Who Is the 'Culinary Class Wars' Season 2 Winner? All About Choi Kang-rok

The second season of Culinary Class Wars has come to an end, and Netflix has crowned its big winner. After a season of epic cooking challenges and blind taste tests, Choi Kang-rok, a White Spoon chef and the only returning contestant from Culinary Class Wars season 1, has clinched the title.

“I’m not someone who makes food that’s exceptional,” Choi says during the finale, which dropped on Netflix on January 13, 2026. “I’m just like all the unseen chefs across the country who quietly and diligently work in their kitchens, and like all the people who simply cook for a living. I’m just one of them. I’ll keep your words close to my heart, and I’ll cherish the relationships I made here, and I’ll continue to devote myself and my thoughts to food.”

The final, 90-minute showdown of the Korean reality show required Choi and fellow finalist Black Spoon chef Lee Ha-sung, A.K.A. “Culinary Monster,” to create a dish around the theme “Just One Dish For Myself.” Considering the two contestants are trained to cook for others, they both admitted to finding it challenging.

Lee made a sundaeguk, or blood sausage soup, inspired by the meals he would eat after going to the bathhouse with his dad as a child. But, ultimately, it was Choi’s soup with sesame tofu, served alongside a bottle of soju, that won him the competition and 300 million won (roughly $203,000) in prize money. Judge Ahn Sung-jae called Choi’s creation “a really honest dish,” and voted unanimously with Judge Paik Jong-won to give Choi the win.

Read on to learn more about Culinary Class Wars Season 2 winner Choi Kang-rok, including where you can see the celebrity chef next.

Choi Kang-rok had an unconventional, manga-inspired start to cooking.

Choi Kang-rok, 47, didn’t start as a cook. He wanted to be a drummer. He originally saw his part-time kitchen jobs as a means to pay for music gear, instead of a vocation. But after reading Mr. Sushi King, a manga about a teenage boy who becomes a sushi chef, he began to wonder. Two failed sushi shops later, he enrolled at Japan’s prestigious Tsuji Culinary Institute, and a future began to take shape.

He became a public figure in Korea in 2013 when he won the second season of MasterChef Korea. Before the competition, he was working in an office as a tuna trader, trying to pay off debts accumulated from several failed restaurant ventures. He applied for the show after seeing a commercial and during a night of drinking. He would go on to win the entire competition.

He is a celebrity chef in Korea.

Choi Kang-rok’s TV resume goes beyond MasterChef and Culinary Class Wars. He was a guest on the short-lived series What Shall We Eat Today - Delivery in 2016 and became a regular cast member on Please Take Care of My Refrigerator in 2024. Last year, he hosted the Netflix cooking show The Blank Menu For You. Each episode, Choi makes a meal with the help of kitchen assistant Moon Sang-hoon for a different Korean celebrity based on their open-ended request. Famous guests have included Love Next Door’s Jung Hae-in, BLACKPINK’s Jisoo, and SHINee’s Key.

Choi is also the author of two books: 2023’s recipe collection Choi Kang-rok’s Cooking Notes and 2025’s essay collection Cooking For Life. While promoting the latter at the 2025 Seoul International Book Fair, he said of his writing: “I wasn’t sure if it was okay to put those trivial stories out there. But I ended up writing down the small, everyday things from the life of an ordinary working person.”

He came onto 'Culinary Class Wars' season 2 as a "Hidden White Spoon" after losing season 1.

In Culinary Class Wars season 2, Choi was a unique contestant because he was the only one who previously appeared on the Netflix series. Choi also competed as a White Spoon chef in season 1 of the reality hit. He was eliminated in the third round as part of the losing team in the “Black vs. White Team Challenge.” Though he had a chance to save himself in the subsequent Consolation Round, the hot peppery saury he created in under 40 minutes from convenience store items wasn’t enough to save him.

Heading into season 2, Choi was one of only two “Hidden White Spoon” contestants. The new game mechanic featured two losing White Spoon chefs from season 1 as they returned during the opening “Black Spoon Elimination Challenge” for the chance to join the season 2 White Spoon chefs. Michelin-starred chef Kim Do-yun did not make it through the challenge, but Choi secured both judges’s approval with his braised eel and vegetables. "They say if you do nothing, nothing will happen,” he said of his return. “And it did seem like nothing would happen, so I decided to come back."

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He doesn't currently have a restaurant, but does have a new cooking show.

Choi’s most recent restaurant, a Japanese restaurant called Neo, located in Seoul’s Songpa district, closed in early 2025, despite a surge in bookings following the conclusion of season 1. Presumably, Choi closed the restaurant to focus on other activities. In addition to Culinary Class Wars season 2 and helping to create one of the historical dishes in the hit Netflix K-drama Bon Appétit, Your Majesty, Choi is starring in a new YouTube travel series called Food Otaku. The series will see Choi traversing across Japan in search of the nation’s best ingredients. The first episode is already available to watch on YouTube.

Whatever’s next for Choi, it will probably look different from what’s come before. Speaking at the Seoul International Book Fair in August, he told listeners that he dreams of opening a library/kitchen space that allows for cooking, but also houses his vast collection of cookbooks. “As I approach my 50s, I’m thinking about how both my body and cooking will naturally change with age,” he said. “I’m preparing for a kind of cooking that evolves with these changes.”