Top Chef (Middle Eastern and North African TV series)
Top Chef, also known as Top Chef Middle East or Top Chef MENA, is a reality competition television series and an Arabic adaptation of the American television series of the same name. Contestants from across the Arab world compete against one another in culinary challenges and are judged by a panel of professional chefs and other personalities from the food industry, with one or more competitors eliminated in each episode.
The first edition of the show, created by Lebanese [Broadcasting Corporation International|LBC], aired in 2011 and 2012. After a hiatus, the series was relaunched by MBC in 2016. The fifth season of the MBC version was nominated for the 2022 International [Emmy Award for Best Non-Scripted Entertainment].
Show format
Each episode typically consists of three segments: the Quickfire Challenge, the Elimination Challenge, and the Judges' Table.In the Quickfire Challenge, each contestant is required to cook a dish with specific requirements or participate in a culinary-related challenge within one hour or less. A guest judge selects one or more chefs as the best in the challenge. In the Elimination Challenge, the contestants have to prepare one or more dishes to meet the challenge requirements, which are often more complex and time-consuming than the Quickfire. Some Elimination Challenges are individual, while others may require the contestants to work in teams. The chefs then report to the Judges' Table, where the judges deliberate on the best and worst dishes. The chef with the worst dish is eliminated from the competition.