Plot Synopsis

Four chefs compete in elimination culinary challenges, as they create dishes for different historical time periods while only using kitchen equipment and ingredients available during that era. After the first round (China, circa 1416AD in the pilot), the judging panel eliminates one chef, and the judges select "The Greatest Chef in History" after the second challenge (Tudor era England in the pilot). The chefs in the pilot are: Art Smith, executive chef and co-owner of Table fifty-two in Chicago and Art and Soul in Washington DC., who became the personal chef to Oprah Winfrey in 1997, a position he held for 10 years; Chris Cosentino, executive chef of Incanto in San Francisco since 2002 and co-owner of Boccalone, who debuted his first cookbook, "Beginnings: My Way to Start a Meal," in 2012 from Olive Press media; Ilan Hall, best known to television viewers as the winner of Season 2 of Bravo's TOP CHEF, who is owner and executive chef of The Gorbals in Los Angeles; and Jill Davie, a private chef in California and a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, who won the grand prize of $10,000 on Food Network's "Hot Chefs: South Beach" competition and was a contestant on THE NEXT IRON CHEF in 2007. The judging table consists of chef, restaurateur and cookbook author Nancy Silverton, Dave Arnold of the French Culinary Institute in New York City, and chef and cookbook author Silvena Rowe of Quince in London's May Fair Hotel. ABC aired the one-hour pilot of this series on Thursday, August 16, 2012 at 9pm ET, and and will use the ratings for that program to help determine whether to pickup the show as a series.