"reality tv" news and stories

What do you get when you take Top Chef, mash it together with Shark Tank and toss in a bit of The Apprentice? Apparently, it's America's Next Great Restaurant (a.k.a. what NBC hopes will be America's next great reality-TV show when it debuts on March 16, 2011).

It doesn't take more than 30 seconds of the promo clip released by the network to get the gist here: You've got a representative cross-section of starry-eyed hopefuls with big dreams of success (in this case, opening their own restaurant chain) and four expert judges who furrow their brows a lot and seem to have mastered the art of the "dubious glance." (As happens when one contestant says he's leaning toward a chain that only serves vegetarian food.)

Bobby Flay leads the team of judges, which also includes Australian celebrity chef (and KitchenDaily contributor) Curtis Stone, restaurateur Lorena Garcia, and Chipotle founder Steve Ells. The four will not only anoint the winner; like the popular Shark Tank, they'll invest in the winning concept as well. It all makes for what NBC is billing as the biggest prize ever on any reality show: the launch of a restaurant chain in three U.S. cities.

And what peek do we get of the concepts in play? One woman is hawking her concept Wok, "stir-fry for the healthy heart," while another guy is pushing "kabob sliders."

Then we've got the cast-off from the Jersey Shore who wants to take his grandma's meatballs national. The name of his proposed chain? "Saucy Balls."

Oh, how we hope that he makes it beyond episode one.

Once again, Slashfood takes the time to catch up with our favorite reality-TV chefs as they're asked to leave the national stage and return to their respective kitchens. As we've done in the past, we try to avoid spoilers, so click through to read our exit interview with the latest exiled 'Next Iron Chef.''

We can just imagine the possibilities if there ever was an American version of the hit Japanese reality TV show Kintanachelin: Paris Hilton, propped up next to an East L.A. taco truck eating tongue quesadillas. Or Donald Trump holding court at Shopsin's -- back when it was in the West Village, if at all possible. Whatever you do, Hollywood, just don't hire Guy Fieri to host.

Leave it to the Japanese to take our all-American obsession with dive restaurants, add a dash of highbrow culture-clash to the mix, a few laughs and serve up the latest reality show craze. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Kintanachelin takes "slumming it" to a whole new level. Fueled by a weakened economy and a hunger for all things both delicious and cheap, the show plops a variety of stars -- dressed up to the nines, no less -- into the seats of some of Japan's grungiest, most cramped eating establishments.

When the casserole thickens, the plot thins. Or at least that's how it's beginning to seem on "Chef Academy," Bravo's one stop shop for midlife crises, psychosomatic illnesses and, every so often, fabulous French cuisine.

Against our better judgment -- and lack of anything better to do, now that Top Chef is over -- we've been watching this strange amalgam of "Hell's Kitchen" and "The Real World," waiting for something, anything, to pique our interest.

Barring that, it would be nice, seven episodes in, for the usually foaming-at-the-mouth Chef Jean Christophe Novelli to live up to his image as a plate throwing, Pepe Le Pew-sounding tyrant and actually flunk one of his nine misfit pupils, as he's been threatening to do for weeks.

And now, as if to reward us for our inexplicable patience, Bravo is dumping the last four episodes into our living rooms, two a piece, this week and next. And if -- spoiler alert -- they still haven't managed to kick anyone off the show (something tells us these "amateurs" all signed full-season contracts), at least things are finally getting interesting.

Photo: Stephane De Sakutin, AFP/Getty Images

Hot-headed celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is finally waking up from his kitchen nightmare.

The reality show "Kitchen Nightmares" put Ramsay in failing restaurants across America for one week so the tell-it-like-it-is chef can try to turn the struggling businesses around. But the show proved too troublesome for the salty U.K. chef, who says he's through with it.

The foul-mouthed Brit admits the show's title is a little too fitting: "If the restaurants succeed, there's no praise," Ramsay told The Sun. "If they're screwed, we're blamed and get lawyers' letters."

More than two-thirds of the restaurants Ramsay "helped" ending up being sold or shut down, the paper said.

Slashfood attempted to contact the production company, Granada Entertainment, to clarify if both the American and British versions of the "Kitchen Nightmares" are canceled -- our calls were not returned.

[Via The Sun]