It took three episodes to see chef Peter McQuaid of Cala in Scottsdale compete on the new “Chopped” series “Spin it to Win it”, but once he started winning, he kept winning. Now, the Arizona chef is the new “Chopped” grand champion on Food Network.
He took home $72,500 in winnings from the new series in which 16 chefs competed in groups of four and the winners duke it out to stay, lest they be replaced with a new chef. A spinning wheel determined the competitors, a fourth basket ingredient and money added to the final prize. Ted Allen called it “the greatest ‘Chopped’ challenge ever.”
Though the show airs in weekly episodes, McQuaid said the filming happened in consecutive competitions in a single 16-hour day. For him, competing in nine consecutives rounds was nerve-wracking, exhausting and exhilarating.
Arizona-based chef Peter McQuaid is used to grinding it out
At age 25, the executive chef was the youngest in the group. “It’s more than just about talent,” he said in his first episode. “It’s about coming in day in and day out and crushing those dishes.”
The ingredients were not easy to work with. In the first basket McQuaid received cotton candy-wrapped pickles, long bone beef, sunchokes and baby eel in olive oil. The judges swooned over the dish he came up with: chili and coriander-crusted long bone steak with sunchoke puree.
“Peter, you are cooking so far beyond your age,” said Tiffani Faison. “This is just the most stunning dish. This is how you do it.”
“And for the rest of you chefs, the competition just got real,” said Brian Malarkey after tasting his first dish.
Other unusual ingredients in later challenges included pork brains in gravy, musk sticks, moon snails and his least favorite — beef bile.
Who is Peter McQuaid?
Peter McQuaid is a 2016 James Beard Foundation Taste America scholar and the executive chef at Cala and Clive Collective. A graduate of C-CAP, he got his start and inspiration with iconic Phoenix chef Silvana Salcido Esparza. He interned with other top chefs, including Daniel Boulud, Grant Achatz, David Chang and Daniel Humm. After returning to Arizona, he began working with Beau MacMillan.
How to watch Peter McQuaid on Food Network’s ‘Chopped: Spin it to Win it’
Food Network Go offers the series on-demand. If it’s McQuaid you want to see, start with Season 58, episode 3.
Taste Peter McQuaid’s cooking in metro Phoenix
Peter McQuaid is the executive chef at Cala in Scottsdale.
Details: Cala, 7501 E. Camelback Rd., Scottsdale. 480-590-5676, calascottsdale.com.
Award-nominated: Phoenix chefs open swanky new Mexican restaurant in Arcadia
Reach the reporter at [email protected]. Follow @banooshahr on X, formerly known as Twitter.
