Nepal’s first competitive cooking show, ‘Chef Nepal’, is airing every Friday at 9 pm on Kantipur Television, starting today. The programme is scheduled to continue until the second week of January, with a total of 18 episodes, according to the producers.

Audition calls for ‘Chef Nepal’ commenced a few months ago through online platforms. One of the key audition rules was that no professional chefs would be eligible to participate. The first round of auditions saw over five hundred applicants, from which the judges shortlisted a hundred participants.

The participants will be judged by Chef Santosh Shah, the winner of UK’s BBC MasterChef: The Professionals Rematch, Chef Laxman Prasad Bhattarai, who goes by ‘Bhanse’, and Chef Ganesh Bahadur Dhakal, the managing director of Royal Thai Hospitality and Baan Thai Restaurants. Actress Priyanka Karki is the executive producer for the show.