A Bristol woman is to star in a brand new cookery competition show, with the chance to win £100,000 and a year’s mentoring from Gordon Ramsay.
Layla Powell has revealed she is one of the contestants on ITV’s new prime time competition show, which is hosted by Gordon Ramsay and is called Next Level Chef. The show will be launched next Wednesday, January 11, and be ITV’s answer to MasterChef, although with a very different twist to the standard format of shows like that or the Great British Bake Off.
The programme was announced nationally by ITV on December 30, with Layla posting on her social media that she was taking part. It’s a poignant and difficult date for the Bristol woman, as it marks the anniversary of the death of her brother Jama Powell, who was killed on December 30 back in 2017.
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She said she thought hard about announcing her involvement in the big new ITV show on the same date as the fifth anniversary of her brother’s death, but did so because he would be so proud of her achievement to get on the programme.
“December 30 is a date that I will never forget as it is the anniversary of my beloved brother Jama,” she wrote. “It’s never a great time of year for my family and me, and I thought hard about posting this post today but my brother, I know, would be so proud as he was my biggest supporter. So today I choose to celebrate life, his and mine,” she added.
Gordon Ramsay said the new show Next Level Chef was unlike any cookery or chef competition show done before. The famous chef is joined by two other mentors, Paul Ainsworth and Nyesha Arrington, and all the contestants are placed on different levels of a 50ft high, three-storey kitchen. Layla is one of 12 aspiring chefs facing a ‘cookery competition like no other’. “For the first time ever, incredible home cooks will compete against professional chefs, and social media chefs,” said an ITV spokesperson. “Every week they’ll all have only seconds to grab ingredients to cook with, and then only minutes to create an outstanding dish, before a nail-biting finish to even get their dish tasted by the Mentors.
“The outrageous three-storey kitchen ranges from the luxurious top flight kitchen, all the way down to the very basic basement kitchen – meaning the chefs must prove they can make magic even in the worst circumstances,” she added.
Gordon Ramsay said that other cookery competition shows give contestants time to think about what they are doing, and prepare for it. But with Next Level Chef, there’s no preparation at all.
“There's been great cooking shows out there, from Great British Bake Off to Great British Menu to MasterChef,” he said. “What separates Next Level Chef for me is the fact that there's no format to what they're cooking. They're cooking what they're grabbing. And being spontaneous is the most exciting part of being a chef, whether you're domestic, social or professional, because you have no idea what's coming down.
“And then on each and every level, it depletes so by time we get down to the Basement, which no one wants to be in but that's where you find the most about yourself, there’s minimal ingredients. Ingredients that weren't wanted by other floors. And there's a bonus from time to time where some of the best ingredients end down in Basement because the other chefs on higher floors have been a little bit too sceptical about choosing. It is uniquely different because the cooks have no idea what's going on that platform.
“Sometimes it can be a fish challenge, sometimes you have shellfish, sometimes steak and so they have no idea what's coming. The majority of cooking competitions, I'm not saying they play safe, but they have to give a lot of insight to what's coming and what you should be looking for. Next Level Chef is raw. They are cooking on the fly and that's the bit that excites me the most - the nervous energy when they see that platform moving,” he added.
Nyesha Arrington said she was looking forward to being a mentor on the show, and for the winner for the next year. “I would say that Next Level Chef is really a first of its kind show,” she said. “I had the privilege to go and guest judge on MasterChef. And when they talked to me about this idea, they were talking me through it and the whole competition is truly unbelievable. I was like - wait, so the ingredients are coming down on a little mini elevator, through the kitchens, and it's all timed? It’s incredible. I also really value mentorship, so it's very imperative to me to be able to pass down knowledge and legacy,” she added.
Next Level Chef, with Bristol’s Layla Powell, begins at 9pm on ITV1 on Wednesday, January 11.
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