South Jersey chef Britt Rescigno to face Jose Garces in Food Network’s ‘Tournament of Champions’

Burlington County native Britt Rescigno is carving out a reputation for herself in the cooking-competition circuit. After winning Chopped in 2019, beating Bobby Flay on his namesake show in 2022, and winning $15,000 on Guy’s Grocery Games earlier this year, she’s steadily out-cooking opponents in the current season of Tournament of Champions.

Now in its fourth season, the Food Network show pits 32 chefs — including a mix of Top Chef winners, Iron Chefs, and James Beard Award winners — against each other in a series of bracket-style, timed battles. In the first episode, lowest-seeded Rescigno polished off Top Chef and Tournament of Champions season three winner Tiffani Faison. She remains in the game three episodes later, after having defeated TV chef Darnell Ferguson. In the episode airing April 2 at 8 p.m., Rescigno faces top-seeded Iron Chef Jose Garces. (Garces recently opened a new outpost of Amada in Wayne.)

Raised in New Gretna, N.J., Rescigno grew up working at her grandparent’s restaurant, Allen’s Clam Bar, before attending the Culinary Institute of America in upstate New York. She spent a few years working in California, then returned to New Jersey to head up the kitchen at Delaware Avenue Oyster House in Beach Haven. (She recently left to focus on a residency in Seattle.)

Follow Rescigno’s progress on the show on her Instagram, @chef_rescigno.