Sneak peek at NBC’s “Yes, Chef!” with Martha Stewart and José Andrés.
Watch a preview of NBC’s “Yes, Chef!” a new cooking competition show with Martha Stewart and José Andrés.
Martha Stewart has experienced plenty of ups and downs in her dramatically successful life, and, yes, chefs, she’s now here to help you with your problems.
Stewart is teaming up with World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés for a new NBC cooking competition show, “Yes, Chef!” (premiering April 28, 10 ET/PT), whose dual premise is not just to find the best chef among 12 contestants but also to coach the dozen past whatever personal demons stand in the way of their success.
“Our job is to be judge and mentor,” Stewart, 83, tells USA TODAY. “As for the issues, well, there’s anger management, there’s also ‘I’m the best and no one else can do anything as well as I do.’ There are those who can’t cooperate with others or can’t delegate. Perhaps all normal issues, but they’re heightened because it’s a competition setting where you’re trying to put out the best food you can for two foodie people like me and José Andrés.”
Stewart, the doyenne of eponymous home decor and fashion brands, has lived an emotionally charged life. As detailed in the 2024 Netflix documentary “Martha,” that includes a hardscrabble childhood, love affairs and a famous stint in prison after she was convicted of conspiracy related to insider trading. Put another way, there’s likely little these aspiring chefs can throw at Stewart that she hasn’t already experienced.
“I can use a tremendous amount of my experience to help,” she says. “I still work all the time, I’m a seven-day-a-week worker. Besides doing this show, spring is happening in the garden at my farm, so there’s the stress and pressure of all that stuff, plus I run my own design company, so I’m getting products done, worrying about tariffs. There’s a lot to think about all the time, but it engenders enthusiasm for living.”
Part of the appeal of ‘Yes, Chef!’ for co-host Martha Stewart? Spending time with chef José Andrés
Stewart says “Yes, Chef!” ― named after the obligatory response elicited by kitchen workers to a head chef’s command ― gave her the opportunity “to be part of a cooking competition from start to finish,” but also to spend time with Andrés, whose humanitarian work she admires.
“He had me give a pep talk to his team working in Ukraine when we were filming this back in February, which was inspirational to me, because that’s such tough work,” she says.
“Yes, Chef!” also presents Stewart with another first: spending 28 straight days in Toronto, where the series was filmed.
“We were working 14-hour days, six days a week, nonstop, in full makeup, and then the first day I did get off, the (Delta plane) flipped over at the Toronto airport and none of us could get home,” she says. “But it was overall a great experience, and the show was intense and great fun.”
Stewart gives a short laugh, then adds: “At my age, I’m always looking to do things I’ve never done before.”
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