'BBQ Brawl''s Season 6 Has a New Twist — Why Bobby Flay Likes the Change (Exclusive)

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The sixth season of BBQ Brawl premiered on Food Network on Sunday, June 1
Flay tells PEOPLE new captains Maneet Chauhan and Antonia Lofaso give the show "renewed energy"
Season 6 also features a new rule in which the winner of the first challenge gets to pick their captainBBQ Brawl's sixth season premiered earlier this week with a new twist: The winner of the first challenge gets to pick their captain.
Bobby Flay, who faces off with fellow captains Maneet Chauhan and Antonia Lofaso, says the shakeup from previous seasons, in which captains picked their entire teams, changes the dynamic — in a good way.
'We always want to be that person because everybody has an ego,' Flay tells PEOPLE. 'And so it kind of got turned around on us for a second, which I actually liked.'
The first episode, which aired Sunday, June 1, saw chef Aarthi Sampath choose to be on Lofaso's team.
Flay says the new season has 'serious renewed energy,' thanks to the addition of Lofaso and Chauhan.
'When I asked them to do this, they prepared themselves so incredibly well for so long prior to shooting this,' he recalls. 'I mean, they did tons of research. They were practicing, cooking, all this sort of live-fire cooking, and they really brought their own sort of energy and attitude and obviously flavors to it. And I will say that they kept me on my toes the entire time.'
The culinary star adds that Lofaso is 'all about impactful flavors.'
'She's so intense in her mentoring in the best way,' he explains. 'She's very dedicated to her team. She wants them to do really well. She's almost kind of like a proud mom to them.'
Chauhan, he observes, is 'a master with Indian flavors and ingredients.'
'It was really interesting watching those ingredients come to life in this sort of very classic American function of barbecue,' he notes.
The new season, set at Star Hill Ranch in Austin, Texas, sees 12 new brawlers face off in teams led by Flay, Chauhan and Lofaso, aiming to win over returning judges Carson Kressley, Brooke Williamson (whom Flay began dating earlier this year) and Rodney Scott.
Flay says the series' contestants tend to be 'students of the show.'
'They pay very close attention,' he says. 'Obviously, I've been on every season, so they kind of know what I like and what I don't like, what my style's going to be, how I'm going to mentor them, and those kinds of things.'
'They don't know who the other two mentors are going to be until they get there, but I think that every season, they seem to be better,' he continues. 'And I think it's not that everybody's better than the prior seasons, but they're just more schooled. So they know, they kind of drill down on what they need to do to win.'
When it comes to fan reactions to the long-running series, which premiered in 2019, Flay says 'everybody has an opinion' on barbecue.
'And so we get a lot of feedback of, 'I wouldn't have done it that way and my grandfather would've never thought that was good.' And then people are like, 'I can't believe I have all these new ideas about barbecue. I never thought about it that way.' So it kind of goes both ways. But the one thing about it is people are watching it and they're interested in it and I love when people have opinions about stuff. I think if it was all just good or all just not good, there's no reason to watch. But when there's a conversation about it, which there is tons of conversation about BBQ Brawl, it works.'
Read the original article on People