Exclusive: Guy Fieri is cooking up another chapter of Tournament of Champions as Food Network renews the competition series for Season 3.

Set to return Sunday, Feb. 27 at 8 p.m. Et/Pt, Tournament of Champions III will feature two-hour long episodes and 32 talented chefs vying for the $100,000 grand prize, the largest reward in the tournament’s history.

The skills and abilities of the best chefs from the East and West coasts will be pushed to the limit, as host Guy Fieri spins the dreaded 5-wheeled randomizer that determines each cook-off: the protein, produce, equipment, cooking style, and time. A panel of judges, including Scott Conant, Cat Cora, Dominique Crenn and Giada De Laurentiis will evaluate the dishes blind. Judges also include Traci Des Jardins, Rocco Dispirito, Lorena Garcia, Alex Guarnaschelli, Mashaharu Morimoto, Eric Ripert, Nancy Silverton, Ming Tsai, and Jonathan Waxman. Hunter Fieri will follow all the action backstage, capturing chefs...

"You can be fit and enjoy wonderful food," says Art Smith, who proved it when he dropped 120 lbs., while still keeping fans like Oprah happy with his famous fried chicken, and occasionally indulging himself. The Top Chef Masters star was one of three-dozen chefs whom People senior editor Allison Adato spoke with for her book, Smart Chefs Stay Slim: Lessons in Eating and Living from America's Best Chefs, just out in paperback. Each one of them has managed to either maintain a healthy weight - or lose a lot - despite working around rich and delicious food everyday. If you're...

Anthony Bourdain may have his acerbic appeal, but it may be BBC America's "No Kitchen Required" that brings out the best of food's role in the mixing of cultures.

Tuesday, Sept. 18, the series features chefs Michael Psilakis, Madison Cowan and Kayne Raymond as they visit Koh Lanta, Thailand, where they make the best effort they can to assimilate to the Uraklavoy culture.

At the time of this interview, Psilakis had just finished shooting this episode and was still both moved and blown away by the experience.

"I just came back from -- I guess the 'squid hunt,' we would call it," he tells Zap2it. "Then at the same time, I was able to fish with just a line -- no rod and reel -- just a line in the ocean, and got some fish. Then we went to this unbelievable market -- a Thai market that was...

In two decades of working in film and television, I had never participated in a reality show, although I can see the appeal of them and the addiction that some shows inspire. However, all of that changed early this year when I was approached to help a BBC America show get on the Mescalero Apache reservation in New Mexico to shoot an episode of their new and highly anticipated show, No Kitchen Required, a mixture of Survivor meets Amazing Race meets Chopped.

Three masters of the culinary arts -- Chef Michael Psilakis, Chef Kayne Raymond, and Chef Madison Cowan, who was the overall winner of the Chopped series -- travel to ten exotic locations around the world, meeting the indigenous people of the land. They must hunt and prepare a meal using the traditions of the local people. The catch is, they have no kitchen. They are cooking the tribal way.

Admittedly, I’ve been getting a little bored of the typical foodie programming. I’ve seen every diner, every drive-in, every dive. I’ve been Chopped, watched chefs battled over who was most Iron, and seen others battle to be Tops. And I’ve tuned in for more socially awkward Ina Garten parties than I care to admit. (Also, I clearly need to get a life.)

But just when I thought I’d possibly reached my food TV peak, BBC America introduced a new series called No Kitchen Required that combines the traditional food competition format with challenging locales. In the first episode,...

It has to be one of the more compelling cooking competition series to have arrived in a while.

BBC America's "No Kitchen Required," premiering Tuesday, April 3, takes three experienced and notable chefs out of their usual elements and throws them in far and remote corners of the world to cook for the indigenous people, using local ingredients, know-how and tools. New York's Michael Psilakis joins "Chopped" winner Madison Cowan and New Zealand chef Kayne Raymond for this series that's part culinary competition and part "Around the World in 80 Days," as they find themselves cooking for and connecting with the native peoples in locations including Thailand, Belize, Fiji, New Zealand and Dominica.

Psilakis finds the challenge of the series invigorating and inspiring. "If you're a cook, it really forces you to think outside of the box, because how many people cook this way, unless you're on a camping trip?...

BBC America A scene from “No Kitchen Required”

To capture the remote locales in BBC America’s first original series “No Kitchen Required,” executive producer and director Chachi Senior looked to the stylistic vision of film directors Terrence Malick and Ridley Scott. He used long lenses and short depth of field, shooting the series much like a baseball game or a Nascar race. Over 90 percent of his camera crew came from feature films, a decision that landed many serendipitous moments on film.

BBC America just released the first promo for its latest original series, No Kitchen Required. Three chefs are pitted against one another in remote locales, where they're challenged to cook native cuisine. The competitors are forced to hunt and gather their own ingredients. The first look from the network reveals that they have to do it all with just a knife. No Kitchen's 10-episode freshman run stars New York restaurateur Michael Psilakis, Chopped champ Madison Cowan and New Zealand chef Kayne Raymond, with BBC’s Shini Somara serving as host. Although the series comes from the creators of Chopped, that

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Survivor meets Top Chef by way of The Amazing Race in BBC America's brand new (and quite honestly, awesome-sounding) series, No Kitchen Required, premiering Tuesday, March 20 at 10/9c.

The 10-episode series takes three chefs — New York eatery maven Michael Psilakis, New Zealand's Kayne Raymond, and Chopped Grand Champion's Madison Cowan — and drops them into wild, around-the-world locales without so much as a pepper mill, to compete against one another by collecting, catching or just plain killing indigenous ingredients and preparing a dish to be judged by the locals. Among the areas set for the first season are spots in Thailand, Fiji, the Louisiana Bayou and Belize. We can already hear Gordon Ramsay raging at not thinking of this idea first.

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BBC America has greenlighted new adventure cooking competition series No Kitchen Required. The 10-episode original series, which will premiere in Spring 2012, sees three chefs — New York restaurateur Michael Psilakis, Chopped Grand Champion chef Madison Cowan and New Zealand chef Kayne Raymond — being dropped into a remote location where each must work with the locals to hunt, forage and collect ingredients to create a locally-inspired meal that will be judged by the community. The series will be hosted by British presenter Shini Somara (BBC’s One Show). No Kitchen Required will be produced by Notional, an Iac company, with Kevin Greene and Notional’s Chachi Senior and Dave Noll serving as executive producers. It joins BBC America’s slate of original programming, which includes the new comedy panel show Would You Rather…? with Graham Norton, a Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! special, a series of specials featuring Chris Hardwick as The Nerdist,...

Getty Featured chef Michael Psilakis of Kefi

Those were just a couple of the oddball treats in store for visitors to the final-day Grand Tasting spread at the Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival. If Sunday’s event had a theme, it was weirdness and excess – and the two often went hand in hand.

To be fair, the festival is what you make of it: If you wanted to spend the day sampling nothing but California Cabernet’s,...

Billy Farrell Giada De Laurentiis

At a swanky spot in Soho last night 33 chefs competed for the honor of becoming the city’s top meatball maker, and hundreds of guests competed to get a peek at, and maybe a picture with, chef Giada De Laurentiis–all in the name of fighting hunger.

If ever there was an event to ring in the opening of a New York food festival, it’s Meatball Madness. Or, to be more precise “The Food Network...