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24 in 24: Last Chef Standing season 2 premiered on Food Network on April 27. The grueling culinary competition returned with a new batch of 24 chefs competing in a non-stop 24-hour challenge to win the coveted title and take home the $50,000 prize money.
The show is equally demanding on the hosts and the crew members, if not more. In an interview with TV Insider, published on April 25, host Michael Symon reflected on the behind-the-scenes filming process of the show, sharing that they have to be on the set for over 30 hours without any sleep.
Symon explained that he and his fellow, Esther Choi, have to arrive on the set before the contestants, and since it's filmed non-stop in real-time, they don't get any time to spare on other things.
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"For Esther and I, we’re basically up for over 30 hours because we have to get there before the chefs. Because it is real-time and the clock doesn’t stop and there’s no real stopping," he said.
24 in 24: Last Chef Standing host Michael Symon says they have to be awake the whole time during the non-stop filming
24 in 24: Last Chef Standing is one of Food Network's most ambitious and grueling cooking shows to date. It features 24 fearless chefs as they take on 24 food challenges in 24 consecutive, non-stop hours.
The challenging format takes a lot out of the participating contestants, pushing them to their extreme limits, and demanding their display of stamina, creativity, and skills needed for them to be called the elite chef.
In his interview with TV Insider, host Michael Symon took the viewers behind the scenes and opened up about the show's gruesome filming process.
Symon explained that the show is filmed in real time without any breaks, as stopping would take away from the integrity of the format. He compared it to other shows, noting that, unlike them, they can't simply shoot a segment, pause, and resume later—everything must be captured continuously.
"There is no stop downs. You’re going the whole time. There were three separate camera crews that rotated through every eight hours. Same with sound and all those things," he explained.
The 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing host continued:
"For Esther and I, it was over 30 hours of being awake. Even in the first season, some of the production was like, “You can take a break.” I thought if the competitors were going through it, we’re going through it. We just stayed up with them".
Later in the interview, Symon reflected on what set season 2 apart from the first. He said that while the debut season featured an incredible lineup of chefs, the talent in the most recent season reached an entirely new level.
The other thing they noticed was the fact that the contestants coming in for the second season knew what happened in the premiere season and had an idea of what to expect. So, tackle that issue, the 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing host said the crew "mixed things up" and introduced new sets of challenges and concepts.
"Everyone doing Season 2 had seen Season 1, so they felt they knew what would happen next. That wasn’t the case. We mixed things up. We changed things up a bit for the competitions, just so they couldn’t walk in and go, 'Now I do this. Now I do this.' Predict what would happen. It made the show very unpredictable," he said.
24 in 24: Last Chef Standing season 2 episodes premiere every Sunday on Food Network.
