This battle was one for the ages—or rather, of the ages.
Hell's Kitchen crowned Alex Belew as its 21st victor on Feb. 9 after a season that pit 40-somethings vs. 20-somethings in the hopes of becoming Gordon Ramsay's executive chef at Hell's Kitchen Caesar's Atlantic City. In the end, the 41-year-old beat out Dafne Mejia, 29, and Alejandro Najar, 28, to claim the $250,000 prize.
"I had no clue it was coming, it was a toss-up," Alex exclusively told E! News of his win. "Dafne had gotten pretty strong towards the end winning a bunch of competitions and challenges. She's much younger than I am, so I did not know what was gonna happen. So, when I walked through that door, my head hit the floor."
In fact, once the competition had narrowed down to the final five black jackets, Alex was the lone remaining member of his original team forced to face off against four younger chefs.
"There's no scenario where I think the 40-year-olds had an advantage," he admitted. "My teammates were getting assassinated from the moment we stepped in the kitchen. It was brutal. As someone who was on that team while it was going on, in my head the whole time, I was like, 'What the hell is happening? This is a nightmare.'"
But it wouldn't be Hell's Kitchen without a little torture. And Alex is all too familiar, enduring the most punishments handed out during the season with nine (the record is currently held by Jon Scallion from season 11 with 13).
"It was definitely backbreaking. Those things like sorting peppercorns and rice grains with tweezers [are] really, really exhausting," he confirmed. "It definitely kept me grounded."
Punishments are doled out weekly following team challenges while the winners get to go on rewards. However, they're not necessarily always a bad thing.
"Leaving to do a reward is almost damaging in some ways because it pulls your head out of the game," Alex pointed out. "You get out of the competition mode and you get to let loose. A few times when somebody went on a reward, when they came back they might have gone home that night."
As for one of the biggest challenges throughout the competition: the notorious blind taste test.
"I'd love to claim that I had COVID and it ruined my palate," Alex joked of his performance. "I had the loudest death metal music I've ever heard playing in my ears. So, you can't even think or concentrate. You are blindfolded and everything that you taste tastes like nothing. It's been manipulated, but it's overcooked, it's not seasoned, so it all tastes like mush."
He continued, "So, the pistachio that I tasted that I thought was polenta was pureed. I tasted this smooth, course, gritty puree in my mouth and I was like okay, that tastes like unseasoned polenta, but it was pistachio. The steak tastes so dry, like the proteins were shredding in your mouth like turkey. It's so hard to tell what things are."
Still, Alex said he'd do it all again. Perhaps on an All Stars season, but ideally as a sous chef, following in the footsteps of Christina Wilson and Jason Santos—past contestants (and in Christina's case, a winner) who serve as Gordon's leaders in the competing red and blue kitchens.
The season 21 champ also shared the advice he learned from the MasterChef star.
"Gordon's quote that was the theme of the season, he said it off camera a few times, was never let anything get in your way," Alex revealed. "A lot of times as humans, we hit roadblocks, we hit walls, and we tend to give up. You have to push through that stuff and you have to push through the pain and the discomfort and that's really when true growth happens."
He concluded, "It's just really about pushing yourself harder than you generally would."
Hell's Kitchen has already been renewed for season 22, but you can catch Gordon Ramsay in the post-Super Bowl slot when Next Level Chef returns for season two Feb. 12 on Fox.