'You got Chef'd!' returns

This season celebrity chef Ranveer Brar and John Dewar & Sons India brand ambassador Greg Benson will be featuring in the show along with other celebrities like Barkha Singh, Nakuul Mehta, Shweta Tripathi, Arjun Kanungo and Ayush Mehra. The celebs will be cook street-style versions of their favourite dishes against Brar's gourmet versions. All this over fun conversations, delicious food cooked and the perfect cocktail pairing by Benson. In a chat with life, Brar and Benson reveal more about the show.

Q) How is this season going to be different from the previous one?

Brar: Season two is exciting for two reasons: Greg and I! The series captures conversations with friends and memories that street style comfort food and delectable cocktail invokes, and there's a universal resonance to that. So while the format of it is largely the same, Dewar's and Gobble have tried bringing smaller surprise elements through what we curate. Just as the millennial appreciators are moving beyond intimate casual occasions to celebrating everyday moments with larger Insta-gangs, we've moved to relatable occasions this season like pool parties and brunches. Meaning, more clinks and clicks.

All of us these days travel more than ever. And when we come back, we not only tend to bring back a piece of the place, but also a piece of the plate. This nice blend of global palates, elevated experiences and comfort food is what every gathering yearns for. What you'll see this year is how gourmet street food beautifully brings together the taste of street style comfort food that is well-ingrained in the Indian palate, with gourmet and trendy ingredients that this generation expects back home. It's going to be a lot of experimenting over some great chat and undoubtedly the best cocktail concoctions by Greg with Dewar's Scotch.

Benson: "You Got Chef'd!" season one saw a killer success. It was exciting to see the audience's reception towards a first-of-a-kind-show designed keeping in mind the new-age social spheres. Audiences are still watching it time and again. With every other day being a unique occasion in itself, and millennials looking at curating Insta-worthy social jams, Dewar's and Gobble have teamed up again this year to double the fun from last year and add to people's party menus. Not only are these dishes and cocktails aesthetically fit for Instagram, but are made with some crazy twists that would get everyone in the room checking in for the recipe the next day.

Q) How is the celebrity line-up like?

Brar: I've spent some great time with some of India's most popular digital celebs like Barkha Singh, Nakuul Mehta, Shweta Tripathi, Arjun Kanungo and Ayush Mehra to test whether they have it in them to be chefs, through a series of chatty cook-offs this year.

Q) How was the experience?

Benson: Adding to the fun banter on memories associated with some of the dishes cooked, was the delight in crafting cocktails that'd go perfectly well with the occasions. It only made it more delightful to curate Scotch cocktails for these occasions. Taking elements and flavours of the gourmet recipe to make something that pairs so well was most exciting of all, for me.

We've got your mid-week blues sorted with the gourmet street food and Scotch cocktail pairings; and give you enough time to experiment and garner the ingredients for the weekend-dos.

Q) What are your expectations with this season?

Brar: With food being the essential watch-out part for every occasion, we hope to be a leg up for the fancy menu makers. Hopefully, the new-gen audiences will don the hats of quirkier chefs and cook gourmet versions of their go-to comfort food or even popular dishes for these unconventional occasions.

Benson: Definitely, the hope is to inspire cooler highball and cocktail craft as a double dose of fun at these fun social dos. It's also in part to be the answer to the ever-rising quest for the new quirky and cool. With some of the tips and tricks in the series, we'll hopefully take away the stress and time spent googling for "just-the-right-food-and-Scotch Highballs-cocktails" befitting the occasion.

(Puja Gupta can be contacted at puja.g@.in)

( With inputs from IANS )