Food Network has strayed far away from its glory days of instructional cooking shows. They’re no longer interested in teaching the audience how to cook. Instead, they’re just packing their schedule with wall-to-wall competition shows, and their latest concoction might be the strangest one yet. It’s a Chopped spinoff taking direct inspiration from Survivor.
Chopped Castaways will see elite chefs compete on an island
If you thought Deal or No Deal Island was a weird concept, Food Network has somehow come up with something even weirder. According to a new report from Variety, they’ve just greenlit a new series called Chopped Castaways, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s Survivor meets Chopped.
The synopsis reads, “Battling the elements across two grueling cooking rounds each week, competitors must build a working kitchen from basic supplies, earn their signature Chopped ingredient baskets through intense physical challenges, and cook entirely over open fire.”
Season 1 will bring together 12 elite chefs, and each episode will start with them competing in physical challenges. They’ll have to do things like spearfish and dive headfirst into the ocean to secure their ingredients.
Although this show doesn’t have a direct connection to Survivor, the similarities are very apparent. The game will start with the chefs broken into teams, which they might as well just call tribes.
However, as the season progresses, it’ll be every chef for themselves as they attempt to “outlast their rivals,” the synopsis explains. The sole chef will win a $100,000 grand prize.
Queer Eye OG and longtime Chopped host Ted Allen will return to host the competition along with familiar Food Network faces on the judges panel: Gabe Bertaccini, Maneet Chauhan, and Marcus Samuelsson.
Chopped Castaways premieres on May 12 at 9/8c on Food Network. You can stream it the next day on HBO Max.
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