Chef cinq étoiles

It first had me at "there must be a hidden gem somewhere"... only to completely lose me immediately after that.

"epitome of luxury five-star hotel", "start their empire and be worth millions", "the most expensive thing I'll ever make", "they need to make money".

Five star five star five star blah blah blah (I know it's in the title), concept concept concept, money money money blah blah blah. It's the most infuriatingly cheugy thing I've seen for a while. It's like the Dubai-influencer kind of a show. Yes, I know restaurants are businesses, and fine-dining is expensive but guys... come on, have a wee bit of class? You can be bougie all you want, but not cringey and cheugy at this level? And I know it's a competition reality show, but you can't go shark tank all the way? After all, cooking still needs some artistry, authenticity, soul and personality, not just bling.

It's extra troubling to learn about the report of Roux paying kitchen staff below minimum wage. Just imagine that in your head, in 2023, when economic inequality is horrendous, some employees are scraping by just to have something to eat, while someone is gorging on caviar for the "five-star" lifestyle at the expense of the said employees.

The only saving grace is the cheftestants who seem like genuine people striving to meet the "five star" - whatever that means - brief.

I always love watching Michel Roux. And I thought, these must be really top chefs to be considered for this position. But they are not. I can't believe any one of them could run a 5 star restaurant at a luxury hotel. I don't think the winner will be there for long. I certainly would not pay a fortune to eat that person's food. I kind of didn't believe it. The whole thing was kind of stupid. Very inexperienced chefs. I don't understand, why one has to write such long reviews on here. It's really stupid. What more should I say? Michel Roux did not look best pleased, and I understand him. A joke.

This has been done so many times before and so much better. These chefs are a long way from being anywhere near the top of the game, more like amateurs than anything.

The challenges aren't interesting and the luxury one was bordering on offensive while the quality of the cooking was very variable throughout the series.

Editing was poor with accidental shots of cameramen and obvious jumps between what was happening in the kitchen and contestant / judges facial expressions.

And it was oh so very predictable. In the episode when one candidate made a mistake and had to spend the entire service correcting that mistake, leaving the others to manage the pass on their own, and nothing was really said about it everyone in my household knew they were the intended winner.

Disappointing, no season 2 please.

...between what types of chef they wanted and who they chose to compete. It almost felt like they had picked the chef already, they just wanted to put the others through the paces for the drama. Sure, there's always drama in these shows but the quality of the chefs to start seemed so much less talented than the winner. There's NO way a 5 star famous restaurant is going to hire a chef who got lucky or unlucky on any given cooking day. Also, I spent two weeks in London in March 2024, this show must have sucked up all of the spices, salt and pepper included because I saw none. Some of the most tasteless food on the planet so I just don't trust the judges (tho Rav on junior bakeoff is a treasure).

Stereotypical reality competition. Melodramatic music constantly playing to try to make you feel tension. *Heavily* edited to manipulate your perception of the reactions of the judges and contestants -- sometimes the jump cuts are so bad, they show someone frowning in reaction to something, but then the next shot shows them laughing and smiling in what you can see is their *actual* reaction. Just the cookie-cutter reality formula with an exaggerated sense of self-importance because, oooo, 5-star restaurant. It's like a hundred other reality competitions. Some people will love it. I, however, am tired of this formula.