Did Milwaukee chef Dan Jacobs move on in ‘Tournament of Champions?’
Dan Jacobs is back on the small screen, once again battling in the kitchen on one of television’s most heated culinary competitions.
In an episode that aired March 15, the Milwaukee chef and co-owner of restaurants EsterEv and DanDan competed in the first round of Food Network’s “Tournament of Champions VII.” The show, hosted by Guy Fieri, pits 32 all-star chefs from across the country against one another in a head-to-head, single-elimination tournament to determine television’s top chef.
While it was his first battle of the bracket, Jacobs debuted in the tournament’s qualifier round. There, he faced off against friend Joe Flamm, a Chicago chef and “Top Chef” winner. Jacobs narrowly beat Flamm by one point to earn his spot in the official tournament.
When Jacobs entered the tournament, there were a few chefs he said he definitely did not want to cook against. Kentucky chef and “Tournament of Champions” alumna Sara Bradley was one of them. To Jacobs’ chagrin, she ended up being his competitor in the opening round.
Did Jacobs have reason to be nervous? Read on to see whether he moved on in the competition.
How did Dan Jacobs do in the first round of ‘Tournament of Champions?’
In episode three of the season, Division C chefs faced off in head-to-head cooking battles for a shot at moving on to the second round. Jacobs was in the third matchup of the night.
Prior to that cook-off, chef Shirley Chung (who battled Stage 4 tongue cancer before entering the competition) knocked out Dale Talde with a season-best score of 94 to Talde’s 87. Chef Bryan Voltaggio (who recently won “Tournament of Champions: All-Stars Christmas” with his brother, Michael) bested chef Carlos Anthony. And in the final cook-off of the night, No. 1 seed Jonathan Waxman was upset by No. 8 seed Viet Pham.
In an interview, Jacobs told the Journal Sentinel he and Pham grew close on set. On March 29, Pham will cook at DanDan as part of the restaurant’s annual guest chef series. Pham also will appear at Jacobs’ annual Dim Sum Give Some charity event on April 19, along with a few other chefs from the tournament.
Back to Jacobs, who was pitted against No. 2 seed Sara Bradley in his first cook of the official tournament.
“I felt terrible,” Jacobs told the Journal Sentinel about learning he’d be cooking against Bradley. “She was a runner-up on her seasons of ‘Top Chef’ not once, but twice. She’s a ‘Chopped’ grand champion. I was like, ‘You couldn’t just give me a layup?’”
And while Jacobs is new to “Tournament of Champions,” he is no slouch. He was a “Top Chef” runner-up.
As Jacobs entered the arena, the audience was reminded that he’s competing and living with Kennedy’s Disease, a neuromuscular condition that causes muscle atrophy, which Jacobs was diagnosed with 10 years ago. During the cook-off, Jacobs said one of the reasons he participates in cooking competitions like these is to raise awareness of the disease. And he knows there is “a finite amount of time” he’ll be able to compete at this level at all.
“What an amazing story,” host Fieri said as he welcomed Jacobs to the kitchen. “You’re battling so much more in life, yet you choose to come and put yourself in the epicenter of one of the most difficult culinary competitions that exists.”
After Bradley entered the kitchen, Fieri led the chefs to the Randomizer, a contraption that selects the elements chefs must use while cooking. It chose from five categories: protein, produce, equipment, style and the wild card.
Jacobs’ and Bradley’s categories were pork blade steak for protein, celery root for produce, a toaster for equipment and buttery as the style.
The wild card category landed on an option for the low seed to re-spin in any category. It was an easy decision for Jacobs, who said he didn’t feel confident cooking with pork blade steak, so he chose to re-spin the protein category, which landed on ground beef.
But Jacobs was particularly excited about the style category.
“I’m from Wisconsin,” Jacobs said. “’Buttery?’ This is great.”
The chefs had 30 minutes to make their dishes based on the Randomizer selections.
Jacobs would make a Southeast Asian-inspired celery root and butter curry with seared meatballs.
He said he was nervous about the toaster element, but smartly used it to toast Sichuan peppercorns and peanuts, which were wrapped in foil and dropped into the toaster slot. Those were used in both the curry and the meatballs.
For his curry’s base, Jacobs used green curry paste and kombu, a type of kelp used in Japanese cooking. And instead of coconut milk, Jacobs used a pound of butter to give it richness. A bold choice, but a smart use of the Randomizer’s style element.
He also used butter in his meatballs. But as he was forming them, he realized all that butter would make it impossible for the meatballs to hold their shape.
What’s a Wisconsin boy to do? Certainly not cut back on the butter. Instead, he pivoted to make flat meat patties.
The Wisconsin theme also bled to the other side of the kitchen, where Bradley opted to make … wait for it … butter burgers. With celery root slaw and a brunoise-cut celery root remoulade.
“Butter burgers are, like, a Midwestern thing,” Bradley said.
A Wisconsin thing, Bradley. A Milwaukee thing. (Glendale restaurant Solly’s Grille lays claim as the inventor of the butter burger.)
It was a gutsy move for Bradley to make a butter burger against a Wisconsin-based chef. Was part of her strategy to rattle him in his own game? Would it pay off?
The judging and outcome of Dan Jacobs versus Sara Bradley in ‘Tournament of Champions’
After the 30-minute cook time was up, Jacobs and Bradley retired to their respective trailers to watch three guest judges blindly taste and score their dishes.
The judges on this episode were Marcus Samuelsson, Scott Conant and Nancy Silverton.
“It’s not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever made,” Jacobs said of his dish, which was a uniform color of off-white with a few greens used for garnish. He looked a little nervous sitting in his trailer.
But he had little reason to be.
“How do you make ground beef sexy?” Conant said while tasting Jacobs’ dish. “This is how.”
He remarked that he wanted a vat of Jacobs’ green curry so he could swim in it.
Samuelsson was impressed, as well. “It’s like a tasting-menu idea, but done in 30 minutes,” he said. “Well done, chef.”
But he gave Bradley high praise, too, calling her burger “really, really good.”
When the chefs returned to the arena to learn who’d be moving on and who’d be going home, Fieri announced the scores.
87 to 84. Jacobs was the winner!
In taste, he scored 44 points to Bradley’s 41. In the Randomizer category, he scored 34 to her 35. And in presentation, Jacobs narrowly edged out Bradley with nine points to her eight.
“That’s crazy!” Jacobs said after winning, “I’m on Cloud 10.”
“I’ll be back,” Bradley said as she left the competition. “Good for him.”
Jacobs will now move on to the next round, facing off against fellow Division C chef Bryan Voltaggio, a runner-up on “Top Chef” Season 6 and “Top Chef: All-Stars L.A.”
Next week, the first round will conclude with the final four cook-offs between chefs in Division D (so Jacobs will have some downtime before his next battle). The second round begins March 29.
