My Kitchen Rules is an Australian competitive cooking game show broadcast on the Seven Network
since 2010.
The series is produced by the team who created the Seven reality show My Restaurant Rules,
and was put into production based on the success of Network Ten's MasterChef Australia.
My Kitchen Rules was renewed by the Seven Network for a fifth series which began screening
on 27 January 2014.
Format Contestants
The Australian show initially had teams of two contestants with pre-existing relationships—from
New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, and Western Australia—competing
against each other to "transform an ordinary home into an instant restaurant complete with
theme and table decorations for one pressure-cooker night."
From 2011, the number of competitors grew as teams from Tasmania joined the show.
A team from New Zealand took part only in the third series.
In the fourth series, there were fifteen teams made up of two teams from each state, plus
three additional teams—the gatecrashers—from New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.
Season 5 has introduced a team from the Australian Capital Territory.
Judging panel The current judging panel consists of celebrity
chefs Pete Evans and Manu Feildel, with guest judges to give critique in Sudden Death cook-offs,
namely: Liz Egan, Colin Fassnidge, Guy Grossi, and Karen Martini.
Original format Applicable only during the first series, the
show followed a sudden death format—where two teams will cook a three-course meal and
the losing team of the will immediately eliminated from winning the competition.
Initially, participating teams were split into two groups of five to compete in a separate
round of instant restaurant.
A team who placed last in each instant restaurant group will be eliminated from the competition.
However, teams who placed third and fourth will compete in a cook-off, and the two lowest
scoring teams will be eliminated.
After the cook-off, the remaining six teams competed in quarterfinal of three rounds,
wherein: #2 teams in both instant restaurant groups
competed in first quarterfinal round; #1 team in the first instant restaurant and
#1 team in cook-off competed in second quarterfinal round; and
#1 team in the second instant restaurant and #2 team in cook-off contended in last quarterfinal
round.
Losing teams of each quarterfinal rounds were immediately eliminated.
However, the overall highest scoring team in quarterfinals advanced straight through
the grand final.
The remaining two teams contended in a semifinal, the last berth to the finale round.
Current format Instant restaurant round
Grouped into two, the teams initially are to compete in an instant restaurant round.
Each episode focuses on one team's day of cooking, setting up their instant restaurant
and serving a three-course dinner—entrée, main, and dessert—for the judges and their
opposing teams.
Teams could only start cooking three hours before the other teams and judges arrive at
their house.
After the team served all three meals to the judges and their opposition, each opposing
team must rate the total meal out of ten, then each main judge must rate each of the
three courses separately out of ten.
The lowest scoring team will be then at risk of elimination.
Contestants do not necessarily cook in their own homes, for example in third series, eight
of the twelve couples did not use their own kitchens mainly due to their homes being too
small to accommodate the production.
In most cases when this happened it is the home of a family member or friend or a holiday
home of one or both members of the team.
Team progress and eliminations: There were variations on format in team progress
and elimination process in this round.
During the first series of the show, the lowest scoring teams of each instant restaurant round
were eliminated immediately from the competition.
Meanwhile, top two scoring teams on both rounds advanced through to quarterfinals round.
Teams placing third and fourth on both instant restaurant rounds have to compete in a Kitchen
Cook-off, where two losing teams will be eliminated and the other two will proceed through to
quarterfinals.
On the second series, the lowest scoring teams of each instant restaurant round competed
in a Sudden Death cook-off, wherein the losing team was eliminated from the competition.
The remaining teams advanced to the People's Choice Challenge—a new competition format
replacing quarterfinals round.
During the third series, the three lowest scoring teams of each instant restaurant round
competed in yet another instant restaurant, thus having three rounds for this season.
The losing team of the third instant restaurant was eliminated from the competition.
During the fourth and fifth series, there were two rounds of instant restaurant with
six teams each, wherein the lowest scoring team of each group was immediately eliminated
from the competition.
However, after the second round, the tally of the instant restaurant scores for both
groups were combined and the three lowest scorers out of the remaining ten teams competed
in another instant restaurant round with new set of teams—titled as the gatecrashers.
The losing team of the third instant restaurant was also eliminated from the competition.
Pre-finals round After the instant restaurant, the remaining
teams compete in a four-round format which was introduced in 2011 series.
In 2014, a fifth round, The Food Truck was added.
People's Choice Challenge – During this offsite challenge, teams would all have an
hour and a half to prepare their dish relevant to a theme or event.
The team with the most number of guest votes is declared as the People's Choice and will
be safe for the rest of the round.
A team with the worst dish will be chosen by the judges and will proceed straight through
the Sudden Death round.
Food Truck - Introduced for the first time in series 5, during the rounds from Top 12
to Top 9, remaining teams from the People's Choice will compete in a new Food Truck challenge.
This sees teams split into two even groups and will each run competing restaurants, cooking
in a large semi-trailer which opens up into two kitchens.
Patrons dining will pay for what they believe the meal was worth.
To win, the group must earn the most amount of money.
The losing group will continue onto the rapid cook-off, whilst the winning group, become
safe from elimination and formed as the team's jury.
Rapid Cook-off – In Kitchen Headquarters, teams are challenged to create a dish using
a key ingredient in 30 minutes.
All teams will be reviewed by the judges with certain number of teams who will be safe from
elimination, and who will be competing in a following showdown.
In series 5, dishes were not only judged by Pete and Manu, but also by a teams' jury,
which is formed by all teams currently safe for the round.
They were able to select one of teams to be safe.
Showdown – Teams with the worst dishes during rapid cook-off compete in this round by cooking
a meal using a core ingredient in 60 minutes.
A team with the worst dish, again, will be chosen by the judges and will proceed straight
through the Sudden Death round.
Sudden Death – Two losing teams from People's Choice Challenge and Showdown will battle
it out producing a three-course meal for Pete and Manu, as well as for the four guest judges.
Both teams must prepare their dishes for a total of three hours—90 minutes prior to
serving entrée, 60 minutes for main course, and 30 minutes for the dessert.
Each judge will score the total meal out of ten and the lowest scoring team will be eliminated
from the competition.
From the fourth series, blind tastings were introduced and the guest judges will critique
the dish without the knowledge who cooked it.
Finals round Finals round consists of three rounds: two
sets of semifinals, and a grand final.
All follow a sudden death cook-off format where in teams will produce a three-course
meal for the main judges and for the four guest judges.
Teams will be scored their total meal out of ten by the judges and the lower scoring
team will be eliminated.
Semifinals Prior to grand final round, four remaining
teams compete in a semifinal round.
Teams going head-to-head in this round is determined variously in different series.
In 2011 series, there were four knives on a table, two of which have Semifinal 1 label
and the other two have Semifinal 2 on the blade.
The labels were covered, leaving the knife handle visible.
Each team are asked to select which knife.
Teams who picked Semifinal 1 knife competed on the first semifinal, while teams who chose
Semifinal 2 contended in second semifinal.
In 2012 series, teams competed in a seeding round.
Teams competed in two challenges, and their dish on each challenge was scored out of ten
by the judges.
The highest scoring team of the seeding round cooked against the lowest scoring team in
first semifinal, while #2 and #3 teams competed in second semifinal.
For the 2013 and 2014 series, the final 4 were divided into 2 semi-final match ups based
on their rankings in the final 5 round.
Like last time 1st cooked against 4th and 2nd cooked against 3rd.
Grand final Winners of each semifinal will go straight
through the grand final round, the last stage of the competition.
Each team will be scored and the higher scoring team will be declared the My Kitchen Rules
champions.
Series details To date, five series have been broadcast,
as summarised below.
Foreign series New Zealand
After enjoying several years of success with the Australian series, TVNZ announced a local
version of My Kitchen Rules going to air mid-late 2014.
The show airs on TV One, unlike the Australian edition which airs on sister channel TV2.
The show airs on Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7:30pm from 24 August.
Russia A Russian version of MKR was broadcast on
TV channel REN TV in December 2013.
Only 5 episodes were shown.
Serbia In Serbia, local production company Emotion
Production purchased the format rights.
The show is called Moja kuhinja, Moja pravila.
The first series premiered in 2014 on B92.
United Kingdom Following the show's national and international
ratings success in 2013, broadcaster Sky Living has purchased the format rights to My Kitchen
Rules for a United Kingdom version.
The British franchise debuted on 25 January 2014, hosted by cook and author Lorraine Pascale
and chef Jason Atherton.
United States In 2012, US-based production company Kinetic
Content acquired the format rights for an American version of the show during the MIPTV
Media Market event in Cannes, France.
Awards and nominations The reality program has received nominations
on the following awards: Ratings and viewership average
Seasonal television ratings on aggregate figures for My Kitchen Rules on free-to-air Seven
Network channel were gathered from TV Tonight covering only the five city metro across Australia,
namely: Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney.
The amount of viewers presented in the table below are in millions.
Criticism My Kitchen Rules Series 5 was criticised by
angry viewers who set up a Facebook page to boycott the series 5 finale as the team that
was runners up "bullied other teams."
International broadcast See also
MasterChef Australia Come Dine With Me Australia
References
External links Official website