The Philippines Is Coming For Iron Chef Thailand: Meet The Four Chefs
The kitchen heats up, the clock starts, and the secret ingredient is revealed. For four Filipino chefs, this time the pressure comes with a television audience across Asia watching. AC Agra, Sonny Mariano, Maverick “Mav” Javier and Mia Carla Yan are representing LTB Philippines on Iron Chef Thailand VS Asia Season 2, the international spin-off of Thailand’s long-running Iron Chef franchise. The new season begins streaming on Netflix October 10.
Iron Chef Thailand has been on air since 2012 and is one of Thailand’s longest-running food competition franchises. VS Asia takes the familiar Iron Chef battle and turns it into an international contest: the first season brought together national teams from Thailand, China, Singapore, India and South Korea for one-on-one and team battles, with the highest-scoring team claiming the Iron Chef Asia Trophy. The show was produced for distribution across 25 Asian countries.
For the Philippines, the four chefs come through LTB Philippines Chefs Association, the country’s Worldchefs-affiliated professional chefs’ organization and the group behind the National Culinary Team Philippines. This is not new territory for LTB. In 2016, its 24-member national team defeated teams from Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong and Malaysia at the FHA Singapore Culinary Challenge, winning Best Culinary Establishment with 17 medals.
The four bring considerable competition experience of their own. AC Agra, now Executive Chef of Antonio’s Group of Restaurants, is part of the new leadership team taking over the group’s day-to-day operations as founder Tony Boy Escalante moves into a strategic role. He represented the Philippines at the 2024 Worldchefs Global Vegan Chefs Challenge in Singapore, where he and apprentice chef Julie Ann De Guzman helped the country win a Bronze Trophy. Sonny Mariano, Executive Chef of Tasteless Food Group, was part of the 2016 National Culinary Team Philippines and earned Gold and Silver medals at FHA Singapore that year. Mav Javier, Corporate Executive Chef of Rekado Global Food Solutions, was named Chef of the Year at the 2024 Philippine Culinary Cup after an eight-medal finish and won silver at the 2025 Worldchefs Global Chefs Challenge Asia Regional Semi-Finals.
Mia Yan, Executive Sous Chef of Tsukiji Restaurant Makati and an adviser to the Philippine Young Chefs Club, was also part of the 2016 national team and has since built an international judging résumé, serving as a Worldchefs Continental Judge at culinary competitions in Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, the Maldives and the Philippines. Together, the four bring years of competition experience, but Iron Chef Thailand VS Asia will put that experience to a different test: cooking under the clock, against international competitors, with the secret ingredient still to come.
What happens when these four competition veterans walk into the Iron Chef kitchen, face an unfamiliar secret ingredient and cook against some of Asia’s best? Whatever lands on the plates, it should be worth watching.