Season two of Food Network’s All-Star Academy is set to premiere on February 14, so mark your calendars. This season, Robert Irvine and Andrew Zimmern join veteran mentors Alex Guarnaschelli and Curtis Stone to guide nine new home cooks through intense kitchen challenges and teach them to cook like pros.
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The eight-episode primetime culinary competition features each star chef leading a team of students with dishes judged by rotating cast of judges, including Richard Blais, Scott Conant, Haylie Duff, Duff Goldman, Carla Hall, Katie Lee, Jeff Mauro, Debi Mazar, Adam Richman, Aarón Sánchez and Geoffrey Zakarian.
During each episode, one home cook will be eliminated, leaving only the grand-prize winner standing with a $50,000 grand prize and bragging rights for their mentor star chef.
In the premiere episode, the first day of school kicks off with nine home cooks entering the Academy kitchen where they meet their mentors: Alex Guarnaschelli, Robert Irvine, Curtis Stone and Andrew Zimmern. For their first test, the competitors must prepare a dish using the contents of a lunchbox – ham slices, an apple, American cheese and milk. After the mentors judge the dishes, the cook ranking last is eliminated and the remaining eight get to choose their mentors based on their ranking. The mentors then face off to win a Save Card, which they can use in the future to save a member of their team from elimination and guest professor Carla Hall judges the cook-off using a new set of lunchbox ingredients. Upcoming episodes include an art-themed challenge creating structural desserts and a science-inspired test to incorporate the classical elements earth, air, fire and water into food. The All-Star Academy valedictorian will be awarded a $50,000 grand prize in the season finale on Sunday, April 3rd at 9pm.
This season’s competitors are: Lee Abbott (Santa Barbara, California), Natasha Clement (La Place, Louisiana), Anna Cooper (Houston, Texas), Lynn Duffy (Cold Spring, New York), Monica Folken (Las Vegas, Nevada), Zoe Kelly (Miami, Florida), Dain Lee (New York, New York), Lisa Washington (Atlanta, Georgia) and Jermaine Wright (Queens, New York).
Following the season two premiere on Sunday, February 14th at 10pm (all times ET/PT), All-Star Academy will air in its regular timeslot on Sundays at 9pm.