Padma Lakshmi offered the first look at the high-end kitchen on her new competition show, America’s Culinary Cup — which has everything from a fully stocked pantry to a photo of Taylor Swift’s cat.
In Us Weekly’s exclusive first look at the set of the upcoming CBS series, Lakshmi, 55, guides cooking enthusiasts through the kitchen the contestants will be using, saying, “Every week, our chefs enter this kitchen to fight to stay in the competition. I wanted to design a kitchen that every high-end chef would kill to cook in.”
Lakshmi shows off a multitude of ovens, dehydrators, pizza ovens, grills and deep fryers.
“We also have our Dawn Powerwash. Thank you, Dawn, for the million dollar prize. There’s always enough equipment for all of our chefs to do their best work,” she adds. “[Now] welcome to our pantry, which is my pride and joy. It has everything you need to make anything you want. You name it, we have it.“
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The culinary expert is proud of the variety of options, telling the camera, “Here are all our produce that get swapped out and it gets supplemented based on what the challenge is. All our beautiful mushrooms, all our syrups and our jams. These are powders that you can use to turn liquids into gels — and do all kinds of wonderful things, some of which I don’t even understand myself.”
Lakshmi continued: “This is our private dining room. This is where we have meals with the judges.”
Lakshmi saves the best part for last, showing off a drawing of Swift’s cat Olivia Benson. She wraps up the tour by pointing to a “beautiful scoreboard,” adding, “Whenever we have scores to show or results, the scores appear there.”
America’s Culinary Cup, which premieres on Wednesday, March 4, will feature 16 of the most elite chefs in America competing for $1 million in the ultimate culinary battleground. Lakshmi is joined by chefs Michael Cimarusti and Wylie Dufresne, who serve as judges in the show.
According to the show’s official description, the chefs will be tested on 10 culinary commandments that include meat, vegetables, sauces, dessert, innovation, flavors, sustainability, world cuisine, consistency, culinary science and technology,
America’s Culinary Cup marks Lakshmi’s return to hosting cooking competition shows after her lengthy stint on Top Chef. Lakshmi announced her exit in June 2023, shortly before the season 20 finale aired.
“After much soul searching, I have made the difficult decision to leave Top Chef,” she wrote via Instagram at the time. “Having completed a glorious 20th season as host and executive producer, I am extremely proud to have been part of building such a successful show and of the impact it has had in the worlds of television and food. After 17 years, many of the cast and crew are like family to me and I will miss working alongside them dearly.”
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In her statement, Lakshmi acknowledged that she was looking forward to “other creative pursuits.” Two months later, she opened up about why she decided to leave the show.
“Other complex factors went into me just being done with Top Chef, which we don’t have time to go into here,” she noted on Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast. “But I think I just thought, ‘If I’m feeling this way, then I’ve got to trust my gut.’ I’ve also got to make room in my life and my schedule for new things to bubble up.”
Lakshmi said a lot went into her choice to step away after hosting the Bravo competition series for 17 years.
“I had been on location for eight months out of the year. And when I wasn’t on location, I was in pre- and post-production for both my shows,” she explained about Top Chef and her Hulu series, Taste the Nation. “And I was looking at edits of one show while on the set of another show. It was just exhausting and untenable for me to continue that way.”
Last month, Lakshmi opened up about taking part in America’s Culinary Cup during the Television Critics Association Winter Tour, saying, “I’ve obviously had almost two decades of experience in the genre, and I thought the genre was ready for a shake-up, for a refresh, and for something new and different. And I wanted to be the one who did it.”
America’s Culinary Cup premieres on CBS Wednesday, March 4, at 9:30 p.m. ET.
