Chef Omar Anani is now officially the “King of the North.”
The Detroit chef and James Beard nominee, acclaimed for his Moroccan bistro Saffron De Twah, won his episode of Chopped: All American Showdown Tuesday night, beating chefs from Ohio, Minnesota, and Iowa.
Chopped: All American Showdown is a competition amongst 16 chefs from around the U.S., who compete in their respective regions: North, South, East, and West. The winners of each region will battle it out for a $50,000 prize in the finale.
Anani, who was the star attraction at a watch party in Detroit last night, didn't just win the Northern episode. He did it with a smile and demonstration of his warm-hearted nature.
It wasn’t entirely smooth sailing, however.
In classic Chopped fashion, the contestants are given a box of ingredients that seem like a hodgepodge of random stuff from a ransacked food pantry.
In the first round, the chefs were given lake perch, corn on the cob, Kringle, and salted egg yolk paste, whatever that is. The judges kept saying "It's so American!" about everything, which became an annoying tagline. You can go ahead and revoke my "American" card because I've never eaten Kringle or salted egg yolk paste — and I'm not looking to change that.
Anani whipped up a grilled corn salad and fried perch with Moroccan-style dressing. In a strange nitpick, the judges criticized the plate he chose, but his corn salad nevertheless won them over.
In the second round, the chefs were given a deep dish pizza, lamb shoulder, Idaho potatoes, and Greek dressing, which Anani turned into goat meatballs with vinegar and raisin potatoes. His potatoes were extremely undercooked, but it wasn’t just him. All three chefs served nearly raw potatoes to the judges.
“In my defense, you’ve all had the potatoes from the restaurant and you know they’re good!” he told the crowd at the Eastside Community Network watch party Tuesday night.
No matter, as his well-seasoned goat got him through the round.
Finally, in the top two, Anani and Chef Jill Vedaa from Lakewood, Ohio, were tasked with making a dessert from a root beer float, frozen cherries, pita chips, and buckeyes.
Anani made an Egyptian milk pudding called mahalabia, a dish he grew up eating and has cooked many times. In the end, he bested the Ohio chef in the Michigan vs. Ohio showdown, though he humbly told the judges it didn’t matter who won because they’re both good chefs.
“These are all James Beard chefs and we all genuinely love each other,” he tells Metro Times.
Anani has been nominated twice for a James Beard Award but came up short of winning both times. He doesn’t see it as a loss, however, as he continues to spread good vibes and feed the eastside Detroit community where Saffron De Twah is located through his Saffron Community Kitchen program.
“Two, three years ago at the James Beard Awards when I didn’t get a medal, I was like the sad puppy in the corner,” he tells us. “This last year I didn’t get a medal but I was happy as a clam. I wasn’t going there for an award. I don’t need an award to validate who I am or how good I am at what I do.”
He tells his supporters that competing on the show wasn’t about winning, either. It was about raising money for the community kitchen.
The Saffron Community Kitchen has given out more than 110,000 free meals since Anani launched the project during the pandemic in 2020. The restaurant is fundraising for the initiative so they can provide more than 900 free meals to Detroit youth this summer and build a community fridge for grab-and-go plates for those in need.
At present, to receive a free meal, residents have to come into the restaurant and ask for one, which can be embarrassing. The community fridge aims to make the program more accessible.
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