Bring Back Kitchen League!

A retrospective of the greatest cooking show ever streamed

At the time of writing (2025), Foodbeast's Kitchen League has not seen a new episode for nearly two years, which is, in my opinion, a tragedy.

For those of you not aware, Kitchen League was the world's only live cooking show, which is an impressive feat when you think about it. This means that the audience gets to see everything that happens in the kitchen in real time. There's no do-overs, no time to reapply makeup, no "we'll fix it in post". Every joke, every interview, every reaction is unscripted and genuine. In Challengers vs Champs II Episode 4, Chris Abouabdo tells Triciaisabirdy (the guest judge) "Your honest reactions are better," and I believe this statement perfectly captures the spirit of Kitchen League. While most contestants enter the arena with an idea of what kind of dish they want to create, nobody is ever truly prepared for the chaos which unfolds, not even the viewers. Every mechanic of Kitchen League ties together beautifully. A show like this could only exist in a livestreamed format. But first, we need to talk about how the show actually works.

Kitchen League was streamed on Twitch, a platform many of you are probably familiar with, but it's slightly more confusing than that. You see, although Foodbeast had their own Twitch channel and presumably were responsible for coordinating Kitchen League events, the livestreams actually took place on a different Twitch channel named Crown (with the exception of the Twitch Rivals and TwitchCon events). The Crown channel was an Amazon-run Twitch channel which featured high budget, television-like programming. I wasn't able to find very much information about the channel, however it appears that it was not as popular as Amazon would have hoped, as it was shut down in November 2023, coinciding with over 180 layoffs. Reports from around the time claim that Amazon was viewbotting and attracted advertisers through expensive home page promotion in order to appear like one of Twitch's top streamers, but it failed to connect with audiences. This advertising was likely how I discovered the channel in the first place.

Regardless of what happened to Crown, Kitchen League itself is an incredible show and I'm disappointed I missed so much of it back when it was streamed. Unfortunately the shutdown of the Crown channel means that many of the VODs from older Kitchen League episodes have disappeared without a trace. (Ironically, one episode on Crown's YouTube channel got taken down due to a copyright strike from Amazon.) With some help from the Wayback Machine, I was able to collect some information about the matches, however the majority of the videos are lost to time. I even reached out on the Foodbeast Discord server, but to no response (the server is quite dead). If anyone has any of the VODs from matches between 2019-2021, please let me know.

How to Play Kitchen League

Even though watching Kitchen League live isn't an option anymore, I still think it is worth it to explain what a typical match looks like. Each Kitchen League match features two chefs or popular streamers (or in the case of Double Trouble, two teams of two) who each have 35 minutes to create the best possible dish according to five criteria: Taste, Creativity, Visuals, Swagger, and Secret Ingredient. Unique to Kitchen League is the ability for the audience to spend channel points to activate sabotages to interfere with the game. These can include having your kitchen tools taken away, having to wear oven mitts, or even cooking while blindfolded. How well each contestant is able to deal with these sabotages is factored into their Swagger score. The more fun and cool your cooking session is (imagine cutting cheese using a chainsaw), the more you will score on Swagger. Staying calm and collected is difficult in Kitchen League, but showing confidence is key for a good final score.

Additionally, during each session a secret ingredient is revealed which must be incorporated into the dish. The challengers have no knowledge of what it is beforehand, and therefore must adapt their plan to include the ingredient. The secret ingredient could be anything, from mustard to Froot Loops to parts of a Yoshi (literally meat that was painted green). How well the secret ingredient is used is what decides the Secret Ingredient score. The secret ingredient is truly terrifying because it is impossible to prepare for and it will make or break your dish.

The judges score each category on a scale from 1 to 10, adding up to a maximum possible score of 50. Here are some guiding questions for scoring each category:

Taste. How delicious is the food? Would you order it again? Do the flavors work well together?
Creativity. Was the dish unique in premise? Does the execution live up to the vision? Does the concept make you go, "Wow that's crazy"?
Visuals. How good does the dish look? Would the photos do better on Instagram or TikTok? If you saw it at another table, would you order it too?
Swagger. How swaggy was the performance? Were the sabotages devastating or was it fun? Did you avoid letting the stress and chat get to you?
Secret Ingredient. Is the secret ingredient prominent in the dish? Would you include it in the name of the dish? Was the ingredient actually featured or just sprinkled on top as an afterthought?

Kitchen League Double Trouble, as previously mentioned, throws even more chaos into the mix by doubling the number of contestants. In this gamemode, each team is composed of one chef and one gamer. The gamer's goal is to complete objectives within a video game to protect their teammate from sabotages. However, a sabotage can switch these two roles, so everyone needs to be prepared to do at least a little cooking and gaming. Unique to Double Trouble Season 2 are the official Kitchen League trophies, actual food items preserved inside of an epoxy resin forever (a long time!). While it's not exactly something that the average person would want, it's a great piece to have in the background if you're a streamer. By the way, many Kitchen League contestants are, in fact, streamers with little to no cooking experience (some of them do know how to cook, but I'm calling out PointCrow for not being able to use an oven). Combined with the sabotages, it's a miracle anything on Kitchen League ends up being edible, but that's not a concern for the audience since they only get to see the dish, not taste it.

So now that we understand the basics of Kitchen League, how does the audience interact with the stream, that is, how do you play Kitchen League?

How You Play Kitchen League

Although lurking in the chat is both common and perfectly acceptable, part of the fun of Kitchen League is watching your decisions play out in real time and influence the match. The easiest way to do this is by activating sabotages. At the bottom of the screen is a meter which fills up as viewers spend channel points (even watching for five minutes gives enough channel points to contribute). When the meter fills up, everyone is able to vote for which sabotage will take effect. At first you might feel bad for blindfolding someone in the kitchen, but it's all in good fun and gives them opportunities to increase their Swagger score. Sabotages are the essence of Kitchen League, the secret ingredient upon which the entire show is supported. Viewers are actively encouraged to participate in the show to make it more interesting, which gets more people excited to participate, which creates a positive feedback loop and a great recipe for success!

And believe it or not, that's only half of the formula, because channel points can also be spent on protections, which will nullify the effects of a currently active sabotage. Although protections are much more expensive than sabotages, they are crucial to the balance of the game. As host Elie Ayrouth so eloquently puts it, "Kitchen League is a game of sabotages... and protections." In this way, sabotages are a two-sided coin. Activate the right sabotage at the correct time, and it could spell disaster for the active chef. However, a well-timed protection could save the chef's entire run. On the other hand, protections are limited, and maybe it would be more worth it to use the protection later. Or, maybe you want to waste the protection so you can repeatedly hit the contestant with sabotages in the late game. Not only that, you also have to convince the rest of chat to side with you and actually pay for the protection. There's a surprising amount of depth to this dynamic, and some communities will even coordinate their strategy outside of Twitch to maximize the odds that their favorite chef wins.

Outside of directly interacting with the game, some of Kitchen League's best moments come from exchanges between chat and the Foodbeast staff. Surprisingly, the staff do check chat at several points throughout the stream. If you're loud enough, you might get a shoutout from someone in the studio. One funny moment that comes to mind was in Challengers vs Champs II Episode 3, when BBJess tells chat that Elie will drink a bottle of anchovy oil for 10 gifted subs. This is maybe the only time I've seen someone ask chat not to donate to the stream. Unfortunately for Elie, not even 20 seconds had passed before TheSemicolons delivered the goods, so we got to watch the Kitchen League host put some swagger on display. Very impressive, Elie. Maybe you can wash that down with some milk?

Why You Play Kitchen League

By cross-referencing Foodbeast's Twitter with the Kitchen League rankings, I found evidence of 70 Kitchen League matches (TwitchCon 2023 doesn't count). Additionally, I managed to retrieve 33.5 episodes of the show (the .5 comes from an edited VOD). While it's fewer videos than I'd hoped, with a little digging you can watch almost half of Kitchen League. Maybe one day Kitchen League will return, but for now we have to enjoy what we do have. And what we do have is incredible. Don't get me wrong, I like other cooking shows. Top Chef, Iron Chef, Beat Bobby Flay, and Diners, Drive-ins and Dives are all great shows. There's so many good cooking shows I don't think I could list them all here. But none of them give me the same level of excitement and enthusiasm that Kitchen League does. Despite the two hour runtime of each episode, I never find myself getting bored or tired of the show. The contestants are consistently entertaining (perhaps because it's their job) and the judges' reactions to the craziest dishes are priceless (Big Mac tacos, anyone?). Everyone is just there to have fun and see what kind of silliness happens next. Even though I'm unable to influence past episodes, the show still holds up in the present. It's a creative show with a unique yet solid foundation that effectively combines competitive cooking, livestreaming, and audience participation.

But that's enough about my experience with the show. Go check out one of the episodes before they're gone: