Over six years ago, I wrote this piece wishing MasterChef franchise was brought to Nepal — the most obvious reason being the promotion of actual Nepali foods from all corners of the country. Well, after all these years, the wish has finally come true — ALMOST.

While, it’s not the MasterChef franchise; but a similar but original cooking reality show has arrived in Nepal.

Conceptualized and produced by Dharma Raj Pandey under the banner of Dharma Pictures, the show titled ‘Chef Nepal’ is directed by Siddhartha Pudasaini. Santosh Shah, Laxman Prasad Bhandari, Ganesh Dhakal are the ones in charge of judging the cooking skills of the participants; with Priyanka Karki as the celebrity judge.

While the show was expected to land several months ago, the showrunners had to go through a setback due to lack of budget. But well, as they say — all’s well that ends well — the first episode of the show finally got aired on Kantipur TV this week on September 8th; and hopefully, it would have a smooth run from now onward.

The 40-minute first episode has already promised a good show and I really hope it lives up to the expectations. It’s a well made production, I just wish they took more close up and better shots of the food items served by the contestants. Apart from that, it looked good. The winner of the show is gonna go home with a fat check of Rs. 25 lakh. That’s pretty good.

Here, you can watch the episode here.