Briscione, a two-time winner

Earlier this week we took in the premiere episode of Chopped Championship, the tournament-style repackaging of Ted Allen’s Top Chef knockoff, Chopped. The concept: Thirteen Chopped victors duke it out to determine whose cuisine reigns supreme…or whatever.

Kicking things off were chefs Natalia Machado (Industria Argentina), Michael Carrino (Passione in Montclair, New Jersey), Sandy Davis (a chef at the Union Theological Seminary) and James Briscione (an instructor at ICE). Judges for the episode were Geoffrey Zakarian, Marc Murphy and Alex Guarnaschelli.

Appetizers were made with live crawfish, fiddlehead ferns and red seedless grapes. Briscione and Davis—both Southern gents—were comfortable working with the live crawdads, but Davis chose not to clean the vein in his crustaceans. Carrino was the only contestant bold enough to try for a soup, but his efforts fell flat and so he was chopped.

For the entrée round, the chefs were given quail, guava nectar, udon noodles and dinosaur kale. During judging, a fiery Machado defended her decision to leave the tailbone on her bird (for structure and presentation), prompting Guarnaschelli to call her a “real barracuda.” Rawrr. Davis was censured for his boring guava-orange glazed quail with garlic noodles. Arrivederci!

But what’s this? Before we could even get to dessert, Food Network ran a spoiler commercial for next week’s episode that had Briscione calling himself a two-time winner! We’re assuming it was meant to air after the show, so we figure whoever works promos over at the Food Network’s Chelsea Market fortress called in sick this week. Indeed Briscione won, using the mystery ingredients (baby kiwi, couscous, rice paper and saffron) to make a couscous pudding and a fruity summer roll. The coup earned him $10,000 and secured his spot in the next episode.—Zachary Feldman

Next week: Briscione defends his title.