The final showdown of Harvey Mudd College’s 2025 Copper Chef Competition took place during dinner at the Hoch Shanahan Dining Hall on April 2. Between West Hall and Atwood Hall, the competition’s two opponents, West’s team proved victorious, securing them a dorm-wide dessert party, custom embroidered chef garb and bragging rights.
Mudd’s annual Copper Chef Competition involves two rounds during which the college’s dorms battle it out cookoff-style. This year, the first round took place on Feb. 26. The two winners, Atwood and West, graduated to Wednesday’s finale.
Each team was required to produce an appetizer and an entree for judging. Contestants had an hour to produce their appetizer and then another 30 minutes to get out an entree, so they were working on both dishes simultaneously.
Similar to the nationally televised cooking competition Iron Chef, contestants in Copper Chef are given a secret ingredient that they are required to incorporate into each of their dishes. The secret ingredient for Wednesday’s finale was pea tendril.
West’s winning menu consisted of a pea tendril, daikon and mango salad with soy sauce, garlic and black vinegar dressing, served in a bowl constructed of mango skin as their appetizer. Their entree was carne asada tacos with a pea tendril salsa verde, served with a side of esquites.
With the exception of one ingredient that teams were allowed to bring from home, everything that they needed was provided by the Hoch.
“They have a table laid out with some meat options and a lot of vegetables and some spices,” Katrina Nelson HM ’25, a member of West’s winning team, said. “But you can go up and say, ‘Hey, my favorite Hoch employee, could we have this special ingredient that isn’t on the table?’ And they’re very helpful. They blended our salsas and gave us some cheese and little plates.”
For West competitors, the key to success was a tight-knit and fun team.
“There were five of us in total, but only four of us at a time, just because people switched out,” Abdullah Fattahi HM ’26, another winning team member, said. He noted that his team was much smaller than those of his competitors, which on average had around seven or more people.
Although initially intimidated, West team members realized that their smaller numbers proved advantageous.
“I think the phrase ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ is very real,” Fattahi said. “There’s some point where you just kind of are in the way and not doing much, and then it kind of becomes unproductive. So I think we had a perfect amount.”
In approaching the cooking competition, the team embraced improvisation, whereas other dorms had practiced beforehand.
“I think West has a tradition of kind of winging it, like really doing it for fun, but then [West] actually has won pretty regularly,” Nelson said.
Fattahi agreed, pointing out that West won Copper Chef two years ago using the same “thrown together” methods.
“Just being ready to adapt was good,” Fattahi said. “West is always able to do things on the fly.”
The team said that they were surprised by the results, emphasizing that the competition was in no way a landslide.
“Before they announced that we won, they said it was really close, and I was like, wow, it’s impressive that we got that close to Atwood,” Ellie Sindler HM ’25, a West competitor, said.
In a post-victory reflection, Fattahi noted that West started with an inherent disadvantage.
“We’re one of, like, three dorms that doesn’t have a single kitchen,” he said. “The rest of them do have kitchens, so it’s kind of embarrassing that none of them could beat us. But also, I think the other teams competed really well.”
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