★★★★★ 0/5

Conviction Kitchen

Ian Curley wants to give ex-crims a second chance in Seven's new observational doco. But will the audience be just as forgiving?

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Conviction Kitchen is the World’s Strictest Parents of cooking. In fact it’s not a cooking show, Seven insists.

It’s a show about transformation. And like World’s Strictest Parents, it takes rough diamonds (and that’s putting it nicely) and gives them an opportunity to turn things around by running a working restaurant.

Executive Chef, and a former criminal himself, Ian Curley tells 16 recently-released crims that they all deserve a second chance.

Rehabilitation is an integral part of our justice system and if this show is to succeed it will need the audience to be empathetic. It uses mood music, a tough-love chef and personal stories to help achieve such. As I watched the first episode, I couldn’t help but feel Today Tonight could take exactly the same 16 people and film them in such a way to tell us exactly why they don’t deserve a second chance. That’s television for you.

The crimes the group were incarcerated for include fraud, burglary, break and enter, producing dangerous drugs, dangerous driving and assault (Curley was himself guilty of gang violence as a teenager in the UK). One is even a former cop.

But the disclosed details of their records vary from person to person: not all the crimes are evident, nor all the terms, nor the number of convictions. They’re just all collectively bad ok?

In the first episode Curley and Restaurant Manager Lisa Parker size up the 16 as they enter the workplace shell which will be made over into Brisbane’s Conviction restaurant (the space was hired for the duration of the shoot). They are already making judgements based on first impressions, presumably just as a patron might.

Divided into teams of two, they are sent to a market to purchase produce and given a rundown on the kitchen facilities by Sous Chef Jean-Vital Syverin. While one contestant has charge of cooking, the other must set the table under the eyes of Parker. The challenges of setting a dining table aren’t exactly high stakes.

As he tastes the food Curley is blunt. The food is pretty crap, how will he ever open a restaurant in 2 weeks time? Thankfully he has none of the bitch factor of Gordon Ramsay. When he hears the stories of the ex-crims he emphasises he is here to help.

But he only has places for eleven. Some of them need to be culled. Here is where television has manipulated the circumstance in order to deliver the drama. After hearing how everybody wanted to turn their life around, some tearfully, Conviction Kitchen sends some of the group home. Sorry guys. Why didn’t it simply start with the selected team?

Alternatively, why didn’t it have a bigger pool of people so that didn’t it reek of Casting topping things up with some who were destined to be unsuccessful? No second chances for them.

On the positive side Curley is very good talent as the centre of this universe. A big bear of a bloke (he even has the British chef accent) he wears his heart on his sleeve and it seems like a heart big enough for all. Parker is less confident as the obligatory sidekick.

With Curley’s tough-love, the show also avoids the aggressive tone of its Canadian original, a wise move given the current climate of this genre.

But the first episode also lacks the “wow” factor of a glossy MasterChef. Ooops. It’s not a cooking show, what was I thinking? Hopefully this will improve once the team begins to take to the task and we get to watch a group dynamic under pressure.

Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen worked because its streetkids were social outcasts, but Conviction Kitchen will have a tougher ask given its premise. Especially if media decide to take a closer look at some of their criminal records, or worse, the victims of their crimes. I just have a horrible feeling.

That’s when Curley will really be needed.

Conviction Kitchen airs 9:30pm Tuesday on Seven.

34 Responses

  1. If you are serious about getting a job and serving/cooking for people, then for God’s sake take the iron out of your face! I Don’t want to be served by someone with pieces of steel protruding from their lip or nose – and yes, stop calling criminal acts “mistakes”,

  2. Loved the opening episode. A bit rough having to reject a few of them go but overall this was a great start. It really surprised me. Next week should be good and its good that Seven will leave it on Tuesdays. Didn’t see why it had to move to Mondays. Ian Curley is fantastic too.

  4. Forgetting to schedule a meeting for your boss is a mistake; accidentally putting salt in your cake mix instead of sugar is a mistake; sending a sensitive e-mail to the wrong person is a mistake. Knowingly driving a car whilst three times over the limit is a criminal act. Purposely assaulting someone is a criminal act. Knowingly committing fraud is a criminal act. Can we please stop sugar coating and explaining away criminal acts by calling them “mistakes”? There is a big difference between a simple mistake and a purposely committed criminal offence, a very big difference,

    That gripe of mine aside, I quite enjoyed the show tonight and I think it will do well. Ian Curley is a find – sympathetic screen presence and seems like a nice guy to boot. His female sidekick also came across as a very nice person. Of course, the coming episodes may well be a slow-motion train wreck, but it will be interesting to see how those chosen cope with the enormous pressure of a commercial kitchen.

  5. I applaud anyone who is able to pick themselves up and change their path in life to a positive, healthy one. Kudos to you, Lisa, and the very best for your future.

  6. I am seriously concerned that some contestants claim that they have had such a rough life and have had no second chances when they were growing up and may have had more opportunities than the average person but still made that wrong decisions. We have all had knocks in our life and we still managed not to hurt people by our mistakes. These contestants have left behind victims weather it be people hurt directly by their criminal activity or they families – there are victims and viewers need to know that this show will only show the criminals point of view. Not the view of those family members that have always been there to help but kick to the curb when offering this help. Viewers need to know that there is always two sides to every story. The trouble is that story of family members that have always been there to help will never be told.

  7. David, can you repost the comments from Jan 2010 when all the so called arm chair experts said that My Kitchen Rules will be axed after 3 episodes.?

    Here we are a year later and it is the No.1 show… and Seven is the No.1 network by Kilometers….

  9. @ lisa

    I’m really glad to hear that Conviction Kitchen was such a good experience for you and has helped you to make a better life for you and your children. I agree, people deserve a second chance. Best of luck to you in the future.

  10. I am a consent from the show. I am a single mum and i made one mistake in my life. I love my kids more then anything in this world and sometimes people just need a 2nd chance. Some people in jail are scum, i agree, but some people arent and just because i have been to prison doesnt make me a bad person. I ask for some people not to judge untill u watch it. And even when the show goes to air, its only 1 hour a week and we filmed and worked our a*se off for 8weeks straight of fimling.
    Some people talk about victims, but untill u know our stories in some cases there isnt victims but ourselves.
    Some of us have tried to live a good life and some of us had a really hard time and have tried our best. Have u never made a mistake in ur life?
    Yes someone may ended up back in jail, but 11 of us didnt and thats 11 more people who have had a chance.
    I cant sppeak for everyone else cause. I dont know where they ended up, but i know because of conviction kitchen i have a nice home for me and my kids and i have a good job that pays the bills and im working very hard to give my kids the best life. Even if the show helped just one person, then it was worth it.
    Thank u channel 7 and thank u ian and lisa.

  11. I’m predicting a surprise hit with this one. Sounds dangerously similar to Jamie Oliver’s “15”, but with the added disapproval factor of convicted crims, rather than just street kids. People will tune in just for the fun of feeling morally superior to them, guaranteed. Agree about the culling of five of them after episode one, that is purely manipulative and no doubt done for maximum on-camera bathos and waterworks. Absolutely unnecessary, the culling should have been done in pre-production.

    @Mr Chandler, it sounds nothing like MasterChef so I don’t see how it is riding on its success. It’s a completely different format, just in the cooking show genre, which is very broad. Just because MC is a success, doesn’t mean other networks can’t do shows in the same or similar genre. From what I have seen of the previews, none of the CK contestants are in a studio kitchen whipping up creations on the fly from mystery boxes, nor are they up to their elbows in chopped onions doing on-site challenges. I think this show is more of a social experiment, like “15”.

    @Tony King, yep, ACA will do spoiler reports, most definitely. If the show is a hit and wins its timeslot, they’ll do several. I predict that the victim or victims of one of the contestants will be interviewed and much huffing and puffing about how they don’t deserve a second chance, how unfair it all is, and of course that all time favourite current affairs show chestnut, “what about the victims?”. Both TT and ACA cannibalise the programs on each others networks, so its bound to happen.

  12. I hope this works, because so far, reality cooking shows and “The Biggest Loser” are too ‘family friendly’ right now. Why? Because, they are only being in the PG rated slots so Coles can sponsor them. And Coles is the biggest Aussie reality cooking show sponsor! That’s right, Seven, we need Conviction Kitchen now to show those p*ssies at Network Ten and Shine Australia that reality cooking TV is not all ‘family friendly’ and that you are scared of the Real reality cooking show!

    PS. I have an idea for My Kitchen Rules Season 3: Have a well armed Curtis Stone look-a-like watch the couples very carefully. If they go to Woolworths to shop for their things, deviate from the menus assigned to them, or lose the cook-offs, shoot them to death! This’ll make the other teams shape up.

  13. I find My Kitchen Rules to be good viewing, but I don’t find the thought of watching ex-crims cooking appealing. In MKR, the contestants themselves have their reputation to prove, where as Conviction Kitchen, it sounds like they’re cooking newbies. It will probably rate better than Ben Elton’s show though.

  15. First negative (or sort of negative) review I have seen for this show. Every one else has been singing its praises. I’ll tune in for at least an episode but yes ACA will have a field day with this one I think… and if they were not thinking about it, they are now!

  16. RE Tony King: ACA will have this as their lead story either tonight, tomorrow or Wednesday. You can bet your house on it.

    RE Michael: That’s exactly what Seven are doing IMO.

  18. Success will all depend on the characters involved – whether viewers can feel compassion, curiosity or interest in their lives. My hunch is it’ll do well, but as you were, David, I’m disturbed that for what would seem to be dramatic purposes only, several contestants didn’t make it past the first hurdle. That could easily have been achieved in pre-production.

  19. Yeah no thanks. Just 7 trying to ride on the massive success of master chef and hoping it will crash. Well here’s a tip for you 7 saturating the market with shows like this because another network has a winner. Isn’t going to work

  20. Haha that’s one massive paragraph! Is Seven showing all these cooking shows now, with the hope that when Ten start Masterchef, people will be bored of it and not watch. Oh and I classify this as a cooking show, Seven can twist it however they want but they’re in a restaurant preparing food, that’s cooking.

  21. Ummm David. I’d love to read that, but it seems you’re ‘enter’ button must be broken cos there’s no paragraphs.
    Anywho, not interested in this. A bunch of crims cooking. Not for me. I’m all for a second chance, but there’s people who deserve these kinds of opportunities more, and knowing one already goes back to prison just makes even more disgusting.

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