The Most Awkward Moments We All Witnessed On The Food Network
The Food Network may have built its reputation on educational cooking programs, but these days, its bread and butter is in unscripted reality competitions. These kinds of shows require big personalities and a heaping helping of drama, all with no script. The formula works most of the time, but every once in a while the lack of structure leads to some serious awkwardness. Sometimes the beef between competitors and judges gets too real. Other times the casting process selects an eccentric person whose every moment onscreen produces strange vibes.
These instances when the normally airtight Food Network machine malfunctions are some of the most compelling pieces of content the network has ever aired. It's only when the facade of perfection falls that you get to see the real side of Food Network reality show cast members, after all. To that end, we have collected some of the most egregiously awkward moments in the channel's history for your viewing pleasure (or pain).
Two contestants stumble in front of Jesse Tyler Ferguson
"Food Network Star" is a show about trying to be the next big TV food celebrity, and part of being famous is keeping your cool around other famous people. Not every contestant is up to that task, as this moment from "Room Service Revenge" in season 12 shows. The contestants were asked to cook tableside for Jesse Tyler Ferguson from "Modern Family" and Hannah Hart from "My Drunk Kitchen." The challenge was supposed to emulate a sophisticated room service spectacle, but Tyler Ferguson's star power proved overwhelming for two of the cooks.
First, Monterey plated her refined sea bass dish almost completely silently. When Bobby Flay asked her to tell the judges what she was doing, she snapped back "be patient." The judges were stunned. The best part of the whole segment was Jesse Tyler Ferguson's look of slack-jawed shock. Monterey returned to play a supporting role in the next awkward moment as she toasted nuts during Ana's presentation, where Ana kept on calling her "nut girl." The judges tried to laugh it off, but everyone involved looked deeply uncomfortable.
"Chopped" chefs tussle over raw cakes
"Chopped" is a pressure-cooker environment with high stakes, and sometimes tensions between the chefs can boil over. In the season 3 episode "Judge Knows Best," the competition came down to Joe Dobias and Joshua Whigham battling it out in the dessert round. Although Joe had out-cooked Joshua in both previous rounds, he failed to get his cakes on the plate before time ran out. Judge Marc Murphy asked Joshua if he would let the judges sample Joe's cakes from the pan he had been cooking them in, but Joshua refused. This clearly infuriated Joe, as he burst out that he had blown Joshua out of the water in the first two rounds.
Fortunately for Joe, the garnishes he plated contained all the secret basket ingredients, and the judges enjoyed his flavors despite his disastrous presentation. After trying to play hardball, Joshua still lost the competition. He attempted to seem gracious in defeat and congratulated his opponent, but it was obvious the outcome left him seething.
Viet from "Food Network Star" clams up
Viet Pham is an accomplished chef and finalist for the James Beard Award, and so he emerged victorious from his "Iron Chef: America" battle with Bobby Flay. His head is filled with an encyclopedic knowledge of food, but throughout season 9 of "Food Network Star," he was often unable to communicate his expertise in front of a camera. His impeccable food skills couldn't make up for his wooden, awkward performance on video, and he was booted from the competition after a particularly bad showing in the "4th of July Live Challenge."
The challenge in this episode was a live cooking demonstration that featured call-in questions from viewers. Viet simply couldn't figure out how to juggle everything at once. A viewer asked him a simple question about appetizers, and Viet went blank. In fact, he didn't answer the question at all and remained quiet for the rest of his live appearance. It didn't make for compelling TV, and it was clear to him and everybody else on set that he wasn't going to be the next "Food Network Star."
Owner tries to kick the "Restaurant: Impossible" crew out
There have been many angry business owners in "Restaurant: Impossible," but they don't normally try to shut the show down. That's why it was so shocking in season 5 when Nancy Dupre tried to kick host Robert Irvine and his whole crew out of her restaurant, Nanny Goat's Cafe & Feed Bin. It had become apparent to Irvine that Nancy's daughter, Jessica, was to blame for most of this Kilgore, Texas restaurant's struggles. Yet, Nancy couldn't handle the harsh truth and completely melted down in the middle of filming, shrieking at the top of her voice for everyone to leave.
The worst moment in the whole incident was when Nancy screamed at her mother to "shut everything down" while her mom tried to calmly talk sense into her. After she had cooled down a bit, Nancy allowed filming to continue and the episode concluded successfully. Irvine's intervention helped save the restaurant — when Food Network checked in on the business the next year, it was thriving under a new set of owners.
The "Too Hot Tamales" get extra spicy
Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken were two of the Food Network's earliest superstars. The duo earned acclaim for their Southwest-inspired recipes and charming on-air banter. Yet, as the Los Angeles Times reported, legions of "Two Hot Tamales" fans were horrified in January 1997 when the show was interrupted by over a minute of explicit material. Audio of Feniger and Milliken narrating a Mexican risotto recipe continued to play as the visual feed switched to adult content, briefly cut to black, and then resumed playing yet more offensive images.
Although they were not responsible for the incident, the show's hosts apologized to their audience, saying "we hate to think of the shock or embarrassment this may have caused any of our viewers." Angry calls flooded the Food Network offices, prompting then-Food Network president Erica Gruen to launch an investigation. She claimed that the interruption had lasted only a few seconds, and said the network would be "taking all steps necessary to ensure this never happens again." Gruen's efforts appear to have succeeded because the Food Network hasn't seen any saucy interruptions since the "Too Hot Tamales" debacle.
A fight breaks out over a grill pan
A good rule of thumb in life is to never pick a fight with somebody bigger and stronger than you. In season 21 of "Chopped," fearless grandmother Elda Bielanski threw caution to the wind and tussled with the much-larger Keith Young over who would get to use a grill pan to cook their ribeye steaks. The scene devolved into a playground tug-of-war, with the burlier Keith pulling Elda all over the "Chopped" set. Elda responded with her own dirty tricks, trying to bend Keith's fingers to get him to release the pan. Realizing that Elda wasn't giving up and that it looked bad for him to push around an elderly woman, Keith eventually relented and let her have the grill.
Yet, he seems to have had the last laugh. Keith and Elda both made it to the dessert round, where his cake and ice cream bested her pastry.
Michelle Karam gets cozy with Jeffrey Zakarian
Michelle Karam was one of the biggest personalities on "The Next Food Network Star" season 11. Her bold Mediterranean flavors and on-camera charisma took her deep into that season's competition. In episode 3, she made the judges' jaws drop by intentionally subverting her normal mom persona with something a little more sultry.
In that episode, Michelle and two other female contestants were asked to create a slimy dish. They came up with a spinach soup with grilled octopus tentacles, wowing judge Bobby Flay with their creativity and execution. The three ladies decided to emphasize the slimy aspects of their dish by jokingly flirting with the judges while they explained their dish.
Michelle leaned into her lusty character, asking judge Geoffrey Zakarian to join her on a romantic yacht trip. Geoffrey was a little flustered by the attention, but Michelle moved on to many more episodes. She shocked the judges again later in the season by quitting the competition to rejoin her family at home.
Delusional owner defends his salad dressing
Maniaci's Italian Bistro in Mohnton, Pennsylvania dealt with tragedy before calling in the "Restaurant: Impossible" team. Brothers Tim, John, and Geoff Maniaci struggled to run the restaurant after their mother's death (via Food Network). They poured their own money into the struggling restaurant to try to keep it afloat. They called in the "Restaurant: Impossible" crew in season 5 as a last-ditch effort to save their business. Robert Irvine agreed with the restaurant's staff that the bistro suffered from a lack of clear leadership.
Irvine singled out Tim for being the most deluded, confronting him with customer complaints about the restaurant's house dressing. Tim, fresh from a drinking session in the dining room, asked the whole restaurant whether anyone enjoyed the salad dressing. Not a single person raised their hand. Even Tim's wife told him that she hated the dressing and that he needed to be less stubborn and to listen more. After that wake-up call, Irvine was able to introduce some improved organizational structures and better recipes to the restaurant, but it was too late to save the business. Food Network Gossip reports that the Maniaci brothers shut their restaurant down the year after that episode was filmed.
Urkel lets out a blood-curdling scream on "Worst Cooks in America"
It's been over 20 years since "Family Matters" went off the air, but star Jaleel White will never be able to escape Urkel's shadow. That character is one of the most awkward in television history, and White brought some of that squirmy energy to his short run on "Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Showdown."
White started the competition strong, showing off a surprisingly adequate eggplant parm in the first episode of the season. His luck didn't last, however, and he totally melted down in the second episode. He struggled to follow Rachael Ray's instructions while cooking a copycat takeout-style dish. Pressed for time, White forgot that he was supposed to grind the spices he had been toasting and added them to his dish whole, effectively rendering it inedible.
After the blunder, the actor unleashed horrifying banshee wails and clutched at his head. He kept on screaming for an awkward amount of time in a full-blown tantrum. The judges let him go after that challenge for crimes against both food and eardrums.
A "Chopped" contestant fights with the judges
Sometimes chefs on "Chopped" seem angry to be competing, almost as if they didn't know what they were signing up for when they auditioned. The queen of this kind of whining has to be Rory Philipson, who kvetched her way through the entirety of season 15's "Viewer's Choice Baskets." To be fair to Philipson, "Chopped" fans tend to let their inner sadists loose when they have an opportunity to choose ingredients. In the entree round, the chefs had to contend with a gnarly-looking canned whole chicken. Philipson was able to prepare a perfectly edible-looking plate of food, but she unleashed her frustration on the judges when they tried to critique her dish.
When Geoffrey Zakarian mentioned that her steak was under-seasoned, Philipson began arguing with him, saying that she had marinated the steak at the beginning of the round so his complaints were invalid. The most teeth-grinding part of her showdown with the judges was when Scott Conant said that the entree was a lot better than the appetizer. Philipson thanked him, assuming he was complimenting her cooking. Conant retorted that he was talking about the basket ingredients, not her food. All she could do in response was to mumble wordlessly. Yikes!
Danushka stuns the judges on "Food Network Star"
This whole list could be composed entirely of Danushka moments from her three-episode stint on season 9 of "Food Network Star." She announced her vibe right from the beginning, introducing herself in the first episode with "I'm Danushka, and I want to be Food Network Star or something like that." She stuck to the same charmless attitude throughout her run, leaving her competitors and the judges flustered.
She regularly insulted her fellow "Food Network Star" hopefuls, making fun of Lovely's name, mocking the way Damaris talked, and accusing Nikki of being boring. Speaking of boring, Danushka claimed to be bored while competing in a "Chopped"-style challenge, leaving judge Alex Guarnaschelli speechless.
If we have to pick the most awkward interaction from Danushka's brief reign of terror on the show, it has to be when she "jokingly" said she would take off her shirt to get an advantage in a challenge. It's safe to say her joke doesn't land with the judges, and you can feel their secondhand embarrassment radiating from the screen.
Chef gets called out for trash talking, doesn't back it up with good food
The dessert round of the first episode of the inaugural "Chopped Champions' Tournament" was a shootout between culinary instructor James Gillespie and restaurateur Wade Burch. The two chefs could not have been more different, with Burch projecting calm while Gillespie flailed all over the kitchen. Gillespie spent the entire dessert round talking smack to Burch, attempting to put him off his game. The trash-talking ended up costing one of the chefs the competition — and it wasn't Burch.
Gillespie ended up distracting himself way more, burning his sweet potato tarts. The judges were not pleased with his acrid pastry and were further annoyed that Gillespie had let his penchant for schoolyard putdowns overshadow his mission to cook delicious food. Alex Guarnaschelli served up the knockout punch, saying "I only talk trash when I know my stuff is perfect." Gillespie responded that his trash talk was more like innocent banter, to which Guarnachelli retorted "just cook your food!" Gillespie was forced to swallow his pride and congratulate Burch on his victory.
Bobby Flay quits "Iron Chef: America" on air
Bobby Flay is one of the longest-tenured stars on the Food Network and will likely be a fixture there for years to come. He's been on the receiving end of several awkward moments, but on his last appearance on "Iron Chef: America," the awkwardness was all his fault.
As People reports, Flay quit "Iron Chef" in the middle of filming an episode. Although he first claimed to be joking, he later owned up to the fact that he had resigned. He chalked his decision up to fatigue, saying "I've done over 100 'Iron Chef' competitions, and frankly they are exhausting." That's all well and good, but the normal thing to do in that situation is to give your employer notice that you no longer want your job. Flay decided to do something a little more dramatic.
Halfway through his final "Iron Chef" battle, Flay ripped off his jacket to display a shirt with his resignation letter printed on it. As you may have already guessed, he didn't clear his stunt with Food Network executives, and they were quite upset with the chef's shenanigans. Before it aired the episode, in fact, Food Network spent a bunch of money digitally removing all traces of Flay's snarky shirt from the broadcast. Yet, despite the kerfuffle, Flay said his relationship with the network remained strong.
JAG withdraws from Food Network Star after being outed as a fraud
Joshua Anthony Garcia, known as JAG, wowed the judges in "Food Network Star" season 3. His on-camera skills and culinary chops earned him a slot as one of the two finalists in the last episode. His compelling backstory also helped. JAG claimed that he had been deployed in Afghanistan as a corporal in the Marines and that he had graduated from the New York Restaurant school after his career in the military was over. However, the Marine Corps Times (via the Orange County Register) discovered that JAG was never deployed overseas and had actually been discharged from the Marines almost a year early. By the time he was discharged, Garcia had been demoted from corporal back to private. He had also lied about his culinary education, even going so far as to forge his culinary school credentials.
Reality TV World recounts that when he was confronted by newspaper reporters, Garcia tried to trade inside information about "Food Network Star" in exchange for burying the allegations. The reporters refused and the story went public, forcing a response from the Food Network. Ultimately, JAG offered his apology and resignation to Food Network executives on air.
Teenager flips off Robert Irvine on "Restaurant: Impossible"
To some people's minds, Robert Irvine is almost like a superhero version of Gordon Ramsay. Like Ramsay, he's British and prone to shouting (though that's habit's been tempered recently), but Irvine is taller and has bigger muscles (sorry, Gordon). He's a physically intimidating person, which makes it strange that so many people on the show try to start fights with him. The most hilarious example of this happened during the "Soup to Nuts Diner" episode of season 5. Irvine had a lot of problems to contend with that week, temporarily shutting the restaurant down because of an insect infestation and dealing with a total lack of leadership from the restaurant's management.
But the worst came when Irvine singled out diminutive teenaged dishwasher Andrew for his bad attitude and decided to dismiss him from the kitchen. Andrew, who appears to be about a foot shorter than Irvine and at least 100 pounds lighter, decided to go out swinging, metaphorically speaking. He responded sarcastically to Irvine and walked out of the restaurant with his middle finger held high. Irvine got the last laugh, however, telling Andrew "that's what little boys do."