NEWS

Dover chef returns to Food Network’s ’Chopped’

Rachel Forrest
Chef/owner Evan Hennessey of Stages at One Washington in Dover, who has won big on "Chopped" in the past, is set tor return to the Food Network competition show.

A Dover chef will make his fourth appearance on Food Network’s “Chopped” chef competition show.

Evan Hennessey, chef and owner of Stages at One Washington in Dover, joins 15 other chefs from around the country in “bracket” style series that will determine which talented chef will face off against celebrity chef Bobby Flay in one final episode. The winner will go home with $50,000. The season begins Sunday, Aug. 9 at 9 p.m. with Battle 1, and Hennessey will appear Aug. 16 at 9 p.m. in Battle 2, facing chefs from Boston, New York and Brooklyn.

Hennessey has been on the “Chopped” competition stage before. In May 2018, he took home the $10,000 prize and the honor of “champion” in Season 37. He returned in October that year in the season 40 “Chopped Champion” competition, winning his round before being eliminated in the finale battle appearance in November. In each round, chefs are given a mystery basket of ingredients and dishes are evaluated by a panel of celebrity judges to determine who goes on to the next round.

Hennessey said the show’s producers contacted him after last Thanksgiving about competing again.

“When they contacted me, they told me they were going to bring in a celebrity chef to finish this season out with and that’s all I knew about it. They asked me if I would be interested,” he said. “They didn’t say who, they just said the ending result would be competing against a celebrity chef and asked me, ’Well, what do you think of that?’ I said, ’Well, I don’t know. I’m really not scared of anybody. You can tell me the celebrity and whoever it is and for me, a competitor is a competitor.’ So it didn’t really throw me that it was going to be a big name chef. If anything, it got me more amped up.”

If he makes it to the finals, Hennessey will face Flay, owner of several restaurants and host of multiple Food Network shows, but Hennessey has his own claims to fame. In 2014, he was named a semifinalist for the James Beard Awards in the category Best Chef Northeast and is a winner of the StarChefs.com VitaMix Challenge, a national competition against hundreds of chefs.

The former executive chef of 43 Degrees North and the Dunaway in Portsmouth, he has cooked alongside chef Grant Achatz at Trio in Chicago, Andrew Carmellini at Cafe Boulud, Thomas Rice and Ken Oringer at Clio, Eli Kaimeh and Thomas Keller at Per Se. His Stages at One Washington opened in 2012, offering progressive New England cuisine using seasonal ingredients. The restaurant recently made the national Opinionated About Dining Top 100 list for the fourth time.

Hennessey said he was happy to be asked back.

“People asked me if I would do it again and I would say, ’It’s not really my choice.’ They have to decide if I’ll come back,“ he said. ”The last time, I ended on a good note with a winning record of two out of three. The stakes are even higher now so I thought, “Let’s do it. Why not?”

Because he’s competing against chefs who also have been on the show before, Hennessey said he doesn’t feel he has an advantage, but knows a bit more now about how to compete.

“I think that goes for any of the competitors because we've all been there and we've all won,” he said. “So we all know what it takes to win and we all know the run of the show, where things are in the kitchen, how it all works. We know how to get from start to finish.”

Hennessey said the producers wanted him back because he was one of their favorite competitors in part due to his cooking technique but also his demeanor on set. In past seasons, Hennessey demonstrated focus and impeccable technique with a laid back, humble openness. For this round, he said he’s coming with more experience in how to play the game.

“You have to know how to time everything. It's a short clock. Twenty minutes and then 30 minutes goes really, really fast, but it's highly achievable,” he said. “People who have won know what to do. They don't sit there and kind of bumble around their stations or run into the pantry. They literally walk in here with a game plan, myself included. I guarantee every one of these people had dish ideas or constructs in their head of what they were doing to do even before that basket was opened.”

Since the COVID-19 phased opening of restaurants, Stages at One Washington has been open for take-out only, offering a unique family meal menu.

Chef/owner Evan Hennessey of Stages at One Washington in Dover, is competing again on Food Network's "Chopped," hoping to advance to a showdown with celebrity chef Bobby Flay.