King of Culinary (; lit. 'Three Knives', ; ; "Raja Kaiya Vecha") is a Singaporean culinary game show broadcast on Mediacorp Channel 5, Channel 8, Suria, Vasantham and simulcast on MeWATCH and YouTube. Each episode feature home cooks pitting against veteran top chefs for a cash prize and a set of kitchen knives.
The series premiered on 3 July 2019 and hosted by Lee Teng, before replacing with Cavin Soh, who previously served as a judge in season 1, as the host since season two, which premiered on 18 November 2020.
A third season was announced on 15 February 2022 and has been expanded to Malay and Tamil audiences, which premiered on 20 August 2022. A one-off four-part finale, dubbed "The Final Showdown", aired on 12 November and ended on 3 December. A fourth season premiered on 6 September 2024 with Soh and three chefs reprising their roles along with a new chef, James Tay, along with their second Suria and Vasantham seasons, which premiered on 24 September and 12 October 2024 respectively and its respective chefs from the previous season reprising their roles.
Gameplay.
Each contestant will pit against one of three veteran chefs head-to-head, whom each hold one signature culinary knife placed under a shelf, and sitting chefs are backed as judges. At the start of each match, the contestant choose one of the chef and a designated ingredient required for cooking, but was not allowed to duplicate a cooking method. The contestant have up to 40 minutes to cook their dish, with the first 10 minutes set as a handicap for the veteran chef (one hour with a 15-minute handicap in season one), to prepare a dish and present it to a panel of three judges for testing and evaluation. The judges then make a decision to decide the winner for the match. Since season two, contestants have to defeat a mentee chef first before they could challenge against the three chefs, meaning that the contestant was now required to win four matches (one disciple and three chefs) to acquire all three knives. "Help cards" are also added, allowing the contestant to change the course of a match.
When the contestant wins a knife, they are given an option to either keep their winnings or risk them to challenge another chef, but each contestant could only challenge a chef once. The payout structure for each win were $2,000, $3,000 and $4,000 ($1,000, $2,000 and $5,000 in season one). However, if the contestant loses to a chef at any point, the game ends and any cash winnings won are forfeited, but was allowed to keep any knives won for victorious matches up to that point. Season four added an option to directly challenge a guest chef, skipping the other two chefs for $4,000 and any remaining knives if they win.
Season three also added a season finale, dubbed "The Final Showdown" to determine the overall champion with a prize of up to $16,000. The format did not return in the succeeding season.
Season overview.
At the end of season 1, 10 out of 26 chefs had won at least one set of knife for winning a match (Teo won 8 out of 12 matches, Pung won 7 out of 11 matches, and Neo won 8 out of 11 matches); one of the winning contestant, Royce Lee (with two episodes airing 18 and 25 September) won two knives and $2,000 though not deciding to risk the prize money to contest Neo for the third knife.
At the end of season 2, Teo won 3 out of 5 matches, Pung won 3 out of 5 matches (with one draw), and Neo won 4 out of 6 matches. A few chefs also won two knives but did not risk it for a third knife.
At the end of season 3, one chef named Zakiyah Jaleel become the first contestant to win all three knives; she competed against Vietnam-Chinese home cook Tran Thi Ngoc Anh and Indian cook Gopica "Rasathi" Rasiah in the final showdown. Hue won the showdown.
References.
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