Naman Shrestha
Hulu’s ‘Secret Chef’ is not your regular food competition series, as it introduces an exciting twist to make itself stand out from the rest of the shows. It pits together ten contestants from different walks of life and across the country in an isolated underground kitchen labyrinth, with each contestant getting their personal room/kitchen. An animated talking hat commands the chefs to perform a series of challenging cooking tasks to get a chance at winning $100,000.
Another aspect that differentiates ‘Secret Chef’ from other cooking shows is that there are no judges. The contestants must rate each other’s dishes in blind taste tests with their true identities hidden at the time. Since the setting of the bright and colorful kitchen labyrinth is indoors, the audience is bound to scratch their heads wondering about the actual filming sites of the show.
Secret Chef Filming Locations
‘Secret Chef’ is filmed in Georgia, specifically in Atlanta. As per reports, principal photography for the inaugural iteration of the cooking competition series commenced in June 2022 and wrapped up in July of the same year. Now, without further ado, let us get to know the specific location of the mysterious underground kitchen where the contestants go head-to-head in the Hulu series!
Atlanta, Georgia
Most of the pivotal sequences for ‘Secret Chef’ are lensed in Atlanta, where the ten contestants are gathered to compete in the one-of-a-kind cooking competition. The production team utilizes the facilities and features of one of the film studios to construct the colorful and isolated set for the series. Several film studios are in and around Atlanta, including Trillith Studios, Tyler Perry Studios, Shadowbox Studios, Third Rail Studios, and EUE/Screen Gems Studios.
In June 2023, one of the contestants, Alexa Santos, a home cook from Fort Lauderdale, sat down in an interview with Sun Sentinel where she was asked if it was as wild being on the set of ‘Secret Chef’ as it appeared. She replied, “It was wild! I basically walked onto a set with nine strangers with different backgrounds in the culinary world, from professionals to home cooks. It wasn’t like ‘Top Chef‘ or ‘Chopped,’ where you know how the challenge will unfold. Everyone gets an alias and rates each other’s skills anonymously.”
In the same interview, there was some talk about the set looking quite similar to that of ‘Squid Game.’ Alexa expanded, “Oh my gosh, I can’t tell you how many times I said that when we were filming. I was like, “It’s ‘Squid Game’ but with cooking! I was like, what are they going to do to us? We would hear these dinging noises that tell us to walk into another room. You never know what’s going to be there.”
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