There’s a moment early on in the first episode of Next Level Chef (ITV1) when Padstow restaurateur Paul Ainsworth, one of the judges on this new cooking competition, turns to Gordon Ramsay and takes the mickey: something about the head judge not having worked in a real kitchen for years. It’s forced banter, but it does point to why Next Level Chef is a breathless, bewildering gabble of a show. This is a cookery contest that is so obsessed with contrived competition that it almost completely forgets about food.
A dozen contestants – a mix of professional chefs, social media influencers and people who just make good scran at home – are split into three teams, each mentored by one of the judges. They cook within a huge metal structure built on three layers. The top-floor kitchen is state-of-the-art, the middle level is a normal working kitchen and the dreaded basement is a greasy mess of outmoded appliances, unseasoned pans and wonky stoves. Create the week’s best dish and your team gets to use the top kitchen next time; cook one of the two worst and you face the “cook-off”. The loser of the cook-off goes home, and what’s left of that contestant’s team is consigned to the basement next time.
Next Level Chef leans further into its multi-storey gimmick. An open-sided dumbwaiter shuttles up and down, heralding the start of the week’s task by descending from the roof and stopping first at the top floor, where the chefs have 30 seconds to choose and pick up ingredients. After that, the grub shelf plummets to the middle level, where that team has the same amount of time to select from whatever the top floor didn’t want. Finally, the basement gang sift through the dregs. If you take an ingredient, you have to use it. You then have 45 minutes to cook whatever you like: the second that time limit is up, the moving platform ascends again and if your plate isn’t on it, your work won’t count.
If the point of reality cookery is to find talent and inject it into the UK food scene, you do wonder how useful success in this steampunk Ready Steady Cook is likely to be. Not everyone has the specific set of skills required. When the ingredients elevator descends, former army chef Selwyn panics and indiscriminately scoops as many foodstuffs as he can carry, ending up with something so eclectic it looks as if he’s coping with an unexpected domestic freezer defrost – because, remember, you have to use every ingredient you take. Scared of falling foul of this rule, home-maker Tia goes too far the other way and restricts herself to just a tomato, a potato and a duck breast.
“It’s a minimal grab,” comments her mentor Nyesha Arrington, who knows the relevant terminology having also judged Next Level Chef in the US. Arrington is presumably a terrific chef, but the judges hardly ever offer any wisdom about how to actually cook – the opening week’s big takeaway is that, while you must be careful not to overcook a rack of lamb, it’s also crucial not to undercook it. They’re there to motivate, adrenalise, high-five and harry the participants, while constantly repeating the phrase “next level” as if it were a sponsor slogan. “Grab a protein! Grab a vegetable!” says Arrington as her team swarm around the nosh lift. “Next-level cooking, guys!”
Later on, Ainsworth is jubilant when he tastes an excellent pork chop: “That is some serious next-level cooking!” When the completed meals of all three teams are laid out, Ramsay surveys them and approves. “Some great dishes. Definitely next-level.”
Next Level Chef revolves around Ramsay, so it’s convenient that his team (“We may be down in the basement but … we are cooking next-level!”) contains the episode one winner, which means he oversees the eliminator. The two under-threat contestants can use the top kitchen, but they have 30 minutes instead of 45 and, most dauntingly, Ramsay looms so closely over them his chin is almost dragging in their beurre blanc.
Under the strain of the time limit, plus her well-meaning teammates shouting that her cabbage is burning, one contestant crumbles, looks up at Ramsay and desperately blurts out: “I love you.” This is less embarrassing than it sounds – because she’s not the first. At the top of the show, before any ingredients are vertically distributed or any countdown clocks activated, social media chef Jade does the same thing during an introductory Ramsay pep talk. She can’t believe she’s on a show with Gordon Ramsay himself – not the chef, but the mentor from other cooking contests.
What she’ll actually cook for him doesn’t seem that important. Competitive TV cookery is eating itself.
