The Chopping Block – NBCs Last Restaurant Standing

NBC is bringing Last Restaurant Standing to America under the (apparently) hipper moniker The Chopping Block, and they’ve managed somehow to create a cooking/restaurant show that doesn’t star Gordon Ramsay.

This particular venture into culinary reality stars Marco Pierre White (at one time involved with the UK’s version of Hell’s Kitchen), Ramsay’s mentor, competition, friend, and nemesis.  Theirs is the most bizarre of relationships, which has found White appearing on Ramsay’s BBC shows at times, and the two feuding bitterly at others.

Until now, only Ramsay has made his way to American television.  White is crossing the pond with a show that has proven itself (at least to some degree) on BBC.  Last Restaurant Standing has taken things on a slightly different spin, by giving couples restaurants to run, and closing one restaurant each week.  The show stars restaurateur Raymond Blanc, and offers up weekly challenges and miles of critique.  Though the show is fairly interesting, it has a definite not-American feel to it.  It’s rather slow, and aims for a more serious audience.  There isn’t (for good or ill) a lot of screaming at people, or similar drama.

How White is going translate the concept is somewhat up in the air.  The show premieres on March 11th, but there still is not a wealth of information about how things will work.  We know that the general idea has changed to a degree (apparently enough to call it an original cooking competition).  The couples are split into two teams, and each team gets a restaurant.  In Last Restaurant Standing, each couple gets their own establishment to sink or swim in.  The teams then must work together to oversee everything involved with opening a new restaurant (in Manhattan), and each week one couple is sent home.  Also different, the contestants are competing for $250,000.  Last Restaurant Standing has the contestants competing for partnership in their restaurant with Raymond Blanc (or something).

It’s tricky to figure how this format is going to play out on the road to finding a winning couple, because apparently the contestants stick with their restaurant, and tackle new challenges, despite ever-dwindling personnel.  That’s not hard to work in a situation like Hell’s Kitchen, but here everyone is trying to own the same place, and make decisions that can theoretically change the restaurant entirely.  

However it plays out, the show should definitely be interesting.  I assume we’ll have a bit more pace pumped into things, and I’m looking forward to seeing what White does with an American show.  He’s certainly as big a fish as Ramsay, even if he hasn’t managed to bombard American eyes to nearly the same degree, and he’s just as odd.  The basic premise does not provide the avenues for yelling matches, no matter who was running things, so we hopefully (depending on your point of view) have an outlet for a calmer adventure.

Here are a few clips of White and some of the contestants.

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• Marco Pierre White’s warning to restaurateurs (telegraph.co.uk)

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About Marc Eastman

Marc Eastman is the owner and operator of Are You Screening? and has been writing film reviews for over a decade, and several branches of the internet's film review world have seen his name. His reviews have brought him personal praise from the director of a major motion picture, and have been used as required reading in a course at a major University. These priceless rewards, along with just bags of cash, keep him from straying from freelance writing. He is also a member of The Broadcast Film Critics Association and The Broadcast Television Journalists Association.

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Tagged as: Chopping Block, Marco Pierre White, NBC, Television