A Sussex County chef will vie to best Food Network chef Bobby Flay Thursday night on the celebrity chef’s popular TV series.
Hari Cameron, who runs the grandpa (MAC) restaurant and food truck in Rehoboth Beach with his brother Orion, will be on an episode of “Beat Bobby Flay” called “Who’s Your Mac Daddy?” It airs at 9 p.m.
The premise of “Beat Bobby Flay” is two chefs go head-to-head in a 20-minute cookoff for the chance to battle Flay. The celebrity chef picks a “secret ingredient” the competitors must use and the dishes are then judged by two friends of Flay.
Whoever wins then will try to outcook Flay by making their “signature dish.”
Flay supposedly doesn’t know what the dish will be before the clock begins in the 45-minute round.
There is no prize for beating Flay other than lifelong bragging rights.
The friends of Flay’s appearing in Cameron’s episode are Flay’s daughter Sophie and Eddie Jackson, a chef and former NFL cornerback.
Cameron will put his cooking chops up against Leilani Baugh, a chef/restaurateur from Oakland, California, who is known for making “Southern comfort food with an Asian twist.”
Is the name of the episode a signal that Cameron makes it past the first round? No one’s saying. The Food Network limits what contestants can say before the episode airs to avoid spoiling the outcome.
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But a description of the episode also notes that the chefs are trying “to grab a mac ‘n’ cheese victory.” Hmmmm. Another clue?
Cameron does have an impressive background. He was a three-time semifinalist for the prestigious James Beard Awards and owned and operated the critically acclaimed a(MUSE.) restaurant in Rehoboth for 8-years before selling the business in 2019.
Cameron began his career at the former Buttery in Lewes, and later worked with chef/owner Kevin Reading at his former restaurant Espuma in Rehoboth.
After attending The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College in Philadelphia, Cameron helped Reading open Rehoboth’s Nage, now called Fork + Flask.
In 2022, Cameron appeared on Netflix’s “Snack vs. Chef.
Several other Delaware and former Delaware chefs have appeared on “Beat Bobby Flay,” which has been on the air since 2013.
Robbie Jester, a Newark chef and restaurateur, appeared on the show in 2016 and three judges deemed that his version of shrimp scampi was tastier than one made by Flay.
The dish is on the menu of his Pizzeria Mariana restaurant and takeout shop off East Cleveland Avenue. Jester recently was the winner of the Netflix series “Pressure Cooker.”
In 2021, former Wilmington chef couple Jennifer Behm-Lazzarini and Julio Lazzarini also were “Beat Bobby Flay” contestants.
Behm-Lazzarini beat her husband in the first round and then took the crown from Flay by making a winning chicken noodle soup that featured Latin-influenced ingredients.
Before that, in 2019, Chef Bill Clifton of the former Counting House in Georgetown appeared on the show. His chowder dish lost to Flay’s creation.
Cameron will not host a viewing party at grandpa (MAC) for the episode, according to post on the restaurant’s Facebook page.
“It comes on after we are already closed that night,” read the post.
Contact Patricia Talorico at ptalorico@delawareonline.com and follow her on Twitter @pattytalorico Sign-up for her Delaware Eats newsletter.
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