Come Dine with Me
Come Dine with Me is a British reality series that has aired on Channel 4 since 10 January 2005 and is narrated by Dave Lamb.
Format
The original format features four/five amateur chefs who live in the same town or area, who each host a three-course dinner party for the other contestants at their own home over successive episodes. Each competitor then rates the host's food and hosting skills during the taxi journey home, with the highest-scoring chef winning £1,000 cash at the end of the four/five-episode cycle. If more than one competitor receives the highest tied score, the cash is divided between them. The show often features guests with clashing personalities.Episodes produced for primetime broadcast feature four contestants over a single hour-long episode.
Dave Lamb provides a voiceover, which sometimes includes sarcastic comments on the chefs' food and interior design.
Notable moments
A 2016 episode attracted particular attention, when contestant Peter Marsh made remarks upon losing to the winning contestant Jane, who was rude to Peter and effectively sabotaged his hosting round for her to win the £1000 prize. He said to her and the other contestants: "What a sad little life, Jane. Enjoy the money. You ruined my night completely just so you could have the money. I hope now you will spend it on getting some lessons in grace and decorum, because you have all the grace of a reversing dump truck without any tyres on."Another episode gained attention online, when a clip on video sharing site YouTube of contestant Kev Riley fitting a balloon whisk into his mouth went viral. In an 'ask me anything' session on Reddit in 2022, Kev claimed that this was the result of a "spur of the moment" decision intended to make the producer laugh. This clip has had over 100m views on various threads across social media. This has resulted in the sale of merchandise, flags appearing at Glastonbury, and Riley being a regular contributor on Cameo.
From 2020, due to COVID-19, all five contestants cooked and ate in the same house; this is instead of having the contestants visiting each other's houses to dine. The location of the house would vary depending on which city the five episodes were taking place. Episodes shown from 2024 reverts to contestants hosting from their own homes.