Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Picture this: It's 2023, and my partner Hayley and I are absolutely glued to the couch watching past seasons of Top Chef a chef from Denver crack jokes, cook vegetables in ways that made us rethink everything, and serve what the judges kept calling "fancy toast" — and somehow making it look like the most compelling food television we'd ever seen. We were obsessed. We became Carrie Baird people immediately and permanently.
So when we heard she's heading back to national television — this time for a Food Network show set on a remote island where she might have to spearfish her own dinner and light a fire with actual flint — we had approximately zero chill about it.
Carrie Baird, the Denver chef behind two of our absolute favorite restaurants in the city, is one of a dozen chefs competing on Chopped Castaways, a new Food Network series that premieres May 12 at 7 p.m. It's part Survivor, part Chopped, and from the looks of the early preview already circulating on YouTube, entirely chaotic in the best way possible.
If you were watching Top Chef Season 15 — which, lucky for Denver, was filmed right here in Colorado — you already know Baird. She finished in the top four that season, and she did it with a personality that was impossible not to love: sharp wit, a deep commitment to vegetable-forward cooking, and an infectious kind of confidence that never tipped over into arrogance. She became one of the season's breakout stars not by being loud, but by being herself, which turns out to be plenty.
Since then, she's kept showing up on our screens. She's returned to Top Chef as a judge, had a successful run on Beat Bobby Flay, and appeared on the local culinary education series Chef'n It. The woman is not shy about competition, and she is very, very good at it.
Chopped Castaways is a different beast entirely, though. The show is set on a remote island where the comforts of a professional kitchen — all those gleaming surfaces, precision tools, and controlled environments — are completely stripped away. Contestants are working with open-fire cooking, makeshift kitchens, and the kind of limited supplies that would give most professional chefs a small crisis. Oh, and there's sand. Everywhere. In everything.
Here's where it gets really interesting (and, honestly, a little unhinged). Before anyone even gets to the cooking part, contestants have to earn their ingredients through a series of survival-based challenges. We're talking archery. Spearfishing. Diving. Digging in sand. If you've watched the short preview clip on the Food Network YouTube channel, you may have already noticed ingredients that include a scorpion, someone attempting to light a fire with stone and flint, and what may or may not have been a snake. We're going to need Carrie to confirm or deny the snake situation in person.
All of this is filtered through the familiar Chopped format — mystery ingredients, elevated dishes, judges with high standards and low patience for excuses. Hosted by Ted Allen, with judges including Maneet Chauhan, Marcus Samuelsson, and Gabe Bertaccini, the eight-episode series kicks off with team-based competitions before shifting to individual battles as the field narrows. The grand prize:
The question we keep coming back to: Can the outdoor cooking skills Baird showed off during the Colorado-set season of Top Chef translate to a beach? Colorado has altitude, campfires, and rugged terrain. A remote island has humidity, sand, and apparently scorpions. She handled the Rockies. We're cautiously optimistic about the tropics.
Here's the thing about Carrie Baird that goes beyond the television credits: she's genuinely our chef in a way that feels personal. Hayley and I are regulars at both Bar Dough and Fox & the Hen, and "regulars" might be underselling it. Bar Dough — the Italian-ish spot on West 32nd — is the kind of restaurant that makes you feel like the night is already going well the moment you sit down. Fox & the Hen, her newer brunch concept, is pure, unhinged joy on a plate. We don't use the word "favorite" loosely around here, and both of these restaurants are unambiguously, enthusiastically our favorites.
Which is part of why the watch party happening at Bar Dough is basically a mandatory attendance situation for us.
Bar Dough is hosting a premiere watch party tomorrow night, and Baird herself will be there — watching the show for the very first time alongside everyone else in the room. If you know anything about how reality TV production works, contestants often don't see the final cut until it airs, which means the reactions in that room are going to be real. No rehearsed responses. No polished talking points. Just Carrie Baird watching herself potentially eat a scorpion on a desert island for the first time, surrounded by her people.
The restaurant is serving special dishes inspired by the series, and the reservation page promises "real reactions, unexpected moments, and a few surprises along the way." They're calling it "not your typical watch party — a shared culinary experience where the story unfolds on screen and on your plate." Honestly, that's a very Bar Dough way to frame it, and we are completely here for it.
Chopped Castaways premieres May 12 at 7 p.m. on Food Network, with episodes streaming the following day on Max. We'll be watching. Loudly.