“Cutthroat Kitchen,” the long-popular Food Network cooking competition series that last aired in 2017, returns Tuesday with a new host familiar to San Diego diners: local restaurateur and celebrity chef Brian Malarkey.
“Cutthroat Kitchen: Knives Out” debuts at 9 p.m., with seven episodes airing Tuesdays through June 24 on Food Network, with next-day streaming on Max and Discovery+. In “Cutthroat Kitchen,” four competing chefs each start out with $25,000, which they can use each week to buy advantages for themselves or bankroll sabotages against their competitors during different cooking challenges.
The original version of “Cutthroat Kitchen” aired from 2013 to 2017 and was hosted by food scientist and TV personality Alton Brown. Malarkey said in an interview Monday that he once competed on the original show and described Brown as a “legend” in the food industry, as well as a serious and “devilish” host. Malarkey said he plans to bring his own exuberance and sense of fun to the show, as well as his decades of experience as a professional chef and TV cooking competitor.
Malarkey was a chef Oceanaire seafood restaurant in downtown San Diego in the early 2000s when he was recruited to be a contestant on Bravo TV’s “Top Chef” competition. His kitchen skills, puckish humor and enthusiasm helped earn him regular invitations to appear on TV cooking shows, including every Food Network series and a couple shows for TLC. In the meantime, he and different partners launched three restaurant companies.
Today, he co-owns the San Diego-area restaurant Animae, Le Coq, Herb & Sea and Herb & Wood, as well as Herb & Ranch in Irvine. Last summer, he and his brother James also opened Hawkeye & Huckleberry Lounge in their native Oregon. That restaurant in Bend, Ore., is now helmed by former Herb & Wood chef and frequent Food Network personality Carlos Anthony. Malarkey also owns Chef’s Life, which sells bottled cooking oils in 4,000 grocery stores nationwide.
Now in his early 50s and a father to three teenagers, Malarkey is also a podcaster. With co-host Danielle Harley on “Old Dog New Tricks,” he speaks openly about therapy, relationships, sobriety (he’s 3 years alcohol-free and also recently gave up caffeine), fitness and more.
Despite all these accomplishments, Malarkey said hosting a premiere cooking series like “Cutthroat Kitchen” has been his career-long dream. In past years, he has filmed multiple pilots with no success, so he thanks Guy Fieri (host of “Guy’s Grocery Games”) for keeping him on TV screens in between gigs, as well as his restaurant chefs (James Beard Award nominee Tara Monsod, Aidan Owens and Carlos Anthony) for allowing him the time to do other things.
Last year, while he was competing on Fieri’s “Tournament of Champions” series, Malarkey was invited to audition in New York City for a “Cutthroat Kitchen” reboot, and he was determined to land the job.
“I waked in and I felt it — this is my show and I’m going to get it,” Malarkey said. “I went out there so positive and I just figured I’ll have so much fun messing around with the chefs. Then they called me up and asked me to shoot a pilot.”
The whole season was shot last September in Knoxville, Tenn., but news of the reboot and Malarkey’s hiring as host, were kept under wraps until a few weeks ago.
Malarkey said the new version of the show will have the same format as in the past, with the host devising tasks and bartering deals with competitors. But the reboot will feature cooking contests that are more practical and “less corny.” Malarkey also said his presentation style will be more direct-address to the audience, where he can share his own cooking tips and competitive knowledge drawn from his cooking background.
“I want to make it so much fun,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be over-the-top serious. (Alton) was very serious. I’m not ever serious.”
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