TBS’s new unscripted cooking competition series Rat in the Kitchen puts a weird twist on traditional culinary competitions. Despite its name, Rat in the Kitchen has nothing to do with Pixar’s Ratatouille. Instead, the “rat” in this cooking show is a saboteur who tries to screw up his or her team’s dishes without getting caught.
Rat in the Kitchen will premiere on Thursday, March 31, 2022 at 9pm ET/PT. Hosted by Natasha Leggero and Chef Ludo Lefebvre, Rat in the Kitchen’s competitors are a mix of home cooks and professional chefs. Each team will be tasked with figuring out who among them is the rat as they attempt to create dishes that impress judge Lefebvre.
During the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour, ITV’s Chief Creative Officer David Eilenberg revealed the rat was given a lot of freedom to figure out how to sabotage dishes. “If other contestants were foolish enough to leave the food alone during the plating process, the rat could jump in then,” said Eilenberg. “It was very free-flowing in terms of when the rat might jump in to do their dastardly deeds.”
Eilenberg discussed the casting process, noting the rat was chosen from among the chefs cast in the show. Being selected to be the rat was actually a surprise to the chosen chef.
“You want them to be ready to become a saboteur. What’s been really interesting watching the show evolve is that every rat we ultimately ended up selecting brought his or her own personality and skills to the job,” said Eilenberg. “And, again, without giving too much away, you saw people occasionally deceive the other contestants even about parts of their own background. They got very deep into going cloak and dagger.”
Eilenberg added: “You should know that the rat doesn’t know that they’re the rat until the night before shooting. The rat doesn’t have weeks to prepare to be a rat. They have one tense night to figure out how they’re going to pull this off.”
Host Natasha Leggero enjoyed watching the chefs bond and then being shocked when the rat was revealed.
“One of the most fun things about watching it is the chefs really start to trust each other and make friends and allies with each other throughout the game, and then oftentimes, they find out that someone has deceived them who they’ve been almost becoming friends with. So, I think that really added to it. I feel like they were all so convincing,” said Leggero.
Chef Ludo Lefebvre confirmed that neither he nor Natasha Leggero knew the rat’s identity. “If I will be a contestant, I would test all the food and don’t trust anybody,” said Lefebvre, laughing. “It was hard to find the rats, you know. It was hard, especially if you have a good cook or bad cook. Sometimes it was just a big mess. It was hard to figure out what’s going on in the kitchen. I was not used to seeing a kitchen (with) so many different foods in the kitchen, movement, creativity. I mean, there’s a lot of chefs in one kitchen, and a lot of things going on. It’s very difficult to find the rats.”
Leggero admitted they got worse at guessing the rat’s identity as the season went on, mainly because the rats were getting better at hiding in plain sight.
“There were a few episodes where we were squealing. We couldn’t believe who it was. I definitely don’t think we got better at guessing,” said Leggero.
The best rats were also the best actors, according to Leggero.
“I don’t know what I can say…but, you know, just pretending like you’re tripping and spilling something, and it feeling very real and then finding out, oh, that was a sabotage,” explained Leggero. “I think everyone would come up with their own unique things, and I think the acting would really help, too.”
