Food Network Orders Tuscan Villa-Set Cooking Competition Ciao House Hosted by Alex Guarn

Posted by Jenniffer Sheldon on Friday, February 2, 2024

Food Network is adding more than a dash of Italian flair to its next big primetime cooking competition, shooting the eight-episode series on-location in a Tuscan villa where 10 competitors live together while striving to prove their mastery of Italian culinary techniques.

Aptly titled “Ciao House,” the “Big Brother”-meets-“Under the Tuscan Sun” competition, hosted and judged by network vet Alex Guarnaschelli and Tuscan-born chef Gabriele Bertaccini, premieres Sunday, April 16 at 9 p.m. on the linear Food Network channel and streams the same day on Discovery+.

Per Food Network’s description for “Ciao House”: “From real-life nonnas showcasing how they make pasta from scratch to a lesson with the head butcher of a three centuries-old family butcher business, each challenge is accompanied by a local experience steeped in tradition. The competitors must also navigate alliances and rivalries as they pick their own teams and each week, the losing team must vote off one of their own. In the end, only the last chef standing wins the life-changing grand prize: an immersive culinary education across Italy, training with renowned Italian master chefs.”

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Among the challenging and delicious events the “Ciao House” contestants will go through are a three-course truffle and wine pairing, a visit to an Italian cheese cave and creating a wild boar dish.

Competitors for the first season of “Ciao House” include: Omar Ashley (Avenel, New Jersey); Corey Becker (Brooklyn, New York); Saba Duffy (Framingham, Massachusetts); Trenica Johnson (Houston, Texas); Jess Mahoney (Los Angeles, California); Preston Paine (Dallas, Texas); Sarah Raffetto (New York, New York); Justin Robinson (Atlanta, Georgia); Natalia Rosario (Chicago, Illinois) and Matt Wasson (Staten Island, New York).

On the premiere episode, “each competitor must show Alex and Gabriele what Italian cuisine means to them by creating a dish that demonstrates who they are as a chef. Two chefs receive a huge advantage going into the next round and one chef must say ‘ciao ciao’ to the villa.”

The finale is set for June 4, where the final two chefs standing in the Tuscan villa will face off in a cooking duel to determine who wins the top prize,

“’Ciao House’ fuses the beauty and culinary traditions of Tuscany into a high-stakes competition,” Betsy Ayala, Warner Bros. Discovery’s head of food content, said. “These talented chefs must live together as a family in a jaw-dropping villa and simultaneously compete against each other for the prize of lifetime. It’s not just a battle of cooking skills: In ‘Ciao House,’ personal dynamics, loyalties and rivalries create the perfect storm to create one of our most exciting series to date.”

“Ciao House” is produced by Super Delicious for Food Network and Discovery+. Watch the trailer below:

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