Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Next Level Chef’ On Fox and Hulu, Where Gordon Ramsay Challenges Teams Of Chefs To Cook In Kitchens Both Great And Terrible

We always imagine reality show producers sitting around a conference table trying to find new wrinkles for formats that are now decades old. Whoever had the fever dream that helped create Next Level Chef — maybe brought on by not-so-fresh sushi, maybe by a viewing of the Netflix horror movie The Platform — should get credit for taking the cooking competition format and putting it in multiple kitchens. One kitchen is awesome, one is functional, and another is terrible. How cool is that? But what actually will make or break the show are its mentors: Gordon Ramsay, Nysesha Arrington and Richard Blais.

NEXT LEVEL CHEF: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Gordon Ramsay working in an amazing kitchen. “Every great chef started at the bottom,” as we pan down to a not-so-great kitchen, with Ramsay working there, too, “to work in the toughest kitchens in order to level up.”

The Gist: The idea behind Next Level Chef, hosted by Ramsay (who is also an executive producer, of course) is that three teams of five chefs — some professional chefs, some home cooks, some who have made their names on social media — will be challenged in each episode to cook a dish in one of three kitchens. They’re mentored — and judged — by Ramsay and fellow chef superstars Nyesha Arrington and Richard Blais.

The kitchens are in a remarkable-looking three-story, open set. The top kitchen is an amazing modern kitchen, with every gadget imaginable and the best tools you can buy. The middle kitchen is a standard commercial kitchen with no frills. The bottom kitchen looks like something out of an ancient take-out joint, with dull knives, limited gadgets and refrigerators that look like they were dragged out of someone’s basement. One mentor supervises each group, reminding them that these aren’t the final teams.

In the first episode, the 15 chefs were split into three groups of 5 and were sent to a particular kitchen by luck of the draw. Those in the top kitchen got their pick of ingredients from a massive table that stopped at their floor for 30 seconds. The other two kitchens pick from what’s left, with the same 30 second limit.

The dishes the chefs make in the first episode helps the three judges/mentors decide who is on each of their teams. After tasting all the meals — the mentors only know the identities behind the meals made in the kitchens they supervised — they go round by round picking chefs for their teams, playground style. At one point, Ramsay tries to steal a chef away from Blais, but for the most part the draft goes smoothly. Eliminations start in episode 2; the winner will not only get $250,000, but will spend a year being mentored by Ramsay, Blais and Arrington.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The show is more or less in Top Chef format with the competition factor of Battle Of The Brothers, mixed with the 2019 Spanish-language, Netflix horror movie The Platform (minus the barfing and cannibalism).

Our Take: Because the show had to cover 3 kitchens and 15 chefs, the first episode of Next Level Chef moved along quite nicely. It didn’t get bogged down in scenes of people chopping or having issues with their meals or fake-rushing to finish as time counted down. We got to know a few of the contestants a little bit, and there was some bumpiness with a contestant that Arrington dubbed as cocky and another that forgot to grab a protein, but the actual drama during the cooking phase was minimal. Most of the chefs did a surprisingly good job with their dishes, at least according to the mentors.

Where the real fun of Next Level Chef comes in is not only with the three different kitchens, but with the mentors themselves. First, the kitchens: We’ll be intrigued to see how the kitchen assignments are decided as the show goes on. Will it continue to be luck of the draw or will it be on merit? Will the winning team from the previous episode get the best kitchen, etc.? Will certain teams be doomed to the crummy kitchen multiple episodes in a row?

There will be a point where all three teams will have experienced all the kitchens and figured out how to navigate within them and work with whatever choice of ingredients they get. That’s when the kitchens themselves will likely become an afterthought — except for one scene we saw in a coming attractions montage where Arrington disgustingly dumps one contestant’s dish over the railing of the top kitchen. Let’s hope there are more moments like that.

That brings up the mentors themselves, all well-known by food competition viewers and all with strong personalities. Ramsay, of course, is yelly but compassionate. Blais is a rah-rah guy but also amazingly creative. Arrington, as we see, is blunt and no-nonsense. We see how they react during the team draft when someone picked who they wanted.

That’s where the episode really came alive for us. The mentors’ competitive energy will drive these teams, as will their personalities. Of course, there are other shows like this (like The Voice), and the coaches/mentors tend to outshine the contestants. With the number of contestants in the first episode, that’s definitely the case. But as the number of chefs are winnowed down, let’s hope some storylines emerge ala Top Chef.

Parting Shot: “Get some rest; I promise you you’re gonna need it,” Ramsay tells the 15 contestants now that they have their teams.

Sleeper Star: Roice, the chef that forgot to get a protein, managed to make a grilled cauliflower steak that wowed the mentors. That’s some next level stuff (pun intended).

Most Pilot-y Line: Could the mentors mention the title of show any more times? “This will prove that you’re a Next Level Chef!” they all say in some variation about 10 times each. We get it; the name works on many levels (pun intended).

Our Call: STREAM IT. Next Level Chef will likely ride on the competition between Ramsay, Arrington and Blais long after the three-level kitchen gimmick becomes less novel. We hope some of the contestants begin to stand out as their numbers get smaller.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Next Level Chef On Fox.com

Stream Next Level Chef On Hulu