Alberto Chicote has become one of the busiest television chefs on the Spanish scene. Since the version of Kitchen Nightmare premiered on La Sexta, the chef has been gaining prominence on the screen thanks to his unfiltered attitude, willing to confront anyone who confronts him without nonsense. A fire beyond the kitchen that can also be seen in his new project that premiered on the green channel this Thursday: Battle of Restaurants.
The Madrid native has gone to El Hormiguero, the Antena 3 nighttime program presented by Pablo Motos, to present the new project. This format is presented as a competition between the best restaurateurs in a city, specialized in a specific facet or food. Each episode pits four restaurants against their respective owners, analyzing each aspect of the kitchen and a meal, before rating it.
The results are not known until the end of the program, and Chicote’s personal grade also influences the final assessment. During the course of each visit to a restaurant, every detail counts: the kitchen hood, the order, the refrigerator, the presentation of the dishes, the sauces… However, soon viewers watching El Hormiguero have realized a essential detail: they had heard about this program before.
Battle of Restaurants is an adaptation of the German format My Restaurant Rocks, created by the production company Red Arrow Studios. Likewise, TV3 and ETB were the first to bring their versions to Spain, simultaneously premiering Joc de cartes and Juego de carta on April 20, 2017. Since then, chefs such as Marc Ribas or Jordi Garrido have been in charge of directing their respective versions on Catalan, Valencian, Basque and Madrid television.
The networks have had no compassion for these similarities and, despite being a simple adaptation like the others, they have accused Chicote of plagiarizing those programs with Battle of Restaurants. “Now it turns out that Chicote appears on El Hormiguero on Antena 3 presenting a restoration program that the great Marc Ribas has been carrying out for years with education, seriousness and professionalism. Alberto, you are a great cook, but don’t copy programs, you will fail,” commented one user.
Likewise, the contrast with the other versions has also been criticized, after seeing a compilation of confrontations in El Hormiguero: “Unfortunately I am not going to watch Chicote’s new program, I think that Mr. Chicote could do other things better than a program to confront different restaurants with the sole reason of generating controversy, fights and attracting people who like salsa.”
