The venue are chosen randomly, there is no way to choose the venue before the duel :( Therefore it is advised that you should take a week off to max out a venue before playing Chef Duels again :D
Personally, I don't think there should be balanced be…
Just simply replay that level and reach the 5 star goal :D After the 3rd season, every subsequent season only requires reaching 3 stars in its 10 episodes to unlock expert mode on that respective season :3
Have you tried using boosts that double coins for customers that appear most frequently in the level besides the King Cakes that applies Happy Hour? I hope that helps since that's what I did in previous venues :D