Chef Adalberto Diaz knows firsthand the pressure that comes with competing on national TV — the stresses of the time limits, the struggle that can come with thinking up recipes on the spot, and the juggling act of navigating it all under the bright camera lights.
Since competing on “Holiday Baking Championship” in 2015, the chef behind the Fillings & Emulsions bakery in Salt Lake City has become a Food Network regular. He’s competed on a number of shows, including “Best Baker in America” in 2017 and “Bake You Rich” in 2019 — which he won.
But a decade of TV appearances doesn’t mean it’s always smooth sailing for the Utah baker when he returns to the spotlight.
And that certainly wasn’t the case during the premiere episode of “The Ultimate Baking Championship.”
Adalberto Diaz hits a snag in ‘Ultimate Baking Championship’ premiere
On “The Ultimate Baking Championship,” which premiered on March 9, 16 top pastry chefs from across the country compete for a $50,000 grand prize.
As Diaz walked onto the set with his fellow competitors, he described the scene as a sort of “pastry Olympics.”
The competitors seemed visibly surprised by the intensity of the competition — by the end of just the first episode, the top 16 would go down to a top 10.
During the premiere episode, each chef had to complete two skills challenges. For the first challenge, the show split the 16 chefs into two groups of eight. The two bakers at the bottom of each group’s scoreboard would get eliminated after the challenge.
Diaz did well, receiving 15 out of 20 points from judges Duff Goldman and three-time James Beard winner Sherry Yard for his date pudding cake with passion fruit curd.
The Utah chef’s score put him in second place within his group of eight, keeping him safe from elimination. Overall, it placed him fourth in the top 12.
But the second challenge was a completely different story.
For the next round, the 12 remaining chefs were given two hours to prepare a dessert inspired by a defining moment from their past. Diaz, who talked briefly during the episode about running an illegal bakery in his homeland Cuba, drew upon tropical flavors like guava and coconut to make a napoleon — the only pastry he ever made in Cuba, he said.
“As a boy coming from Cuba, I never thought that I would be doing the things that I’m doing today,” he said on the show. “And now here I am.”
Diaz ran into some unexpected trouble near the end of the challenge, when he took his dish out of the blast chiller. To his dismay, the coconut mousse hadn’t set — meaning he couldn’t remove it without it running.
So instead, a visibly disappointed Diaz did the best he could to transfer it all to a loaf pan for his presentation to the judges. As the mousse spilled out into the pan and trickled over the sides, the chef went through a roller coaster of emotions.
“This is the biggest embarrassment,” he said as he tried to salvage his creation. “This is literally a nightmare. I just wanna leave. Like seriously, I just wanna walk away.”
But the two-hour time limit didn’t give Diaz much time for wallowing. Knowing that the flavors and textures of his dish could still give him a shot in the competition — and seeing that the top layer of the pastry fit perfectly in the pan — gave him a much needed morale boost.
“I feel that I have to push through,” he said.
Diaz delivered his napoleon to the judges in a loaf pan, already fairly certain he’d be one of the two bakers sent home at the end of the challenge.
“I know what you’re capable of. When I saw you walk out with that, I gotta tell you, I was incredibly shocked,” Goldman told Diaz.
Yard, meanwhile, described the final product as “tropical porridge.”
The judges ended up awarding Diaz 11 out of 15 points for the challenge, bringing his cumulative score to 26 points.
At the end of the episode, Diaz was among the bottom three bakers based on cumulative scores.
When host Jesse Palmer revealed the Utah chef would be the one moving forward in the competition, claiming the final spot in the top 10, Diaz was visibly emotional.
“I’ll make you proud,” he told the judges.
“Ultimate Baking Championship” airs Monday nights on Food Network, with episodes available for streaming the following day on Discovery+ and HBO Max.
Who is Adalberto Diaz?
Diaz’s colorful macarons and fruit desserts are on display at Fillings & Emulsions in Salt Lake City — which the chef has described as an “eclectic Latin bakery with a French flair."
“The last 12 years I have invested everything I have, everything, into my pastry shop,” Diaz said on the show, which included footage of his new location that features bright murals painted by his brother to highlight their Cuban heritage.
“When I win this competition, it will be a dream come true and that money is gonna go straight into my business and my amazing team of chefs and pastry chefs,” he said during the premiere episode. “I want to make sure that we make it out of these harsh economic times.”
Diaz emigrated from Cuba in 2000 and made a home in Utah, where he quickly began working in the food industry. He worked at a few places around Salt Lake City over the next decade, and earned the American Culinary Federation’s title of Pastry Chef of the Year in 2012. He opened Fillings & Emulsions the following year, as the Deseret News reported.
He’s also learned from chefs at Utah Valley University and taught his own culinary courses at the school for a few years.
Diaz’s appearance on “The Ultimate Baking Championship” comes on the heels of being nominated as a semifinalist for the prestigious James Beard award for outstanding pastry chef or baker.
He now represents Utah in a top-tier competition that showcases bakers spanning from Washington, D.C., to California.
“I am part of this community and this community has welcomed me to be part of it, and even bigger, this country welcomed me when I came here, and gave me an opportunity to be more where I am today,” Diaz told the Deseret News last year after his James Beard nomination. “And I wish that opportunity was given to more people because you don’t know how they would change the world.”