Casablanca – Moroccan cook Issam Jaafari won the title of the best chef in the Arab world in the televised competition organized by MBC’s Top Chef, which ended on Thursday, December 16.
The TV program is the Arabic version of Top Chef, which saw the light for the first time in the United States on Bravo TV in 2006. It was first reproduced in the Arab world in 2012 by the Lebanese TV channel ABC and the Egyptian channel Rotana and only welcomed Middle Eastern participants. MBC’s version began in 2016 and was open to participants from the Middle East and North Africa.
In this year’s season, Moroccan cook Issam Jaafari competed against an Egyptian and a Syrian contestant in the final challenge and won the 13-week long competition, beat 15 contestants from the entire Arab world.
The jury of the competition was composed of three of the most famous culinary experts in the Arab world: Egyptian-Chinese chef Bobby Chinn, Saudi chef Mona Mosli and Lebanese chef Maroun Chedid.
These chefs and other culinary experts who hosted the show were given the task of choosing the participants who demonstrated the highest levels of endurance and who were able to succeed in the various weekly challenges. Every week, the contestants scoring the lowest were asked to “hand his [or her] knives and leave.”
Upon his victory, Chef Issam Jaafari won $100 thousand dollars, a Cadillac XT5 car, a full spread in Hospitality News magazine, as well as the opportunity to participate in a renown hospitality industry fair.
