Have you ever started chopping up vegies for dinner and thought – “I believe this meal would taste better if a bunch of ingredients were presented to me on a descending platform and I had 30 seconds to choose everything I need”?

No? Didn’t think so. Sounds like chaos, right?

That chaos is one of the many elements that make up the latest in Gordon Ramsay-led reality shows, Next Level Chef. Our favourite Scottish-born kitchen maestro is joined by US celebrity chefs Richard Blais and Nyesha Arrington, in what can be best described as The Voice… but for cooking.

Next Level Chef is, to put it politely, a lot. There are many (quite literally!) moving parts to this wildly entertaining show – here’s everything you need to know.

Related story: The five things Gordon Ramsay thinks everyone should be able to cook

THE KITCHEN

Next Level Chef takes place across three vertical kitchens, stacked on top of one another. The penthouse level features all the bells and whistles a budding reality TV chef needs – thermomixes, multiple burners, solid gold spoons, etc, etc. The middle level is set up as a standard (albeit very fancy) commercial kitchen, with enough pots, pans and stove tops to ensure any meal service runs smoothly. The bottom level? Well that, dear friends, is the basement. You’re lucky to get more than one pan per person, with blunt knives and artfully-scuffed fridges as far as the eye can see. Think purgatory, kitchen-style.

THE JUDGES

Gordon, Nyesha and Richard kick off the season by each choosing their teams. The contestants are tasked with creating a dish of their choice, and then after a blind tasting, Gordo and Co pick the players they want on their team. It’s a process not unlike picking sides for lunchtime school footy, and yes, prepare to feel sorry for the last-picked contestant.

THE STRATEGY

It’s clear the judges aren’t always picking what appears to be (to our hungry eyes, anyway) the best dish, but instead choosing to consider the effort level and ingredient selection going into each. Unfortunately, the ingredients in the contestant’s meals do not arrive courtesy of a level playing field, thanks to…

THE PLATFORM

Easily the most rogue part of this already complicated show, ingredients are presented to the contestants via a platform that – you guessed it – slowly descends from the top kitchen to the bottom kitchen. No ritzy MasterChef or Iron Chef pantry situation here! The contestants must wait in the corner until Gordon gives them the go-ahead, upon which they run to the platform and are given 30 seconds to choose the items they need. Yes, much delicious food is missed and/or dropped. The reverse happens once the allotted cooking time is up, with the basement-dwellers dropping their completed meals onto the platform before it ascends. Phew.

Eliminations take place as per all reality TV shows, in which the creator of the worst dish is sent home each week.

Despite how much I wanted to hate Next Level Chef – which could only have been conceptualised by a group of people shouting crazy kitchen ideas at one another over Friday night drinks – I could not.

Yes, I may have cringed multiple times, but at its core, Next Level Chef is the very best kind of reality TV show. It’s the easy binge watch with a bit of heart, the one you turn to when you need a break from all those heavy true crime docos.

If you love the US iterations of Hell’s Kitchen or Kitchen Nightmares, you’re going to eat this thing up with a rusty, basement-tinged spoon.

New episodes of Next Level Chef are screening weekly on Binge and Foxtel.

Related story: The Michelin-Star trained New Zealand chef uncovering the secrets of Māori cuisine with Gordon Ramsay