5 Best Food Network TV Shows You NEED to Be Watching

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More people have been getting into cooking during the pandemic. Why not add a few popular cooking shows to your to-watch list for inspiration?

Finding a solid entertainment bundle is difficult in the age of subscription models and online content. Believe it or not, subscription models have grown by over 425% these past few years! If you’re worried about affordability or access, we’ll help you there, too! We’re happy to provide you with the best foot network TV shows to get you started.

It’s time to dive into some genuinely delicious entertainment. You’ll have all the television choices you can eat, from cooking competitions to small business support!

Want to Watch the best shows on Food Network? RiverTV now offers a free 30-day trial for your first month of entertainment so you can watch what’s on Food Network anywhere.

What’s on Food Network: 9 Best Shows

Top Chef

Blending reality television with top-notch cooking skills, Top Chef is one of the best-known cooking shows around. You’ll never be bored once you tune in to these kooky competitions!

The set-up of Top Chef is to create a dizzying array of challenges to see which chef comes out on top. Sometimes challenges revolve around ethnic cuisine, while other times, specific ingredients are the highlight. Skill, speed, and professionalism are just a few of the standards judged by the panelists at the end of each episode.

Want to push both your cooking skills and entertainment choices to the limit? Top Chef is among the best Food Network shows to come out.

Guy’s Chance of a Lifetime

The job interview process isn’t exactly known for being fun or engaging. Guy’s Chance of a Lifetime takes this mundane chore and turns it into an engaging topic for the best Food Network shows.

Guy’s Chance of a Lifetime revolves around Guy Fieri’s goal to find a successor to his restaurant franchise. Each episode shows the ongoing challenges of the top candidates to meet his high standards. This show focuses on the cooking aspect and explores professionalism and marketing.

Do you love learning about the ins and outs of running a successful food business? Guy’s Chance of a Lifetime will be just as educational as it is thrilling!

Tournament of Champions

If you’re more interested in direct reality television competition, Tournament of Champions is the way to go. This show is a knockout when it comes to crazy challenges!

Each episode pits today’s best chefs in extreme competitions to see who will come out on top. This show is also hosted by Guy Fieri, with a special emphasis on the pure skill that comes with being a top chef. If you’ve ever wondered if today’s most experienced food workers still sweat under the collar, you’re in luck.

Tournament of Champions is just as inspiring as it is intense. Tune in to this engaging show with your Global TV subscription to level up your own skills.

Want to Watch the best shows on Food Network? RiverTV now offers a free 30-day trial for your first month of entertainment so you can watch what’s on Food Network anywhere.

Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives

Are the above shows a little too fast-paced and intense? Consider Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives for your more relaxed viewing experience.

This laid-back show is more casual than the other entries on this list, but it’s far from boring. Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives explores all the tiny diners and vintage businesses that make up the American landscape. Guy Fieri is the host of this beloved show, taking you on a journey to learn about the tasty food businesses under the radar.

Who knows? You might just find your next favorite restaurant when you tune in. This show boasts dozens of seasons and is showing no sign of slowing down.

Beat Bobby Flay

Last but not least, we have Beat Bobby Flay on our list of the best Food Network Shows. This culinary competition series is widely acclaimed by critics and casual viewers alike.

This show has a deceptively simple premise that leads into incredible competition. Each episode has Bobby Flay choosing a dish for two chefs to cook. Both chefs show off their culinary and people skills as they put together the ultimate version of the recipe. The chef that wins the round gets even closer to challenging Bobby Flay himself.

Who can beat Bobby Flay? It’s time to sharpen your cooking knives and get into the competitive spirit. Tune in with your Global TV subscription to find out yourself!

BBQ Brawl

If you haven’t watched BBQ Brawl on the Food Network yet, you’re in for a treat. With the third season of this cooking competition series ending recently, it’s the perfect time to binge all three seasons.

Bobby Flay and Micheal Symon presented the first season (called BBQ Brawl: Flay vs. Symon) of the show, where the two chefs and their teams competed against each other by creating amazing BBQ dishes and serving side dishes of smack talk.

The Food Network hosts many cooking competitions, from baking shows to the Worst Cooks entertaining with the most epic food fails. BBQ Brawl is a relatively new addition that entices viewers with mouth-watering meals and epic banter between the two chefs.

Because Flay and Symon are close friends, the competition is fierce — they have a bond that runs deep but also know how to push each other’s buttons, resulting in some hilarious banter throughout the episodes.

However, the competition is about more than Flay vs. Symon; it’s also a culinary competition for some well-established BBQ chefs with decades of experience that earned them their spots on the show.

After the first season, Eddie Jackson joined Flay and Symon as a new host, and new judges — Rodney Scott, Brooke Williamson, and Carson Kressley — also joined the show.

In the most recent season, chefs Anna Burrel and Jet Tila joined the show, serving as mentors for the budding competitors alongside Bobby Flay.

Chopped

Chopped is a Food Network reality cooking game show created by Dave Noll, Lina Lea, and Michal Krupat that’s hosted by Ted Allen. In this series, four chefs square off with each other, competing for their chance to win $10,000. Debuting in 2009, Chopped is a long-running favourite for foodies and TV lovers worldwide.

In each episode of Chopped, four chefs compete in three rounds, attempting to incorporate strange combinations of ingredients into dishes to be evaluated by three judges. During each round (typically serving an appetizer, entree, and dessert), each competing chef gets a basket of four mystery ingredients and must create a dish incorporating all of them.

The ingredients featured in Chopped are typically things not commonly prepared together. For example, in one episode, the chefs had to create appetizers using canned sardines, zucchini, pepper jack cheese, and watermelon — not items we’d ever think of making an appetizer out of!

To make things more challenging, each round has a time limit. Each chef must complete their dish and create four platings before their time is up, and the judges critique their sides on taste, creativity, and presentation.

After presenting their dishes, the judges choose one chef to “chop” — they get eliminated from the competition.

Chopped also frequently runs special episodes that add a twist to the show. From teen tournaments to grill master competitions and battles with the judges, Chopped is a Food Network delight that knows how to keep the entertainment coming with fresh perspectives, fun personalities, and amazing food.

The Great Food Truck Race

Airing its first episode in 2010, The Great Food Truck Race is a cooking and reality series on the Food Network hosted by Tyler Florence. The show is like a cross between Top Chef and Cannonball Run, with several teams of three competing and driving across the US in their food trucks, making stops each week to sell their food in various cities.

With the fifteenth season premiering recently, it’s the perfect time to start watching The Great Food Truck Race.

Each season, six to nine food truck teams compete — they must race to cook, sell, and adapt to various challenges in hopes of winning the $50,000 prize (or their own food truck in some seasons).

The teams journey through specific regions and routes, and every week the food truck that performs the worst gets eliminated while the rest continue on to the next city. Typically, at the beginning of each episode, the teams get seed money to purchase groceries and supplies for that week’s challenge.

In addition, each team can compete for extra money each week — for example, by selling the most of a certain dish or making a new version of local delicacies. The host and judges also throw obstacles at the teams regularly, hindering their abilities to sell more food (like switching to a vegan menu or not allowing them to restock supplies).

The contestants also change throughout the seasons; during the first two seasons, The Great Food Truck Race competitors consisted of seasoned, professional food truck operators. In many of the following seasons, the show provided food trucks to novices with dreams of operating their own business.

Beachside Brawl

One of Food Network’s newest TV shows — Beachside Brawl — is cooking up the summertime fun. It features East Coast vs. West Coast battles with the best cooks from each region trying to prove which coast can create the best summertime food.

Hosted by Antonia Lofaso, Beachside Brawl features two renowned chefs: Tiffani Faison representing the East Coast and Brooke Williamson representing the West Coast. During the competition, each chef chooses and leads their team of four chefs to (hopefully) victory.

Throughout the series, Tiffani and Brooke lead their teams during a six-week competition while teaching them and cooking meals alongside them. During the series premiere of Beachside Brawl, the host challenged each team to create a menu representing their respective coasts to be served to beachgoers from boardwalk stands.

The requirements were to serve something on a stick, something in a bun, and one each of a sweet, fried, and cheesy item. Upcoming competitions will feature challenges like a budget seafood banquet, a “million-dollar” yacht meal, a boardwalk bake sale, and a tropical destination dinner.

Rotating judges join Antonia each week to determine the winning team. Once the competition comes to an end, one Beachside Brawl cook will earn the title of “Best of the Beach” and win a dream beach getaway for all of their hard work.

Best Shows on Food Network Takeaways

Food shows are a wonderful pick-me-up during a tiring workweek. While there are hundreds of options to choose from, we are particularly fond of the above choices.

You don’t have to choose between reality television or small business support. Our 9 best food network TV shows are below:

Top Chef
Guy’s Chance of a Lifetime
Tournament of Champions
Drivers, Dine-Ins, and Dives
Beat Bobby Flay
BBQ Brawl
Chopped
The Great Food Truck Race
Beachside Brawl

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9 Best Food Network TV Shows