Gordon Ramsay's New Show Will Combine Travel, Food And Competition
Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has landed a new show. "Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted" will launch in 2019 on National Geographic, the network announced at the Television Critics' Association summer press tour.
"My passion for adventure has made me not only a better chef but also a fearless apprentice of all cultures, which makes it so exciting for me to work with National Geographic, who've been taking exploration to the limit for their entire storied history," Ramsay said in a press release.
The show will take Ramsay tarantula-hunting in Cambodia, and scaling cave roofs in Malaysian Borneo. Each episode will explore the cuisine of a culture through exploration and adventure, track down traditions and customs, and then pit Ramsay's own interpretations of regional dishes against the classics.
It's not Ramsay's first travel and food show. His 2010 U.K. series, "Gordon's Great Escapes," showcased the chef's explorations of the food culture of India and Southeast Asia.
Production is set to begin this fall, with the show to air sometime in 2019.
The announcement brought some controversy, thanks to Ramsay's frequent meltdowns on such shows as "Hell's Kitchen" and "Kitchen Nightmares." And with the recent death of popular globe-trotting chef Anthony Bourdain, who won praise for his own world-traveling food shows, comparisons were perhaps inevitable.
Chef and restauranteur Eddie Huang, whose autobiography inspired the ABC show "Fresh Off the Boat," tweeted, "the last thing the food world needs right now is Gordon Ramsay going to foreign countries showing 'locals he can cook their cuisines better than they can.'"
National Geographic responded to the negative online reaction.
"We are disappointed that the announcement of our upcoming series with Gordon Ramsay was taken out of context," a network spokesperson said in a statement emailed to The Daily Meal. "With National Geographic's storied history of exploration, our plan with this series is to celebrate and learn about local cultures around the world. In partnering with Ramsay — a well-known adventure enthusiast — we are going to fully immerse viewers and give them a glimpse into surprising and unexpected cultures and local flavors. We have not gone into production on the series yet, so this perspective is premature. We're looking forward to working with Ramsay, who's been making food and travel documentaries for well over a decade, to share the series when it premieres sometime next year."
You can, of course, plan your own culinary vacation — a good place to start is with this slideshow of the world's 8 wackiest food festivals.