Rat In The Kitchen: Release Date, Celebrity Host, And More - Everything We Know So Far
It's been nearly two decades since "Iron Chef America" first aired and in the years since, we have seen many variations on the cooking competition show. We've seen angry ones with lots of swearing. We've seen people book it through faux supermarkets. We've seen the celebration of people who can't cook. Yet, someone somewhere has decided that there is still something to be squeezed from the format and that something is coming in the form of "Rat in the Kitchen."
It will have the occasional angry outburst mixed with a premise that ensures plenty of hijinks. Adam Reed, the CEO of the show's producing studio, Thinkfactory Media, describes "Rat in the Kitchen" as a "[blend of] familiar elements from different beloved unscripted genres to create something wildly unique and fresh, yet simple and straightforward."
What does that mean? When and where can people watch the unsanitary sounding show? Who will oversee the latest attempts to spice up the cooking competition genre? These most pressing questions will be answered directly.
When is the release date for Rat in the Kitchen?
Anyone who has had their curiosity piqued by "Rat in the Kitchen" can look forward to its impending arrival later this month. According to the trailer, it will begin airing on TBS on March 31. And once it does, the show will run through its season with 10 hour-long episodes. Each episode will feature a stand alone competition in the manner of "Guy's Grocery Games," "Nailed It!," and the horde of baking championship shows that have come before them. "Every week, six new cooks compete, except one is secretly trying to sabotage them all and steal the prize for himself," the network teased.
The fact that when "Rat in the Kitchen" does air, it will do so on TBS goes some way towards explaining its existence. Their current roster of programming can boast of some of the biggest comedy shows on television, but they lack the cooking component that pretty much every other network has invested in.
Who will host Rat in the Kitchen?
Each episode of "Rat in the Kitchen" will have a new cast of competing chefs. However, the host and judge will remain the same throughout.
The host of "Rat in the Kitchen" will be the comedian Natasha Leggero, who's recent work has included starring on the 2020 sitcom "Broke," voicing Shannon in the animated sitcom "Hoops," and Netflix's "The Honeymoon Stand Up Special," which featured Leggero alongside her husband, Moshe Kasher.
Meanwhile, the person judging the food will be Chef Ludo Lefebvre, the chef of the lauded Los Angeles restaurant Petit Trois. The show may make a good distraction as, according to Lefebvre's responses to The Hollywood Reporter, he, like every chef, is suffering still from the effects of the pandemic. Food show fans may remember his 2015 appearance alongside Anthony Bourdain and Nigella Lawson on "The Taste." What he will bring to the chef judge character is yet to be seen. But the show's trailer does feature a good couple of clips in which he shouts and calls the food disgusting.
What is the plot of Rat in the Kitchen?
Ok. Ok. That's enough details. We really should deal with what "Rat in the Kitchen" is actually about. The premise of "Rat in the Kitchen" is that a bunch of chefs have gathered to compete in a display of culinary skill. However, one chef has been instructed by the producers to actively sabotage the competition.
According to the website's description of the show, each episode will end with a Clue-like denouncement of who they think the rat is: "If the cooks guess correctly, they win their bank, but if successfully duped, then the rat walks away with the cheddar." But the press release makes it sound like the quality of the dishes will also matter. So we'll just have to see how "Rat in the Kitchen" tries to navigate being a mystery show and a cooking competition.
If they can pull it off, then perhaps there is more that can be done with this rather saturated genre.