I'm a big fan of Chef John as well. The value I find with Kenji is less the recipes themselves than the articles that come along with them. He explains how he arrived at each of those ingredients:
What's useful here is that you can make less ambitious versions of the full recipe (using canned beans and/or cheaper meat, using ground spices rather than grinding your own, etc.) while still benefitting from some of the tricks he found (chocolate, vinegar, liquor, soy sauce/Marmite, etc.).
I also want to point out that not all of Kenji's Serious Eats recipes are "the best X ever". Some are simpler and quicker, like this chili recipe. This is much closer to Chef John's recipe in terms of complexity.
https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-make-the-best-chili-ever-...
What's useful here is that you can make less ambitious versions of the full recipe (using canned beans and/or cheaper meat, using ground spices rather than grinding your own, etc.) while still benefitting from some of the tricks he found (chocolate, vinegar, liquor, soy sauce/Marmite, etc.).
I also want to point out that not all of Kenji's Serious Eats recipes are "the best X ever". Some are simpler and quicker, like this chili recipe. This is much closer to Chef John's recipe in terms of complexity.
https://www.seriouseats.com/easy-pork-three-bean-chili-food-...