’re not able to push yourself through that wall, it doesn’t matter how much experience you have, and some chefs are able to do it and some chefs aren’t.”
As the season continues, Symon told amNewYork that there will be a lot of emotion for viewers to see onscreen as the competition heats up.
“The further that you get into [the competition], the more it hurts that you went home. [The competitors] wanted to be there for the long haul. You get to the point where you’re like, ‘Okay, I’ve been doing this for 15, 16, 17, 18 hours, it’s down to five or six chefs, I wanna win.’ So where it’s a little bit playful in the beginning, it gets more intense. Every episode gets more intense and more gut-wrenching than the one before it, because so much time has been put in and effort has been put in, and now they want to see it through.”
“24 in 24: Last Chef Standing’ airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT and streams the next day on MAX.
