MasterChef (Uruguayan TV series)

MasterChef Uruguay is a Uruguayan competitive cooking game show that is broadcast on Channel 10.^[1] Based on the British series of the same name, it features amateur and home chefs.^[2] As of the show's seventh season, the line-up of judges consists of Sergio Puglia, Laurent Lainé Ximena Torres.^[3]

The winner plays for a prize that includes chef training from Crandon Institute, a trip to Girona to go to learn for 3 days at El Celler de Can Roca, and UYU$200,000 in cash.

The competition takes place in the MasterChef soundstage located in La Aguada, Montevideo which includes a supermarket, a restaurant, and a large kitchen area with several cooking stations which is overlooked by a balcony.

In each episode the participants must overcome a challenge

• Mystery box: In this challenge, contestants have a box that hides ingredients or other things. With what they have in the box they have to cook a dish, without being able to go to the market to look for more ingredients. They can use all the ingredients they want from the box, be it one or all.
• Elimination Test: In this test will be the worst dishes of the previous test. They have to cook any dish, but that dish has to have a main ingredient chosen by the Chefs (in each elimination test the main ingredient will be different). In this test there is always only one loser, which is removed from MasterChef. This is the only test that is in every episode.
• Team Challenge: In this challenge the cooks are split into teams by team captains who is the one who chooses his teammates and who chooses what dishes to do. Captains are almost always the 2 winners of the previous test. Always in this challenge the judges are not the main Chefs but other people, generally several people.
• Challenge in pairs: In this test teams of two participants are formed. They have to make a dish chosen by each team. While one cooks the other stands to the side and can help you by talking and giving advice or warn you about something but cannot help you by cooking or touching something. After a certain time they rotate and the one who cooked, stands on one side talking to him and the other cooks. They always rotate more than 1 time.
• Master class: In this challenge, the contestants taste a dish cooked by a guest chef, and then they cook it with different ingredients for a certain time.

Rumours of a Uruguayan adaptation of MasterChef began circulating in October 2016.^[1] In February 2017, the programme’s host and judging panel were officially confirmed. The series premiered on 3 April 2017. On 8 May 2017, during the broadcast of that evening’s episode, a second season of MasterChef Uruguay was announced. It was also confirmed that applications for the new edition would open shortly, and that contestants who had registered for the first season would not be required to apply again.^[4]

On 23 July 2017, the day before the first season’s finale, a special programme titled Road to the Grand Final was aired. The special followed the lives and experiences of the four finalists throughout the competition.^[5]

A spin-off featuring professional chefs as contestants.^[6] It ran from August 20, 2018 to November 27, 2018.^[7] The judges were Sergio Puglia, Lucía Soria, Laurent Lainé and Narda Lepes.^[8][9]