User reviews

Scenery, setting, production, judges all get a thumbs way up. But, honestly can they not find contestants that don't make every chef in the world look like giant, whiny egotistical jerks? There is not one person here you hopes win or root for! You watch every week hoping the worst of the worst go home! There must be nice, decent talented chefs somewhere! Please find them for Season 3. I know being a successful chef requires immense dedication and hard work and an ego but the Season 2 contestants are so ridiculously over the top. I had one I thought was talented that I did back but of course they were eventually eliminated. Please do better casting wise next season.

Best accidental find I've had. This is the first culinary arts program that showcased what a chef does as a director of a kitchen: organizing, coordinating & utilizing the talents of chefs to prepare regionally themed meals. Moved beyond the gimmicks of single ingredient focus competition to a unique take on elimination. The personality traits of chefs are shown in the what & how they cook, yes; but moreover how & if they can lead. Gabrielle B. Was a great complement to Alex G. As cohosts. Alex shines in her pointed but superbly constructive criticism which helps participants learn & grow. The regional focus backdrop of Tuscany & sharing a villa's small kitchen adds a great dynamic. Beyond a focus on "rooting" for a personality to a fuller understanding of each chef. How do they respond to challenges of all sorts - whether cooking, interpersonal, situational. Steps up the quality of the Food Network's offerings. Can't wait for season 2 & an answer to the question: will Omar return?

Alex G is the worst hostess. Her feedback is mostly negative, in a hurtful meaningless way. She's out Gordon Ramseying Gordon Ramsey, minus the yelling! Not one meaningful suggestion from her.

Sending only the captains to the cheese maker, not telling them what meal to plan, then coming into the kitchen for the smaller team with 5 minutes left and throwing negativity about their items - that is simply unpardonable hosting!

Also the show is spending money in sending all the contestants to lovely Tuscany, but poor production quality in setting the specific competition rules - both teams get same ingredients, but one team gets more time and look at the competition before they even start to plan! In which feverish nightmare of Alex G is this a real competition?

I have never been impressed with her cooking, even though she did advance in TOC 5. But seeing her character in this show revealed how shallow a person she really is because of her constant negativity. Please retire her Food Network!

I just binge watched this show yesterday. I came onto IMDB expecting to see it rated around an 8. Boy was I was shocked to read all the negative reviews. I just don't get it. People need to stop over analyzing and just enjoy. (I was going to rate the show an 8, but did a 10 to try and balance out all the overly low ratings).

My husband came home around 3/4 of the way through and he also got hooked on it.

Comments (from reviews) about awful contestants are just not true. These seem like 'normal' people. Not overly hyper, like some shows. I love Alex. She has a good sense of humor and is very kind to people.

Looking forward to season 2.

We watched the first season of this show only because we were going to be visiting Italy soon. It seemed disjointed and very low budget. We are very pleasantly surprised with the second season. Much more compelling and the production values are far better. We like the concept of team members deciding who will be going home. We also feel like we are learning a lot about Italian cuisine. Alex is not as obnoxious in the second season as she was in the first. If you were not happy with the first season, I definitely think you should give the second season a try. The setting is beyond beautiful and the food looks fantastic. I hope it comes back for a third season.

Did the casting call for this show read "Looking for awful human beings who happen to be chefs"? There's nobody to root for on this show. If you want a display of pure narcissism to end your Sunday night, this is for you. It's just such a shame. I'm sure there were more qualified chefs, who also had a shred of humility and basic decency that would have loved the opportunity. The two judges are good! Big fan of Alex and always have been. It's just a waste of her abilities, but I'm sure she is not complaining about being in Tuscany. I hope that if this show gets renewed for another season, they can find contestants that people want to root for and see succeed.

Diva, diva, diva! Team members, professionals in your field, chefs, you should watch your backs, fronts, in your face, she has sharp knives, claws, whits and a back stabbing tongue! It was so pronounced how you micro managed as a capo and undercut as a team mate. You obviously have skated on you blonde hair, blue eyes, and deceiving little voice and giggle, for much of your career. You also obviously have deceived yourself into believing this act would hold up and you would get past the superior chefs at Ciao House not to mention your hosts/ judges!

My vote goes to Hannah for chef I'd like to have pay for her own ticket home!

Love cooking competitions shows. But the basis of a competition is the better chefs ultimately win. The foundation of contestants leaving this show is other contestants voting them out. Judges as a result are completely unnecessary. They played 0 role in the progression of the competition.

Unfortunately, at the end of each competition, it wasn't the weakest chefs going home, but the opposite. Strong chefs got voted out by weaker chefs binding together to get rid of skilled chef.

Judges should have had the responsibility to vote out chefs based on their performance. Very disappointing to see deserving talents leave the show because less skilled chefs took advantage of the poor structuring of the competition.

I like the idea of a competition showcasing Tuscany and the great food in the region and a competition thrown in, but is ruined by the chef voting off someone themselves. Every challenge is a team and ends up getting worse with the lower numbers but the worst part is the voting off one of the team. The judges seem kind of useless as they don't decide who deserves to stay but get to target the more talented chefs as a captain which makes them an easy target for the weaker chefs to gain up on and get rid of. As the show goes on ends up being a showcase of best of the worst with the weaker chefs bringing down the better chefs then taking them out. Making the competition and the show pointless in the end and a loose definition of the word "winner".

My fiancée and I were intrigued by this show when we saw the commercials. Set in Tuscany, lots of opportunity to showcase the locale with all the foods etc. Unfortunately, while they've shown some of those things, the format of the show is ridiculous and super unfair. Constantly lopsided teams, people being captains multiple times while others not at all, has allowed floaters to get further than they should have, while better chefs have gone home. The judges are different and their choices for choosing the winners are wishy washy and we just watched an episode where a judge pointed out something to the chefs about their choice for the menu, questioning it, thusly allowing them to make a change which really gave them an advantage. Ridiculous.

What a disappointment that.this show follows the Food channel's formula--ridiculous time constraints, cruel food critics, crushed competitors. Alex's biting comments are vicious. Gabriele's arrogance is irritating. They even insult the Tuscan guests--nona's, wine makers, and butcher so far--by allowing them only few minutes and missing a chance for the contestants and the audience to learn about Tuscan food. Isn't learning about Tuscan food supposed to be the point of this show? Apparently not. What a wasted opportunity. Not the best choice of chefs, but if culinary education were truly the goal of the show, there were many missed opportunities.

Alex ruins evrything with her KNOWING everything about cooking. He has to have a comment, even if you can see it is bogus. Elizabeth faulkner should have been iron chef and alex needs to back to home cooking. She pretends to be italian, but was born in america. She has no real world italian cultural ideals. If she doesnt like you, she will vote you off .... even if you cook a darn good risotto in 45 minutes. She is ruining peoples chances to move into the food network by trash judging. Maybe since her old new york restaraunt is doing better with her gone should be a clue of her abilities. Who you train under is irrelevant if you cant pass muster.

This is an interesting idea for a show. You don't really get to learn about the chefs because they strangely constantly compete in teams. To have someone be captain, you don't really get a chance to see the talents of many others and that is a huge opportunity lost to those of us who like to learn how to cook. Isn't the point to see what they are all capable of? And the weaker chefs voting off the stronger is silly. No one learns anything about cooking. The show is about the drama mostly. I think the judges could be more encouraging and share their knowledge and they should be the one judging! I didn't finish the series to see who won, lost interest bc it lost the cooking element for me.