tvN Plans Undercover Chef Spin-Off Bringing Overseas Kitchen Mentors To Korea

tvN is extending the world of Undercover Chef with a new spin-off program that will bring several of the original show’s overseas kitchen figures to Korea. The project is planned for broadcast within the year, while the official title, episode structure, and exact airing schedule have not yet been finalized.

The new program follows the reality series that sent Korean celebrity chefs Sam Kim, Jung Ji Sun, and Kwon Sung Joon into working restaurants abroad. In the original format, the chefs temporarily set aside their public reputations and entered local kitchens as junior staff members, taking on practical missions while trying to earn trust in unfamiliar workplaces.

The spin-off reverses that direction. Instead of Korean chefs traveling overseas, kitchen colleagues from the restaurants featured in Italy’s Parma and Naples, as well as China’s Chengdu, are expected to visit Korea. The premise puts the relationships formed during the original assignments at the center of the follow-up.

A Format Built Around Real Kitchen Relationships

Undercover Chef stood out because its tension came from practical work rather than studio competition alone. The participating chefs had to deal with language barriers, fast-paced service, and the pressure of proving themselves without relying on their established names. That setup gave the show a documentary-like texture while still operating within the familiar rhythm of Korean variety entertainment.

Sam Kim’s storyline was connected to Parma, Jung Ji Sun’s to Chengdu, and Kwon Sung Joon’s to Naples. Across those segments, the program emphasized how professional respect can develop through repeated service, mistakes, corrections, and shared responsibility. The planned spin-off appears designed to test whether those bonds can carry into a new environment when the overseas kitchen mentors become visitors rather than hosts.

The original series ended with strong audience momentum. It recorded notable ratings for a culinary reality show and became a regular topic in non-drama entertainment rankings, with Sam Kim also drawing individual attention among variety personalities. That response helps explain why the production team is moving quickly with a related program instead of waiting for a distant second season.

Why The Korea Visit Matters

A Korea-based spin-off gives the program a different emotional structure. The first series asked well-known Korean chefs to adapt to someone else’s kitchen culture. The follow-up can show the opposite adjustment: overseas colleagues navigating Korean restaurants, food culture, and the public attention that comes with a television reunion.

Kwon Sung Joon also fueled interest by speaking about the project during an online broadcast. He indicated that people who appeared with the chefs abroad were expected to come to Korea and suggested that his own restaurant could become part of the visit. While those remarks did not settle the final format, they pointed to a travel-and-reunion concept built around hospitality, food, and the afterlife of the original show’s relationships.

That kind of structure could widen the appeal beyond viewers who watched the first season for cooking technique. A spin-off can explore how culinary work creates friendships across language and hierarchy, while still giving audiences the accessible pleasures of restaurants, travel, and unscripted reactions. If handled carefully, the show could balance professional kitchen detail with warmer scenes of guests discovering Korea through the people they worked beside abroad.

The project also arrives at a moment when Korean unscripted television continues to experiment with globalized formats. Instead of simply sending Korean stars overseas for spectacle, Undercover Chef made local workers part of the story. Bringing those workers to Korea now turns them from supporting figures into potential co-leads, giving the spin-off a reason to exist beyond brand extension.

What Remains Unconfirmed

Several key details remain open. tvN has not announced the program’s final title, number of episodes, confirmed cast list, or premiere date. It is also not yet clear how much of the show will focus on restaurants, sightseeing, reunion meals, or behind-the-scenes conversations about the original filming.

Still, the broad direction is clear: the spin-off will revisit the cross-border kitchen connections that made Undercover Chef resonate with viewers. By moving the setting to Korea and shifting attention toward the overseas mentors, tvN is positioning the follow-up as both a reunion and a new test of hospitality. For fans of the first series, the main question is no longer whether those relationships were memorable, but how they will change when the kitchen doors open on Korean soil.