My Kitchen Rules

Format

Contestants

Judging panel

• Series Judges – Celebrity chefs and co-hosts Pete Evans and Manu Feildel have appeared in every season in the show. They have been responsible for all challenges and judging across the series.
• Colin Fassnidge – Making his first appearance as a guest judge in season 4, Colin joined the blind tasting panel for Sudden Death cook-offs. He was also involved with additional judging roles such as facilitating the Comeback Kitchen and Food Truck challenges in seasons 4 and 5 respectively. In seasons 6 and 7, Colin and Manu had rotated roles for judging. Colin was present for People's Choice and off-site challenges, while Manu was involved in Headquarters challenges. Colin was also featured for the first time in an Instant Restaurant round in the same season.
• Blind Tasting Panel – During Sudden Death cook-off eliminations, the blind tasting panel are asked to score and judge the competing teams' meals. This panel currently consists of Liz Egan, Guy Grossi, Karen Martini and Colin Fassnidge. Previously it also included Jacqui Gowan in season 1 only and Tobie Puttock until season 3. From season 1 to 3, the panel had knowledge of which teams were cooking. From season 4, as a blind tasting panel, they do not know who the competing teams were until scoring.
• Guest Judges – Season 7 introduced new special guest judges who appeared in specific challenges alongside the main series panel. They included Rachel Khoo during Round 3 of the Instant restaurants and Curtis Stone during the first Kitchen HQ challenge. In season 8, Darren Robertson was included in an instant restaurant round.

  Original format

• Initially participating teams are split into two groups of five to compete in a separate round of instant restaurant.
• A team who placed last in each instant restaurant group will be eliminated from the competition. However, teams who placed third and fourth will compete in a cook-off, and the two lowest scoring teams will be eliminated.
• After the cook-off, the remaining six teams competed in quarterfinal of three rounds, wherein:
• * #2 teams in both instant restaurant groups competed in first quarterfinal round;
• * #1 team in the first instant restaurant and #1 team in cook-off competed in second quarterfinal round; and
• * #1 team in the second instant restaurant and #2 team in cook-off contended in last quarterfinal round.
• Losing teams of each quarterfinal rounds were immediately eliminated. However, the overall highest scoring team in quarterfinals advanced straight through the grand final. The remaining two teams contended in a semifinal, the last berth to the finale round.

  Pre 2020 format

Instant restaurant round

• During the first season of the show, the lowest scoring teams of each instant restaurant round were eliminated immediately from the competition. Meanwhile, top two scoring teams on both rounds advanced through to quarterfinals round. Teams placing third and fourth on both instant restaurant rounds have to compete in a Kitchen Cook-off, where two losing teams will be eliminated and the other two will proceed through to quarterfinals.
• On the second season, the lowest scoring teams of each instant restaurant round competed in a Sudden Death cook-off, wherein the losing team was eliminated from the competition. The remaining teams advanced to the People's Choice Challenge—a new competition format replacing quarterfinals round.
• During the third season, the three lowest scoring teams of each instant restaurant round competed in yet another instant restaurant, thus having three rounds for this season. The losing team of the third instant restaurant was eliminated from the competition.
• During the fourth and fifth seasons, there were two rounds of instant restaurant with six teams each, wherein the lowest scoring team of each group was immediately eliminated from the competition. However, after the second round, the tally of the instant restaurant scores for both groups were combined and the three lowest scorers out of the remaining ten teams competed in another instant restaurant round with new set of teams—titled as the gatecrashers. The losing team of the third round was also eliminated from the competition.
• During the sixth season, after the first two groups had completed their rounds, a third instant restaurant group were introduced as 'Colin's secret round'. In that round, Colin Fassnidge is the only judge critiquing that group and is also the first time ever in the show, where Pete and Manu do not make an appearance as hosts. The lowest scoring teams from each of the three groups is eliminated. Then the bottom 2 teams from each group competed in an Instant Restaurant Redemption round to eliminate two more teams.

  Pre-finals round

• People's Choice Challenge – During this offsite challenge, teams all have an hour and a half to prepare their dishes relating to a theme or event. The team with the most number of guest votes is declared as the People's Choice and will be safe for the rest of the round or from the next elimination.
• Food Truck - Used only in season 5, during the rounds from Top 12 to Top 9, remaining teams from the People's Choice will compete in a new Food Truck challenge. This sees teams split into two even groups and will each run competing restaurants, cooking in a large semi-trailer which opens up into two kitchens. Patrons dining will pay for what they believe the meal was worth. To win, the group must earn the most amount of money. The losing group will continue onto the rapid cook-off, whilst the winning group, become safe from elimination and formed as the team's jury.
• Rapid Cook-off – In Kitchen Headquarters, teams are challenged to create a dish using a key ingredient in 30 minutes. All teams will be reviewed by the judges with certain number of teams who will be safe from elimination, and who will be competing in a following showdown. In season 5, dishes were not only judged by Pete and Manu, but also by a teams' jury, which is formed by all teams currently safe for the round. They were able to select one of teams to be safe.
• Showdown – Teams with the worst dishes during rapid cook-off compete in this round by cooking a meal using a core ingredient in 60 minutes. A team with the worst dish, again, will be chosen by the judges and will proceed straight through the Sudden Death round.
• Sudden Death – Two losing teams from challenges battle it out by producing a three-course meal for Pete and Manu, and the four guest judges. Both teams must prepare their dishes in a total of three hours – They have 90 minutes to do prep. and serve an entree, 60 minutes for their main course, and 30 minutes for the dessert. Each judge critiques and scores the total meal out of ten, and the lowest scoring team is eliminated from the competition. From the fourth season, blind tastings were introduced and the guest judges critiqued the dishes without knowing which team cooked it.

  Finals round

Semifinals

• In the 2011 season, there were four knives on a table, two of which had Semifinal 1 on their labels, and the other two had Semifinal 2 on their blades. The labels were covered, leaving the knife handles visible. Each team was asked to select a knife. Teams which picked Semifinal 1 knives competed in the first semifinal, while teams which chose Semifinal 2 contested the second semifinal.
• In the 2012 season, teams competed in a seeding round. Teams competed in two challenges, and their dishes on each challenge were scored out of ten by the judges. The highest scoring team of the seeding round cooked against the lowest scoring team in the first semifinal, while #2 and #3 teams competed in the second semifinal.
• In the 2013 and 2014 season, the final four teams were divided into two semifinal match-ups based on their rankings in the Final 5 round. As in 2012, #1 cooked against #4, and #2 cooked against #3.

  Grand final

Series overview

Foreign series

Israel

New Zealand

Canada (Québec)

Russia

Serbia

South Africa

United Kingdom

United States

Awards and nominations

Ratings and viewership average

Criticism

International broadcast