Bravo has taken one part cooking show and one part travel show to bring viewers a culinary whirlwind spanning the entire globe. The network’s new culinary competition series, Around the World in 80 Plates, takes twelve chefs around the world to cook, learn about unfamiliar cultures and their cuisine, and most likely stab each other in the backs with their perfectly sharpened chef knives. The combination of Top Chef skill, the Amazing Race stamina, and Survivor strategy is sure to satisfy the hunger of even the most discerning reality TV junky.

 

Hosted by chefs, Cat Cora and Curtis Stone, the cheftestants will travel 60,000 miles to face off in a different international city with its own set of unique challenges each week. Unlike Top Chef though there is no panel of judges to determine who goes home each week. After completing challenges in teams, similar to Top Chef’s Quick Fire and Restaurant Wars, that dollop of cutthroat Survivor behavior comes into play. Each week, chefs will cast their vote to eliminate another team member who they consider to be the “weakest ingredient” of their overall dish.

In last night’s premier episode, the cheftestants raced around London to sample an assortment of the city’s traditional pub fare, and the finest English beers, of course. After the chefs learned about the local cuisine, customs, and culture they preceded to takeover a pub kitchen to recreate the pub favorites, such as fish and chips, a ploughman’s sandwich, and black pudding. The judges for this aspect of the series are local patrons of the restaurant that has been taken over by the 80 Plates chefs. The locals then judge the presentation and taste of the dish created by the cheftestants.

Future episodes of the series will include stops in Argentina, Chile, Italy, Morocco, Spain, Thailand, and Uruguay. Check out Bravo’s website for more information and chef bios.

Around the World in 80 Plates is on Wednesday night’s at 10/9c.