- Food Poker
Infobox television
show_name = Food Poker
caption =
format = Card based competitive cookery
runtime = 45 minutes
creator =
country=flagicon|United KingdomUnited Kingdom
starring =Matt Allwright
channel =BBC Two
first_aired =2007
last_aired = present
num_episodes =
producer =Optomen
related =Food Poker is a
BBC tea-time television programme which fuses traditional culinary skills withpoker . It is presented byMatt Allwright and each episode features 4 chefs.Format
The show involves chefs being dealt 2 food cards and can use up to 3 ingredients from 5 more 'shared ingredient' cards. The chefs then decide in secret what dish they will prepare and then choose either to 'pitch' their idea or 'fold', if they don't believe they can cook anything with the available ingredients. Those who pitch their ideas must do so to the Food Poker Panel, which consists of 7 food experts. The panel then vote, using
poker chips , for the 2 dishes they wish to see prepared. There are 3 rounds, the savoury cook-off, the sweet cook-off and the final showcase cook-off.Once 2 chefs have been selected by the panel they have 20 minutes to cook their dishes, however they only have 15 minutes during the Sweet Cook-off. This time is very intense and competitive banter between chefs is commonplace. Once the chefs have cooked their dishes they are presented to the 7 gourmets who then vote again for their preferred dish (no poker chips are used for this vote). Only the savoury and sweet cook-offs use this format. The showcase cook-off, which automatically features the 2 winners from the previous 2 cook-offs, has a different format.
The Showcase Cook-off
In this round the finalists are presented with a single card, which all can see: this ingredient must be the central feature of their dishes. They then have a choice from an array of other ingredient cards from a large selection; once a card has been selected it is not available to the other chef. Therefore chefs can both take the ingredients they need and/or steal ingredients which they think will be most valuable to their opponents. They then have 20 minutes to prepare their dishes. The 2 cooked dishes are then presented to the 2 losing chefs who then vote for their favourite and ultimately the winner, in the event of a tie the winner is decided by presenter,
Matt Allwright .Regular Contributing Chefs
*Martin Blunos
*Gennaro Contaldo
*Maria Elia
*Lawrence Keogh
*Allegra McEvedy
*Jun Tanaka
*Atul Kochhar External links
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/tv_and_radio/foodpoker_a.shtml Food Poker on bbc.co.uk]
* [http://www.ukgameshows.com/page/index.php/Food_Poker Food Poker on ukgameshows.com]
* [http://www.tvscoop.tv/2007/10/tv_review_food.html A Scathing review of Food Poker on tvscoop.tv]
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