Big Restaurant Bet finale: And the winner is…

Big Restaurant Bet finally came to an end this week and it was definitely the best episode of the season. It was stressful, filled with amazing food, and finally gave us the person that Chef Zakarian is putting his money and expertise behind.

Once again, this episode only included one challenge. The final two chefs (T and Alicia) were given the space to set up their dream restaurants and then they had to actually run them. They had to prep the food, make sure their sous chefs knew what to do, describe their ideal design for the dining room to the designers, and then cook everything. Whoever made the best food and had the most cohesive idea would come out on top.

So, how did it go?

Both chefs performed pretty well. Chef T created her steakhouse and oyster bar with a menu of fried branzino with spaghetti, beef tartar, seared scallops, berbere chicken, and gooey mac and cheese. It all looked amazing.

Big Restaurant Bet announced the winner of the series

And Chef Zakarian, Chef Eric, and Margaret seemed to agree that Chef T made some amazing dishes but they didn’t like everything. They had issues with portion size and didn’t like the branzino dish. They thought it should have been grilled instead of fried and that it didn’t have that much flavor.

Chef Alicia created the plant-based restaurant of her dreams with a menu of crab cakes (that are actually made of mushrooms), mushroom scallops, panzanella, mushroom “chicken” satay, and sweet potato lentil bliss.

The judges loved her food but thought she needed to make it clear on the menu that she was using animal products in some of her dishes. They also thought the menu was a little repetitive with so many mushroom items. And, like Chef T, the judges wanted the portions to be a little more refined.

But who ended up winning the whole competition? The winner was Chef Alicia! Chef Zakarian will invest $250,000 towards her restaurant and provide his time and expertise to help her along the way. It will definitely be interesting to see how (and when) the restaurant comes to fruition and what it ends up looking like.

What did you think of this week’s episode of Big Restaurant Bet? Did you agree with the winner? Let us know in the comments below!