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Cha Woo-jin isn't used to finishing second. In « Final Table », Chang Ryul will play a perfectionist chef who has always dominated the kitchens and competitions he’s entered—with one exception. Years earlier, a chef whose identity he did not know dealt him his only defeat. When he learns that this mysterious rival will be competing on «The Table: K-Chef 2026,» Woo-jin decides to enter the competition himself.
«Final Table» will bring together Korean chefs from around the world for «The Table: K-Chef 2026,» a competition to determine who deserves the title of best Korean chef. After Ahn Hyo-seop and Hong Hwa-yeon, the new stills give us a glimpse of Chang Ryul in the role of Cha Woo-jin, a contestant who isn't just there with the ambition to win.
For him, this competition is also a chance to settle an old score.
A single defeat that Chang Ryul has never forgotten
Woo-jin is the head of the Exception Restaurant, considered the best contemporary restaurant in Korea and backed by the Pyungyeon Group, the leading company in the restaurant industry. A culinary prodigy since childhood, he has immense confidence in his abilities and takes defeat particularly hard.
His perfectionism doesn't stop at the stove, by the way. Woo-jin organizes both his work and his daily life according to precise routines and expects the same level of rigor when managing his kitchen and staff. Every action and every preparation must meet his standards.
For a long time, this drive allowed him to stay at the top. But one event continues to haunt him: in a past cooking competition, Woo-jin finished in second place. For the first time, someone had managed to beat him.
Even more frustrating for him was that the person responsible for that defeat remained anonymous. So Woo-jin was never really able to get his revenge.
«The Table» will give him a chance for revenge
The situation changes when he discovers that the chef who had once defeated him plans to compete on «The Table: K-Chef 2026.» This news is enough to convince Woo-jin to enter the competition as well. His goal then becomes very personal: to find his former rival and face him once again, hoping to prove that his second-place finish was just a fluke.
The first photos of Chang Ryul show Woo-jin right in the thick of the competition. As methodical as ever, he supervises his team members while preparing his own dishes.
Other images show him leaving the kitchen to visit various markets in search of the ingredients he needs, confirming that his obsession with precision is likely to be a constant throughout each challenge.
Above all, this quest for revenge adds a new twist to the competition. Woo-jin won’t simply know which chefs he has to beat; he’ll first have to identify the one who handed him the only defeat he’s never been able to forget.
It remains to be seen who is behind this mysterious rival and what will happen when they finally come face to face.
«Final Table» will begin airing on October 24 at 10:40 p.m. (KST) on jTBC and will be available worldwide on Prime Video. We can't wait to check it out!
