Here are the six Tampa Bay contestants for 2025’s ‘Epic Chef’ competition kicking off in June

To help celebrate the 10th installment of Epic Chef—Feeding Tampa Bay’s friendly cooking competition—the nonprofit is kicking things up a notch this year.

The 2025 installment will feature six local chefs instead of the usual four, plus a boost in the winner’s prize money.

Each summer, during the local industry’s “slow season,” Feeding Tampa Bay and its sponsors host a multi-week cooking competition between local chefs from both sides of the bridge. The chef that wins all three rounds takes home the grand prize, which is a whopping $10,000 this year—a sum that represents Epic Chef’s ten-year anniversary.

This year’s competitors include:

• Eat Art Love’s Executive Chef Mario Brugnoli,
• Amalie Arena’s Executive Chef Marvilou Mapa,
• Chef de Partie Angel Gaston of Rooster & the Till,
• Robert Blanque of Martin’s Italian in Oldsmar,
• Wild Child’s Brandon Greenwalt
• Miguel Bravo, who is getting ready to open his own Tampa restaurant called Ocho Trece.

These six local chefs offer a range of experiences, cuisines, techniques and backgrounds that will be put to the test at the Epic Chef series this summer.

At the kick off party on Monday, June 23, these six chefs will create their signature dishes while attendees sample them and vote for their favorites. Four chefs with fan favorite dishes will continue to the competition series, with each round pitting two of them against each other in a “Chopped”-style competition with unknown ingredients, a time limit, and a live audience.

Round one kicks off on July 14, round two happens a week later on July 21, while the finale party takes place on July 28 at South Tampa’s Epicurean Theatre (1207 S Howard Ave.).

Tickets for the four Epic Chef 2025 events happening this summer at Tampa’s Epicurean Theatre are not yet available, but they do sell out quickly each year.

Head to feedingtampabay.org or follow @feedingtampabay on Instagram for more information on 2025’s Epic Chef competition, plus all of the volunteer opportunities and events that the nonprofit hosts throughout the year.
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This article appears in Apr 17-23, 2025.