King of Culinary

Each contestant will pit against one of three veteran chefs head-to-head, whom each hold one signature culinary knife placed under a shelf, and sitting chefs are backed as judges. At the start of each match, the contestant choose one of the chef and a designated ingredient required for cooking, but was not allowed to duplicate a cooking method. The contestant have up to 40 minutes to cook their dish, with the first 10 minutes set as a handicap for the veteran chef (one hour with a 15-minute handicap in season one), to prepare a dish and present it to a panel of three judges for testing and evaluation. The judges then make a decision to decide the winner for the match. Since season two, contestants have to defeat a mentee chef first before they could challenge against the three chefs, meaning that the contestant was now required to win four matches (one disciple and three chefs) to acquire all three knives. "Help cards" are also added, allowing the contestant to change the course of a match.^[4]

When the contestant wins a knife, they are given an option to either keep their winnings or risk them to challenge another chef, but each contestant could only challenge a chef once. The payout structure for each win were $2,000, $3,000 and $4,000 ($1,000, $2,000 and $5,000 in season one). However, if the contestant loses to a chef at any point, the game ends and any cash winnings won are forfeited, but was allowed to keep any knives won for victorious matches up to that point. Season four exclusively added an option to directly challenge a guest chef, skipping the other two chefs for $4,000 and any remaining knives if they win.

Season three also added a season finale, dubbed The Final Showdown to determine the overall champion with a prize of up to $16,000.^[10][11] In season four, with the exception of the Tamil version, any contestants who won at least one knife in either the Chinese or Malay versions would be invited to the season finale where the winning chef would win a $5,000 cash bonus and $2,000 SharkNinja vouchers; there is no "final showdown" special.

Season five, as the title suggests, "the comeback" features past contestants competing for a second time to either win more money and/or knives, under the same rules following the season two format.^[9]

At the end of season 1, 10 out of 26 chefs had won at least one set of knife for winning a match (Teo won 8 out of 12 matches, Pung won 7 out of 11 matches, and Neo won 8 out of 11 matches);^[12] one of the winning contestant, Royce Lee (with two episodes airing 18 and 25 September) won two knives and $2,000 though not deciding to risk the prize money to contest Neo for the third knife.^[13]

At the end of season 2, Teo won 3 out of 5 matches, Pung won 3 out of 5 matches (with one draw), and Neo won 4 out of 6 matches. A few chefs also won two knives but did not risk it for a third knife. The season finale feature a fight between the disciples and the chefs, with the latter winning.^[14]

At the end of season 3, one chef named Zakiyah Jaleel become the first contestant to win all three knives; she competed against Vietnam-Chinese home cook Hue Tran Thi Ngoc Anh and Indian cook Gopica "Rasathi" Rasiah in the final showdown.^[15] Hue won the showdown.^[16]

At the end of season 4, chefs who secured at least one knife were invited to the finale in episode 10 in the respective divisions. In the Chinese version, four chefs won at least one knife: The winner was Amanda Chia, who also previously competed in the fourth season of MasterChef Singapore, Bernice Tan became the runner-up, while Jason Ang and Tee Leong Choon both finished as semi-finalists.^[17] In the Malay version, two chefs won at least one knife: Nabawi Mohktar was the winner while Hidayat was the runner-up.^[18] In the Tamil version, Ilayaraja was the winner.^[19]