Heat In The Kitchen

About the show

In the current era, where food is the new sex and chefs have become the new rock stars, food critics have a powerful role in creating or destroying these new celebrities and their livelihoods. This five-part series enters the lives and kitchens of three ambitious chefs – Matt Moran from Aria, Matthew Kemp from Balzac and Luke Nguyen from Red Lantern – who strive for perfection and commercial success.

They allow us a privileged view of what it takes to run a highly rated restaurant in Sydney: a passion bordering on obsession to get things right, long gruelling hours, frighteningly tight profit margins, short tempers and strict hierarchies. Then the results, both service and food, come under the watchful eye of the powerful restaurant critic, Matthew Evans, who can make or break them.

Heat In The Kitchen is there when the critics make their surprise visits. The critics are secretly filmed as they dine and at the same time we see what is happening in the kitchen, including the moment when the chefs realise, if they realise, that a critic is present.