Review: 'America's Next Great Restaurant' - 'Pilot': Chain of fools?
What did everybody think of the NBC reality competition?
"America's Next Great" restaurant judges Steve Ells, Bobby Flay and Lorena Garcia.
As Fienberg and I discussed on this week's podcast, while I don't make much time for reality TV these days, I do remain fond of the various professional talent competitions produced by the folks at Magical Elves, most notably "Top Chef." "America's Next Great Restaurant," which debuted tonight on NBC, was very much in the Elve-ish wheelhouse, offering plenty of overlap with "Top Chef" but not so much that it made you wonder why we needed this show, too. And I remain impressed that the Elves - as opposed to Mark Burnett, Donald Trump and whoever else was making creative decisions on "The (Non-Celebrity) Apprentice" - recognize that while jerks can add a certain amount of drama, the real draw of these shows is in seeing talented people show off their talents. So while a couple of knuckleheads made this show's top 10, for the most part we have what seems like smart, energetic people with intriguing concepts. (I know that if the restaurant that won the last slot in the top 10 opened in my neighborhood tomorrow, I would be eating there.)
What did everybody else think? Too assembly line, or just different enough?
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March 6, 2011 at 10:25PM EST Reply to CommentI wasn't even aware of it. Guess I'll be checking out episode 2.
March 7, 2011 at 12:02AM EST
March 6, 2011 at 10:26PM EST Reply to CommentI loved it. Food + marketing + entrepreneurship = great TV. I do hope the finals comes down to Li'l Wangs vs. Spicy Balls, with Alec Baldwin's Pete Schweaty as a guest judge.
sepinwall That will be a hard match-up, given that Lil Wangs didn't make the cut.
March 6, 2011 at 10:33PM EST
March 7, 2011 at 4:48AM EST
March 6, 2011 at 10:38PM EST Reply to CommentFully agree about the Grilled Cheese place; not sure why it was the last one in; i think that place and the southern style tapas by far have the most promise.
mturnerdu We have a very similar Grilled Cheese place in Denver and it is PACKED all the time, especially for lunch. Great idea and good guy.
March 7, 2011 at 12:03AM ESTSteven
March 6, 2011 at 10:59PM EST Reply to CommentAgreed. That first sample given out by #10 looked delicious.
Ben
March 6, 2011 at 11:48PM EST Reply to CommentThe show was very good, but many of the ideas were not well researched at all. The grilled cheese restaurant, for example, is a blatant rip-off of an existent chain called Chedd's.
March 6, 2011 at 11:51PM ESTmeltman http://www.meltbarandgrilled.com/
March 7, 2011 at 12:08AM EST
March 6, 2011 at 11:49PM EST Reply to CommentMy hope is that NBC keeps it around to balance out the dreck that is celebrity apprentice. The challenges should be interesting to watch, especially the cooking for a 1000 people.
mturnerdu
March 7, 2011 at 12:06AM EST Reply to CommentI liked alot of the restaurant ideas but only found about half of them original. It took the guy three years to develop his Grilled Cheese restaurant idea? Really? There are two different places within 5 miles of my house that have that concept. They are both busy and do well, so its a good idea, but not original.
DougMac I've never seen one though, so if they can market to a chain level then they are all set. It's not like there wasn't burrito places before Chipolte hit or burger places before McDonalds/Burger King/Sonic/Wendy's all hit it big.It's not just the idea, it's the overall plan
March 7, 2011 at 10:32AM ESTKmarko
March 7, 2011 at 11:35AM EST Reply to CommentPretty good--agree w/your take on reality shows. Don't have time for any of 'em, really, but have liked Top Chef and thought this was promising.
Irwin
March 7, 2011 at 3:14PM EST Reply to CommentI do not watch any other Iron Chef or Kitchen Nightmare type shows, but I liked this a lot. It will officially be in my rotation. I think 3 of the 4 judges will be good- Lorena showed me nothing. The competitions should do well to thin out the herd!!
eriklk
March 7, 2011 at 9:03PM EST Reply to CommentI think there's a lot of potential and I'm definitely going to watch (I'm a sucker for Magical Elves shows and for food shows in general), but I'm not sure I thought it was the best pilot they could have made. It seemed pretty rushed, and the quality of the concepts and the contestants seemed a bit off.
It seemed very strange to mix contestants who had opened several restaraunts with people who clearly didn't have a clue what they were doing, and it seemed strange to have teams of two competing against individuals. Also, there was something a bit off about the pacing of the episode, with a seemingly never-ending amount of pitches. (The judges must have decided upon a lot of the concepts before the auditions - how else could they be sure that they wouldn't run out of spots if there was a lot of great ideas in the end.)
I would probably have preferred if they had weeded out some of the more incompetent concepts from the start, had gone through the investors' meeting a bit faster, and had had more contestants have to cook off in the end. Or, even better (and I actually thought for a moment they would go there), they could have been super-critical and rejected everybody's first pitch, showing how far they were from being able to open a chain themselves, and then given them a small amount of time to update the concept and show how well they could respond to criticism. I definitely thought they made a mistake in dismissing the first contestant without giving her time to respond to critcism - despite of all the flaws (especially the too-big menu), there seemed to be a good concept hidden there, in particular the seasonal menu. Also, What's Good was probably the best name of all.
Anyway, I liked a few of the concepts, especially the Indian Chipotle, the Grilled Cheese and the Small-Plate Barbecue. On the other hand, I really didn't get what they saw in the Wok concept.
I liked Curtis Stone and especially Steve Ells a lot. I think they should have been able to get someone more exciting than Bobby Flay as the host, and Lorena GarcÃa was just annoying.
March 7, 2011 at 10:19PM EST Reply to CommentWrite a comment...
CiscoMan
March 7, 2011 at 10:26PM EST Reply to CommentI think the show doesn't know what it wants to be. It's not really a food show. Not really a business show. The fact that they picked the 10th slot by forcing two non-chefs to cook in 15 minutes really rings false for me. The preview for upcoming shows reveals more in this general direction: zany "challenges" gussied up as teaching moments, but really are just arbitrary hoops for people to jump through.
mike
March 8, 2011 at 12:52PM EST Reply to CommentJust wanted to comment with a video link exposing the grilled cheese idea as not being original. Please pass it on to expose the show as a fraud.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGPnH6UDm1s
Sadie Um, no one said it was a completely original idea. Just like chicken wings, wraps and "healthy food" has been done before. It's about the overall plan for the restaurant chain.
March 8, 2011 at 3:20PM ESTDave
March 8, 2011 at 5:24PM EST Reply to CommentI liked the concept for the show, but I was disappointed that we didn't get 30 minutes of rejected pitches from the cross-country tour, seeing the top 20 rise above the rest like we would in Idol, SYTYCD, or American Inventor. Usually the bad singing, dancing, or ideas are great entertainment.
That being said, how did some of these concepts/people make the top 20? There were at least two people that already had restaurants open, clearly they don't need the help of a reality show. And the hot wings guy, in addition to being a dick, had an idea that is already commonplace. Not sure what was up with that, but I am looking forward to seeing the rest.