Meet the Cast of 'Around the World in 80 Plates'

Hope you're hungry -- we're finally lifting the cloche on our most ambitious culinary competition ever. Around The World In 80 Plates premiers Wednesday, May 9 at 10/9c, with hosts Curtis Stone and Cat Cora at the helm. The show follows twelve chefs in an eye-popping, 40-day race across ten countries on five continents. On each episode, the contenders travel to a new international city, soaking up local customs, cultures, and cuisines, as they duke it out in two cooking challenges to test their skills and savvy.

In The Course, chefs race around each city performing high-pressure tasks. The winning team earns an Exceptional Ingredient, a huge advantage in the elimination challenge. Then teams face off in The Takeover, where their kitchen skills, customer service, teamwork, and knowledge of local delicacies are tested as they run local restaurants. The team that loses the Takeover will then choose its weakest link and send them home.

Helping them along the way, the contestants will meet up with Food Ambassadors like Wolfgang Puck, José Andrés, and others providing insight into each destination's local food culture. The show kicks off in London, where the cheftestants race in a pub crawl, then take over a gastropub to serve up authentic fare to Nigella Lawson and local Brits.

The competing chefs, six men and six women, are heavy-hitters with pedigrees from some of the best culinary schools and restaurants in the world. Five chefs from Cali are in the mix (three from LA, one from San Francisco, and one from Chatsworth). Chicago's the next best-repped city, with three rivals. Rounding out the roster are one contestant each from New York, El Paso, Denver, and St. Louis (and of course, we have complete bios on all of them).

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