Country of origin Canada Running time 30 minutes Original release 2008-01-01 | No. of episodes 26 Original network Food Network Canada | |
Chef School is a reality television series which airs on Food Network Canada. It is a 26-part docu-soap that follows the experiences of 12 students at the Stratford Chef School, one of Canada's most prestigious culinary schools.
Contents
The show airs in Canada and Hong Kong.
Top chefs from restaurants in Toronto, Vancouver and New York judge and critique the students' cooking.
Series development
Crystal Asher, a second-year student at Stratford Chef School, approached Red Apple Entertainment president Rachel Low with the idea. Early in the program's development, the idea of a formal competition was ruled out, as the creators expected there would already be sufficient dramatic elements. For the first season, the producers chose 12 of 36 students in the school to follow. 1,000 hours of footage were edited down to the 13 half-hour episodes of the series' first season. Of the twelve students, only nine returned for the second season. One student, Danielle, did not graduate.
Reception
At the time of the series debut, John Doyle of The Globe and Mail wrote, "It's a charming series, much less noisy and more astute than some of the higher-profile cooking-school shows."