By Laurel Swanz
Paducah Sun
Chef Sara Bradley, a Paducah native and owner of Freight House Restaurant in Paducah, won the Food Network’s “Chopped: All American Showdown” on last week’s telecast.
Bradley previously competed on Bravo’s “Top Chef” in 2019, in which she was the runner-up. More recently, Bradley competed on “Top Chef: World All-Stars” and was a finalist.
From winning “Chopped,” Bradley earned a $50,000 prize as well as publicity for her restaurant — and Paducah.
“It’s yet to be determined what the impact will be. We’ve seen the effect of (‘Top Chef’) not just on my career but on the community,” Bradley said. “It has a really huge impact on Paducah, just the amount of people that it brings to town. People all over the world watch ‘Chopped,’ so it’s really a chance to bring a lot of exposure to my restaurant and to Paducah.”
“Chopped” marked her return to competitive cooking since having both of her daughters.
“I had stayed out of it, and I think it was just some confirmation that I really like the competitive cooking,” Bradley said. “It’s different from ‘Top Chef’ where you’re gone for 12 weeks and can’t see your family. This one took two days to tape. I didn’t feel the pressure on this one the way I had in the past, not to say that this was an easier competition, but it was a little less stressful.”
Bradley found the competition to be a pleasant break from her everyday life.
“It’s actually a little bit of an escapism for me, just to get to go and do my thing and not worry about anything else,” Bradley said. “Not worry about if the restaurant’s running or if we have deliveries coming or if my daughter has a dirty diaper. I just put my head down and cooked the best food that I could.”
Although the competition was just aired on TV Aug. 8, Bradley filmed “Chopped” over a year and a half ago (February 2022). Food Network prevented her from sharing details of the competition before it aired, meaning she had to keep her involvement with and winning of the show a secret.
Last week, Bradley was finally able to share her win with friends, family and the Freight House crew at a celebratory watch party. The Freight House crew knew if she won, they would get a piece of the prize winnings.
“I shared it with my staff,” Bradley said. “It’s impossible to be able to go away and do these types of things unless you have a really strong support system in your restaurant, and I have some really amazing managers and cooks and chefs and servers. It was nice to get to share a little bit with them.”
Bradley embraced her Southern heritage on the show, cooking with flavors one might expect to see at freight house and with techniques her mother and grandmothers first showed her.
“It taught me just to keep cooking my food,” Bradley said. “Just because people are giving you random ingredients and I’m competing against people with Michelin Stars and who have won ‘Top Chef,’ just to continue to cook my food. I don’t have to stray away from that.”
Bradley said that this is not the end of her competitive cooking career and that she has more planned for the future.
“We’ve got some more stuff in the works right now, but like I tell everybody you’ll just have to wait and watch to find out what it is!” she said.
Kentucky Today