MasterChef The Professionals Thailand
MasterChef The Professionals Thailand is a cooking game show, spun off from MasterChef Thailand. It originally aired every Sunday starting on February 9, 2025 on Channel 7, and became the first series to make its debut in Netflix Thailand. The show is hosted by Piyathida Mittiraroch and the judges are, and Pongtawat Chalermkittichai. In this season, the contestants are professional chefs from various cooking show franchises, including chefs from Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, The Next Iron Chef, and former MasterChef contestants.
Episodes
Episode 1
Original airdate: Sunday, 9 February 2025The season begins with a brief introduction of all 18 professional chefs competing. Shortly before starting the competition, Chef Ian has offered each contestants a glass of mocktail to enjoy. Little do they know, there is a hidden card underneath with an alphabet that puts them into 6 different teams.
Professional Kitchen Challenge: In this challenge, each team will be responsible for their assigned chef's signature dish. The chefs are six head chefs from Hell's Kitchen Thailand, including Chef Ian Kittichai, Chef Pom Kwantip, Chef Willment Leong, Chef Pruek Samphanthawat, Chef R Teerapat, and Chef Off Nattawoot. The final teams and assigned dishes are the following:
The contestants will need to make no less than 200 orders total for 100 guests, and the head chefs will ensure the quality of each dish throughout the competition. They must replicate their head chef's signature dish with only a printed recipe packet available for self studying, as there are no demonstrations prior to the competition. There will be only 60 minutes per team to prepare before service. After that, they will be given only 7 minutes per order, and they must complete it on time no matter how many dishes each order needs or whether the order overlaps with the other orders. If they couldn't make it, the time count will be negative. Overall, the team with the best time management is Purple team.
- Preparation Time: 60 minutes
- Time limit per order: 7 minutes
- Winning team: Purple team
- Teams facing elimination: Yellow and Green team
Episode 2
Original airdate: Sunday, 16 February 2025Invention Restaurant: In this round, the bottom two teams from the previous challenge must compete for an elimination, with six different main ingredients for each contestants. To offer the chefs a small "relief" from stress, Chef Ian has offered each contestants a glass of mocktail once again; this time, whatever color glass they got determines the main ingredient chefs must cook with. The selections are the following:
The chefs will be competing in the theme of innovative Thai street food. They will have 60 minutes to prepare their dishes for the main judges and guest judges from --in total of 20 judges, 20 dishes.
- Time: 60 minutes
- Round winner: Chef Ged
- Bottom three: Lookchan, Max and Man
- Eliminated: Chef Max
- Time: 60 minutes
- Four best dishes: Jib, First, Quest and Chet
- Round winner: Chef Jib
- Bottom three: Jom, Lookchan and Beer
- Eliminated: Chef Beer
Episode 3
Original airdate: Sunday, 23 February 2025Skill Test: In this challenge, all 16 chefs are being tested with their knife skills, which splits into 3 different rounds. For each round, the first 3 chefs that finishes will grant an immunity spot for the week. This is determined by both their speed and accuracy.
Round 1: Tunnel bone from a whole chicken
Chefs must take out the tunnel bone from a whole chicken without tearing off any part of the skin and meat. The bones on the wings is an exception. For their final product, the chicken must remain in its original shape, and the tunnel bone must not have any excess meat stuck onto it. Each chefs are only given 2 whole chickens; meaning, mistakes can only be made once. As a result, Chef Tien, Chef Chet, and Chef Jareuk won the first round.
- Winners: Tien, Chet and Jareuk
In this round, the remaining chefs must filet a mackerel into a butterfly shape. There should be no bones left on the fish, and it must be a single piece without any holes and cuts in the middle. Its tail should also attach to each other. The inside of the fish must also be thoroughly cleaned. Each chefs are given 10 mackerels, and they must present 5 perfect butterfly mackerel filets. As a result, Chef Ged, Chef Man, and Chef Quest won the second round.
- Winners: Ged, Man and Quest
The last round of skill test measures both the chefs' knife skills and taste. For a professional chili fish sauce, they must use 50 grams of Thai red chili, 50 grams of Thai green chili, 50 grams of shallots, and 50 grams of garlic. All ingredients must be sliced equally throughout the bowl, yet the judges will also be checking for food waste; if a judge spot a contestant making food waste, they will lose the challenge. The taste must be authentic like the original. As a result, Chef Ploy, Chef Jib, and Chef Jom won the last round.
- Winners: Ploy, Jib and Jom
In this round, the 7 remaining chefs will be replicating a signature dish from Chef Pam, a Michelin-star chef that is named the 2025 World's Best Female Chef, yet she is also a judge in Top Chef Thailand. The dish that she prepared for the contestants is "Pigeon steak with red wine sauce and black pepper jam", which consists of 6 components: pigeon breast steak, confit pigeon legs, red wine sauce, chestnut purée, black pepper jam, and crispy leek as the garnish. The criteria is as follows:
1. The skin of the pigeon's breast must be crispy, the inside must cook to medium-rare.
2. The confit pigeon's legs must be thoroughly cooked, juicy and tender.
3. Chestnut purée must have a smooth texture, not too dry and clumpy.
4. All 6 components must be completed with everything taste and plate like the original.
Because this is a professional kitchen, all chefs only have the sample dish and a recipe packet to self study, and there will be no live demonstrations.
- Time: 60 minutes
- Round winner: Chef Keng
- Bottom three: Kaew, Zetrong and Toei
- Eliminated: Chef Kaew
Episode 4
Original Airdate: Sunday, 2 March 2025Mystery Box Team Challenge: In this round, all contestants will be working in pairs to cook a dish suitable for a food truck. They will be serving around 300 primary school students during the school's lunch time. The ingredients in the mystery box include chicken, carrots, corn, tomatoes, cheese, eggs, onions, potatoes, and green onions.
All chefs got the opportunity to pick their own pairs. However, there are 15 contestants left so far, which means one person will left with nobody, and therefore must work by himself--that fate falls to Chef Toei. The final teams are the following:
| Color of Food Truck | Members |
| Pink | Chef Toei |
| Yellow | Chef Jib and Chef Keng |
| Chef Kerr and Chef Lookchan | |
| Chef Chet and Chef Zetrong | |
| Chef Man and Chef Jom | |
| Orange | Chef Ged and Chef Jareuk |
| Chef Tien and Chef Ploy | |
| Chef Quest and Chef First |
Each pair will be serving in their own Saleng, or a bicycle version of a food truck. After the 60-minute preparation time is over, they all have to bike to school. For Chef Toei, he is given only a cart, so he must haul himself and the cart to school. After the chefs have reached the school, they will have 90 minutes to sell and serve their food to the students; the timer will start once the first team has reached the school. Each student will have 3 tickets to buy a meal from a team of their choice. Four teams with the most amount of sales will get an immunity for the week.
- Preparation Time: 60 minutes
- Selling Time: 90 minutes
- Winning team: Pink team
- Teams facing elimination: Red team, Green team, Orange team and Black team.
- Time: 60 minutes
- Round winner: Chef Jareuk
- Bottom three: Ged, Man and Jom
- Eliminated: Chef Jom
Episode 5
Original Airdate: Sunday, 9 March 2025Mystery Box 3: In this round, the 14 remaining chefs will be facing a mystery box challenge, with the main ingredient being curry powder. However, there's a twist: this week, the contestants choose which station they would like to work in, and that determines the order each chefs get to choose their second main ingredient. If they choose the first station, they get to go first, and so on. There are 14 different main ingredients available, one for each contestant. The final selections are:
- Time: 60 minutes
- Three best dishes: Quest, Ged and Ploy
- Round winner: Chef Ged
- Time: 60 minutes
- Round winner: Chef Ploy
- Bottom three: Keng, Jib and Chet
- Eliminated: Chef Chet
Episode 6
Original Airdate: Sunday, 23 March 2025Team Challenge 1: For this week's team challenge, all chefs are split into 2 teams. They will be cooking in the concept of sour dishes from the main ingredient: lime powder. It must include 2 savory dishes and 2 desserts per team. Since Chef Ploy wins the previous week's invention test and Chef Toei placed second, they are the team captains for this challenge. As the winner, Chef Ploy gets to choose her teammates first.
The guest judges today are 100 food merchants across Thailand, partially from The Restaurant War Thailand. In total, each team will need to make 416 dishes, and the judges will be tasting each team's dishes as well. They will have 60 minutes to prepare the dishes, and once the timer is up, the guest judges will enter immediately to come taste the dishes. They will have 40 minutes to serve all of their dishes.
- Preparation time: 60 minutes
- Service time: 40 minutes
- Winning team: Blue team
- Time: 60 minutes
- Two bottom-most dishes: Chef Jareuk and Chef Ged
Episode 7
Original Airdate: Sunday, 30 March 2025One-on-One Battle: With Chef Ged and Chef Jareuk's bottom entries in the previous episode, they must compete 1v1 to determine who will qualify to the next round. In this round, both chefs will be battling in series of main ingredients, where each ingredient will appear in different times while cooking. They are also given a mystery box that are ingredients limited for them to use for all 3 dishes. The inside of the mystery box includes wolffia (swamp algae), tomato, pumpkin, bitter melon, brussels sprout, baby carrot, parmesan cheese, chocolate, kiwi, almond, puff pastry, red beans, and pandan leaves.
The first main ingredient is beef tongue, and they initially have 40 minutes to cook a dish out of it. However, in the last 10 minutes, they faced another main ingredient of chicken gizzard, and have an additional 15 minutes to cook both dishes. While both chefs are concentrating on their two dishes, they were announced the third and last main ingredient to cook in the last 15 minutes of the timer, and that is pomegranate; they must create a dessert dish in addition to the past 2 dishes. The judges added 10 minutes to the clock. In total, both chefs have 65 minutes to cook 3 dishes.
- Total time: 65 minutes
- Battle winner: Chef Ged
- Eliminated: Chef Jareuk
Then, each contestant is given only 3 minutes to pick only 12 additional ingredients in the MasterChef supermarket. After the contestants have picked up their ingredients, they are told to switch baskets with the person in front of them. Eventually, Zetrong switches with Toei, Keng with Tien, Lookchan with Kerr, Ploy with First, Ged with Quest, and Man with Jib. With their friend's basket and the two main ingredients, they must create a dish to their best ability in 60 minutes.
- Time: 60 minutes
- Round winner: Chef Tien
- Bottom three: Jib, Zetrong and Quest
- Eliminated: Chef Quest
Episode 8
Original Airdate: Sunday, 6 April 2025Mystery Box 4: The episode start off with an appearance of Sandy Yanisa, an artist under Heliconia Music, performing her debut song. The song lyrics included 10 different dessert menus, which is eventually this week's Mystery Box challenge: desserts. The lyrics mentioned banoffee, brownie, bingsu, cookie, croissant, choux cream, muffin, macaron, waffle, and honey toast. The contestants must choose at least 1 of the 10 mentioned desserts and create a signature out of it. They have 60 minutes in this round.
- Time: 60 minutes
- Three best dishes: Keng, Ploy and Tien
- Round winner: Chef Ploy
In this round, the remaining contestants must remake a random Thai curry and must use all correct spices in their assigned curry whilst putting in their creativity to the professional level. They must draw a random curry to create a dish from a gashapon machine, and the final selections are:
Before the round begins, Chef Ploy have the opportunity to give the curry recipe specifically to 3 chefs. She decides to give them to Tien, Ged, and Zetrong. Each contestant have 60 minutes to create the best creation of their drawn traditional Thai curry dish.
- Time: 60 minutes
- Round winner: Chef Zetrong
- Bottom three: Man, Ged and Kerr
- Eliminated: Chef Man
Episode 9: Vote Back (Part 1/2)
Original Airdate: Sunday, 20 April 2025Mystery Box 5: In this round, the 10 remaining contestants must create a deep-fried, crispy dish with limited ingredients including pork belly, tiny crabs, Japanese tofu, shishamo, Chinese yellow noodles, jasmine rice, taro, banana, sesbania, Japanese scallion, eggplant, and vegetable oil. Each contestant have 60 minutes to create a dish, and they are told that 2 people will be eliminated from this round.
- Time: 60 minutes
- Two best dishes: Chef Ged and Chef Keng
- Round winner: Chef Keng
- Bottom three: Tien, Lookchan and Zetrong
- Two bottom-most dishes: Chef Lookchan and Chef Zetrong
- Eliminated: Chef Zetrong
Vote Back : In this series of challenges, the show has invited Zetrong and the other 8 eliminated contestants back to compete for a second chance opportunity, and only one chef will be chosen to return. The first round is in the theme of Cocktail Party, where the 9 chefs must make their cocktail dish creation for more than 100 guests, 150 cups total, with the main ingredient: chicken. Each cup must be no less than 30 grams, and is graded by taste and creativity. They will be serving 100 guests who are supercar lovers, the judges, and the 9 contestants who are still in the competition at Siloo'et House in Nonthaburi. In total, each contestant have 60 minutes to prepare each on their own and 40 minutes to set up after arrival.
- Preparation time: 60 minutes
- Set up time: 40 minutes
- Four highest scorers: Jareuk, Zetrong, Quest and Max
Episode 10: Vote Back (Part 2/2)
Original Airdate: Sunday, 27 April 2025Bidding Battle : In this challenge, the four remaining chefs must compete for the main ingredient that they each want to cook with. There are four ingredients and each will appear one by one, where the difficulty will increase each time. Every main ingredient comes with Sriracha sauce, which is the other main ingredient that they must combine with in their dish. The chefs must compete for the main ingredient they want in exchange of their cooking time, and whoever auctions with the least cooking time will granted themselves the desired main ingredient. The starting time for auction is 75 minutes. However, whoever is the last with no ingredients yet will have to cook with the last mystery ingredient, and they have only 30 minutes for their dish. The final selections are the following:
In the end, Chef Quest wins the challenge and granted the ticket to return as a contestant in this season. Sadly, the other 3 chefs ended their journey in this season.
- Returned to the competition: Chef Quest
- Time: 43 minutes
- Round winners: Chef Kerr and Chef Tien
- Bottom three: Keng, Jib and Ploy
- Eliminated: Chef Jib
Episode 11
Original Airdate: Sunday, 4 May 2025Mystery Box 6: In this last Mystery Box of the season, the 9 remaining chefs are given 35 different ingredients to cook with, including every components from vegetables and fruits to protein, carbohydrates, and seasonings. However, each ingredient came in a one-bite portion, and there will be no additional ingredients given to them. They must only use what is given to create a dish to the best of their ability, given 60 minutes to cook them. Winner of this round will grant themselves an immunity for the week.
- Time: 60 minutes
- Three best dishes: Ged, First and Lookchan
- Round winner: Chef First
In this round, the 8 contestants must compete for their desired dessert and drink set to create a professional level café meal. For the first 5 sets, the chefs are given a sign with their names, and they have to raise their sign as fast as they can for the set they want to cook with in hopes of receiving it. If there is a tie, the judges made the chefs do a tiebreaker. In the last 3 sets however, the judges made the remaining contestants do series of physical activities to compete for their desired café sets. The first set among that is by a 20 push-ups challenge, and the second set is by a 20 spinning crickets challenge. The chef that didn't grant themselves any sets in prior must cook with the third and last set, which is also considered the most difficult. The final selections are the following:
- Time: 60 minutes
- Round winner: Chef Quest
- Bottom three: Ged, Keng and Lookchan
- Eliminated: Chef Keng
Episode 12
Original Airdate: Sunday, 11 May 2025Pressure Test 3: This round is the last round before the chefs enter the semi-finals. In this round, the judges welcomed Chef Willment Leong, a culinary leader based on Thailand who is the continental director for Asia, a head chef in Hell's Kitchen Thailand, as well as a judge in Top Chef Thailand. Chef Willment have prepared a mystery dish, in which is his signature, that includes fish sauce as the main ingredient. It is a mystery since the contestants are given nothing but a sample plate to taste, visualize, and observe as much as they can to fully replicate Chef Willment's dish; with that said, neither recipe nor list of ingredients are given. In 60 minutes, the contestants must replicate the dish to the best of their ability with accuracy in visuals, ingredients used, and the taste of the overall dish.
- Time: 60 minutes
- Round Winner: Chef Quest
- Bottom three: Tien, Toei and Lookchan
- Time: 20 minutes
- Eliminated: Chef Lookchan
Episode 13: Semi-Final
Original Airdate: Sunday, 18 May 2025Gala Dinner for Charity: In the semi-final round, the 7 chefs will each be responsible for one course in the gala dinner--in total of 7 courses for 100 guests. In the previous episode, the contestants have drawn randomly the course they are responsible for, alongside the main ingredient that goes with it. The final selections are the following :
Each chef have a budget of 12,000 baht to buy all the ingredients necessary to fulfill their dish for 100 guests, excluding the main ingredient that is already given. They must plan everything accordingly in every component of their dish, as well as plating and the flow of flavors being passed on from each course. The 100 guest judges consists of the majority being charity donors, sponsors, and the judges. In addition, this round welcomes Chef Ton Thitid, the owner of Le Du that ranked first in Asia's 50 Best Restaurant in 2023, as well as a judge in Top Chef Thailand, to be the special guest in this gala dinner.
- Special Guest Judge: Chef Ton Thitid Tassanakajohn
- Prepararion time: 4 hours
- Service time: 1 hour
The results were announced on Episode 14, and it turns out that Chef Quest had the best overall performance and was the first to qualify to the grand finale. Hence, Chefs Ged, Toei, Tien, and Ploy are also qualified to the final round. Sadly, Chef First and Chef Kerr are disqualified, partially because they were unable to serve all dishes on time.
- Round winner: Chef Quest
- Eliminated: Chef Kerr and Chef First
- Grand Finalists: Quest, Ged, Toei, Tien and Ploy
Episode 14-15: Grand Finale
Original Airdate: Sunday, 25 May & 1 June 2025This season's grand finale is different from other seasons. Instead of giving time for the finalists to plan out and present their 3 signature courses, the competition to find the winner is split into 4 rounds. In each round, the finalist that scores the least will be disqualified from competing the upcoming rounds and eventually end their journey in this season.
Round 1: Time Management
In the first round, all 5 finalists must create a professional level menu out of beef shank, which comes in an entire huge leg that aren't cut into pieces for the chefs to cook. Since this round is testing their time management skills, they only have 50 minutes to prepare 3 dishes of their beef shank menu.
Furthermore, the judges surprised the finalists during the round with another main ingredient: durian flavored coconut condensed milk. They must use this ingredient to create another dessert menu in the remaining 25 minutes alongside their main course, adding another 3 dishes in this round.
- Total time: 50 minutes
- Time for dessert: 25 minutes
- Round winner: Chef Tien
- Eliminated: Chef Quest
In the second round, the remaining 4 finalists must elevate the main ingredient, chicken neck, that costs 30 baht per kilogram to a professional, 500 baht worthy dish. They will have 50 minutes to prepare 3 dishes for the judges.
- Time: 50 minutes
- Round winner: Chef Tien
- Eliminated: Chef Ploy
In the third round, the remaining 3 chefs must cook with the main ingredient: shirako (milt). They will have just 50 minutes to create a menu and serve 3 dishes for 3 judges, testing their problem solving skills and the knowledge of this ingredient.
- Time: 50 minutes
- Round winner: Chef Toei
- Eliminated: none
For their final dish in this season, the 3 finalists get to cook with truffles, offering them all the chance to create their best signature dish that will conclude their journey in this season. They all get 60 minutes to prepare 3 dishes, one for each judge. The person with the best presentation in this round will be crowned the winner of MasterChef The Professionals Thailand, granted with MasterChef trophy and 1,000,000 baht.
- Time: 60 minutes
- Third place: Chef Tien
- Runner-Up: Chef Ged