History YMMV / CutthroatKitchen

*** Chef Jourdan explains that she intends to serve a chorizo flipped-up French onion soup and an heirloom and herb salad with her Monte Cristo. When Alton warned her that chefs have been sent home for trying to do two things, her response is a glib [[ComicallyMissingThePoint "Yeah? I'm doing three things."]]

*** First, she gets stuck in the pantry. Alton takes her ''broccoli''. She apparently "had plans for it", but what broccoli would be doing in a ham and cheese sandwich is not clear.

* HeartwarmingMoments: A Season 10 episode features a brash, older chef named Chef Kapo, who's a culinary teacher. When he eventually wins, he reveals his motivation:

* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming: A Season 10 episode features a brash, older chef named Chef Kapo, who's a culinary teacher. When he eventually wins, he reveals his motivation:

*** Interestingly, chakalaka sauce is very traditional on eggs in South Africa, where Chef Paul is from.

** Interestingly, chakalaka sauce is very traditional on eggs in South Africa, where Chef Paul is from.

** In the Club Sandwich round, one chef spent over $15,900 over two auctions to give the sabotages of golf clubs and gloves that HAD to stay food-free to one chef. This would have been a wise investment had the victim been sent off. [[spoiler:But it didn't. Instead, the Italian chef put salmon and bleu cheese in the sandwich. In cooking (''especially'' Italian cooking), pairing fish and cheese is a no-no but the decision to use salmon and ''bleu'' cheese was beyond idiotic. In fact, the chef he was trying to sabotage mentioned this trope by name. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard He got sent off instead]].]]

** The first course of "Evilicious Tournament Finale" had a doozy; Chef Matt- the ''same Chef Matt from above''- manages to spends about ''$31,000'' (the highest amount spent in Cutthroat Kitchen history up at that point) to take away a chef's ability to use salt. What does he do? [[spoiler:He gives it ''to the opponent who's supposed to be making his spaghetti and sauce'', on the "logic" that if their dish is worse, he will have the better component. [[LaserGuidedKarma Except he didn't, and got sent home for dry meatballs.]]]] Simon Majumdar was quite baffled by that one, stating in the After Show "he should have been thrown out just for being a doofus."

** People don't like the fact that the "winners" of that show have frequently won a small pot of cash. Whereas other shows guarantee $10,000; $25,000; $50,000 or even $100,000; over 75% of the winners in this game win less than $7,500. Only TWO chefs were able to win the full $25,000 without counting the Judge's episode [[spoiler:in which Antonia Lofaso won the game with $22,000 under regular rules]] (and the latter was because there was only one round with actual auctions in the entire episode). The most money won in a single episode where the winner bid is $24,600.[[note]]Won by chef Eric Greenspan in "Superstar Sabotage: Heat Three"[[/note]]

** The first course of "Evilicious Tournament Finale" had a doozy; Chef Matt- the ''same Chef Matt from above''- manages to spends about ''$31,000'' (the highest amount spent in Cutthroat Kitchen history up to that point) to take away a chef's ability to use salt. What does he do? [[spoiler:He gives it ''to the opponent who's supposed to be making his spaghetti and sauce'', on the "logic" that if their dish is worse, he will have the better component. [[LaserGuidedKarma Except he didn't, and got sent home for dry meatballs.]]]] Simon Majumdar was quite baffled by that one, stating in the After Show "he should have been thrown out just for being a doofus."

** The first course of "Evilicious Tournament Finale" had a doozy; Chef Matt- the ''same Chef Matt from above''- manages to spends about ''$31,000'' to take away a chef's ability to use salt. What does he do? [[spoiler:He gives it ''to the opponent who's supposed to be making his spaghetti and sauce'', on the "logic" that if their dish is worse, he will have the better component. [[LaserGuidedKarma Except he didn't, and got sent home for dry meatballs.]]]] Simon Majumdar was quite baffled by that one, stating in the After Show "he should have been thrown out just for being a doofus."

** People don't like the fact that the "winners" of that show have frequently won a small pot of cash. Whereas other shows guarantee $10,000; $25,000; $50,000 or even $100,000; over 75% of the winners in this game win less than $7,500. Only ONE chef was able to win the full $25,000 without counting the Judge's episode [[spoiler:in which Antonia Lofaso won the game with $22,000 under regular rules]]. The most money won in a single episode where the winner bid is $24,600.[[note]]Won by chef Eric Greenspan in "Superstar Sabotage: Heat Three"[[/note]]

** People don't like the fact that the "winners" of that show have frequently won a small pot of cash. Whereas other shows guarantee $10,000; $25,000; $50,000 or even $100,000; over 75% of the winners in this game win less than $7500. Only ONE chef was able to win the full $25,000 without counting the Judge's episode [[spoiler:in which Antonia Lofaso won the game with $22,000 under regular rules]]. The most money won in a single episode where the winner bid is $24,600.[[note]]Won by chef Eric Greenspan in "Superstar Sabotage: Heat Three"[[/note]]

--> '''Chef Psilakis''': "How am I gonna make Kung Pow Chicken without chicken?"

** One chef in the final round initially went all out and bid her entire remaining pot ($8900) to force her opponent, who had more than twice that, to outbid her. On the next sabotage, she jumped the gun and accidentally bid her entire pot again even though her opponent's pot wasn't much bigger than her own now, meaning she would be walking away with absolutely nothing even if she won. [[spoiler: She didn't.]]

--> '''Chef Matt''': "What did they say: when you're in a hole, don't keep digging?"

*** She learns later that she grabbed butter from the pantry instead of cheese, meaning that the only cheese she has to work with is whatever was melted onto the soup. Cue massive OhCrap moment.

*** In the end, Judge Jet Tila chides her for the extraneous side dishes, and tastes beef and onion in her sandwich INSTEAD of ham and cheese, and Chef Jourdan goes home.

* NegatedMomentOfAwesome: In the episode "Kiss My Grits", first round is nachos. ''Chopped'' champion Chef Willen gets distracted and fails to get both tortilla chips and cheese in the pantry. To get around that, she tries making "Paleo diet" nachos, using skirt steak, avocados, and using oven-roasted crispy chicken skin in place of the nachos. [[spoiler: Chef Willen gets distracted again during plating, and forgets to take her skins out of the oven, and Jet Tila eliminates her. Because one other chef prepared a dish that had raw shrimp, it's likely Chef Willen would've survived with the chicken-skin nachos.]]

** Winning chefs have noted that while the sabotages are interestingly creative, losing an ingredient or a tool and having to improvise is a fairly common experience in the kitchen.

* ShockingElimination: In the final heat of "Superstar Sabotage", [[Series/IronChef Alex]] [[Series/{{Chopped}} Guarnaschelli]] got eliminated in the first round due to a well-timed sabotage. She was expected to at least go to the final round.

** "This is chicken nuggets." [[labelnote:Explanation]]Said by Judge Jet Tila after a chef introduced a dish as "[[ https://onsizzle.com/i/breaded-chicken-piccata-with-lemon-jasmine-rice-this-is-chicken-794193 a breaded chicken piccata]]."[[/labelnote]]

** More so than adding extra ingredients, the WhatAnIdiot trope applies to anyone who puts an object that is NOT food in their final dish as a decoration or otherwise. This move is considered by Food Network to be dangerous, and adding something like a plastic lure from a tackle box is grounds for instant disqualification from the show no matter what else happened that round. Other cooking shows such as ''Hell's Kitchen'' also frown heavily on this.

** During a Spaghetti and Meatballs round in Season 1, one chef pays $6,500 for the right to confiscate all of a single ingredient type from one opponent. He goes to his chosen victim, whose basket is crammed with boxes of pasta, and takes...the single bulb of garlic she got from the pantry. No one can believe this, including Chef Penny Davidi (the victim) and Alton:

** [[spoiler:The chef who sabotaged her loses in the second round, a chicken wing challenge. Forced to stuff his wings, he is called out by Jet Tila for lazily stuffing them with stringy carrot and celery ribbons and for trying to pass off a bottled sauce as his own creation.]]

*** [[spoiler:This lead to the $24,600 win described above under BaseBreaker above.]]

* EngineeredHashtag: In later seasons, when a contestant does something the showrunners expect will get discussed a lot on social media, a caption will suggest a hashtag for it.

* BaseBreaker: For many, [[AudienceAlienatingPremise the very format of the show]]. Look on various message boards and you'll find people who have difficulty accepting the JerkAss / psychopath-based gameplay mechanics and how it gets in the way of true culinary talent and ingenuity à la ''Chopped'' in favor of simply screwing over your competitors. Add to the fact that the theme dishes seem to be too simple on purpose. For others, they praised it for giving a cooking competition a unique twist, and shows on the innovation and determination of the contestants themselves when facing unique obstacles in their life.

* TheScrappy: ''The entire show and its premise'' compared to ''Chopped'': see Base Breaker above.

* {{Squick}}: Those sabotages where the contestants are forced to share hand tools SCREAMS of squick, especially with the risk of cross-contamination. Contrast this sabotage with "replace cooking utensils for self", where you can at least control which utensil touched what and reduce the risk of cross-contaminating your own food. This is one of the reasons this type of sabotage has become rare in newer seasons.

** In Season 12, a chef injured herself during the competition for the first time in the show's history, slicing her finger very badly. The injury and blood were blurred out.

* EngineeredHashtag: In later seasons, when a contestant does something the showrunners expect will get discussed a lot on social media, a caption will suggest a hashtag for it.

* XMeetsY: ''Chopped'' for psychopaths; alternatively the JerkAss version of ''Chopped''. Considering the nature of the show, [[NotTheIntendedUse Life Hacks]] meets ''Chopped'' would also be an apt description.