Move over Gordon Ramsey, a new chef is in town! In the new comedy series, ‘Hot Kitchen’, writer/director/star Bobby Rice heads a motley ensemble of characters in a wacky send up of ‘Kitchen Nightmares.’ The crew consists of eight contestants including washed up actress Bam Bam, plucky blue collar Jorge, fake tough guy Gage, feisty old Gail, nervous Benny, pretty boy Gorgie, prissy Christos and straight man Demetrius. Rice plays the bland and vain show host Skip and is joined by angry chef Nibbins and pretentious co-host Yasmin.

Each episode showcases all the main ensemble’s obvious gift for improv and physical slapstick as we slowly countdown to the last two remaining contestants and a grand prize of 50K and to work at chef Nibbins’ fancy five star restaurant.

Rice impressively leads the cast with a funny spoof of a Ryan Seacrest type and also deftly helms the writing and producing on the show. The creator is also smart enough to let his co-stars take the main spotlight with vereran actor Olivia d’Abo (Bam Bam) and newcomer Martin Rizo (Jorge) in particular stealing the show with their awkward chemistry and winning performances.

The series zips along at a breezy 24 minutes an episode and is easy to binge watch all eight of them. The standout episodes belong to Ep 3 (‘We got soul…food’) where Skip painfully tries to showcase his knowledge of black culture to the chagrin of Demetrious as the contestants must make a dish in the southern soul vairety. Painful PC results in some very funny gags including Gorgie’s hilarious attempt at black poetry ryhming. My personal favorite goes to Ep 7 (‘Vegans are pretty much people too”) as Chipotle chef Jorge reluctantly must prepare food without his prized meats as top vegan Yasmin can’t stop telling each contestant her adoration for anything non-animal made.

Overall, ‘Hot Kitchen’ is a very breezy and humorous alternative to the self-serious world of reality TV cooking shows and is perfect for a lazy weekend watch party.

Should we look forward to a season 2??

“Yes, yes, chef!!!!”

Avocado Toast Productions/USA/2025/24 Mins.

All eight episodes of ‘Hot Kitchen’ Season 1 is available to stream now on Tubi.