World Food Championships winners: Indy chefs take world titles

The World Food Championships winners were crowned in Indianapolis this weekend after four days of cooking that brought more than four hundred teams from thirty-five states and fourteen countries to the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Ten new world category champions emerged from the October competition, held at the Indiana Farm Bureau Fall Creek Pavilion, where four days of cook-offs, tastings and live demonstrations drew crowds of food fans. The champions now advance to the Final Table next spring, where one of them will be named the overall World Food Champion.

The event, presented by Sam's Club, bills itself as the world's largest food sport competition, with a prize purse topping four hundred thousand dollars on the line. This year's World Food Championships winners were chosen from contests across ten categories, from bacon, barbecue and burgers to dessert, live fire, noodles, sandwiches, seafood and a vegetarian bracket. "Every year, the World Food Championships brings together remarkable culinary talent and challenges competitors to deliver their best under pressure," founder and chief executive Mike McCloud said in a statement from the championships, congratulating the ten new champions on earning a place at the Final Table.

Hometown chefs take the top prizes

Two of the ten world titles stayed home. Craig Baker, the executive chef of the InterContinental in downtown Indianapolis and a vice president of Team Indiana, won the World Chef Championship, while Jordan Davis of Carmel, founder of the Smoking Pastor Project, took the World Barbecue Championship, according to the Indianapolis Star. Their wins headlined a deep run for the local squad across nearly every bracket it entered.

The rest of Team Indiana kept the momentum going. Cindy Hawkins, the team's president and owner of Circle City Sweets, finished second in the dessert category, with Jennifer Brumley of Baked Knightly in Kokomo close behind in fifth. Dean Sample of Bonge's Tavern placed second in bacon, while Ivy Tech culinary instructor Danny McDonald finished sixth. Collin Hilton of the Cunningham Restaurant Group and Brian Mendenhall of the Central Nine Career Center took second and third in the vegetarian category, Brian Laneve of Off Square Brewing placed seventh in noodles, and Elyse Beggs of Indianapolis finished seventh in live fire, the Star reported.

The remaining World Food Championships winners came from around the country and overseas. David Casey of Brockton, Massachusetts won the World Bacon Championship; Tatewaki Takano of Tokyo took the burger crown; Bethany Boedicker of Galveston, Texas won dessert; Adi Melkman of Utrecht, Netherlands won live fire; Pablo Aquije of Hyattsville, Maryland won noodles; Phil Johnson of Phoenix, Arizona won the sandwich title; Ricardo Viesca Gutierrez of Sarasota, Florida won seafood; and Jacquelyn Gausemel of Washington took the vegetarian championship.

A skills crown, and what comes next

The weekend also crowned a winner in a brand-new contest that ran alongside the crowning of the ten World Food Championships winners in the category finals. Chef Preston Nguyen of Arlington, Texas won the inaugural Culinary Combine, a fast-paced skills challenge that tested speed, precision and accuracy across ten timed rounds. Nguyen, whom organizers describe as the only two-time World Food Champion, set records in nine of the ten rounds to take the overall title.

The championships describe the format as food sport: a structured, judged contest that puts cooks and culinary teams through opening and final rounds on a level playing field, with live demonstrations, tastings and interactive experiences for fans around the competition floor. Each of the newly crowned World Food Championships winners advanced through those rounds to claim a category title, and the ten will now prepare for a head-to-head cook-off at the Final Table next spring.

For the ten World Food Championships winners, the road now leads to the Final Table in the spring of 2027, where they will cook against one another for the title of World Food Champion. The championships, which debuted in 2012, say the competition has inspired more than ten thousand new dishes and works with local nonprofits, charities and food banks in each host city. The full list of World Food Championships winners is posted on the event's results page, and the competition is expected to return to Indianapolis next fall.