Wichita chef gets a second shot at popular Food Network show. Episode airs this week
It was April 2020 when local chef and restaurant owner Natasha Gandhi-Rue appeared on — and won — an episode of ”Guy’s Grocery Games,” a popular game show hosted by celebrity chef Guy Fieri on Food Network.
Now, she’s able to share the followup to that story: As a past winner she was invited over the summer to return to California and compete again, and the episode will air at 8 p.m. on Wednesday.
Gandhi-Rue, the owner of The Kitchen at 725 E. Douglas, said she traveled to the San Francisco area in August to record the Thanksgiving-themed episode, which is titled “Thankful for Flavortown.”
She’ll be one of four previous show winners who will compete to prepare both a Thanksgiving hors d’oeuvre and a dinner in just an hour.
“I love Thanksgiving,” she said. “Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s a holiday around food — What’s not to like? So I was excited because it was Thanksgiving, and I’m always up for a challenge.”
Just like last time, Gandhi-Rue can’t say how she did on the episode, which sets contestants loose on in an on-set grocery store Fieri has dubbed “Flavortown Market.” The competing chefs race to gather the ingredients they need then try to outcook each other.
Things went well for her on the 2020 episode, during which she was nicknamed “Wizard of Wichita” by Fieri. She survived three rounds in the episode, titled “Clearance Wars,” and earned the $20,000 prize when she prepared three dishes the celebrity judges loved, including a surf-and-turf offering that included scallops coated in Frosted Flakes.
Her second time on set only deepened her admiration of Fieri, who over the summer helped restaurant owners suffering because of the COVID-19 pandemic by distributing $300,000 in grants. In 2020, he also raised $21.5 million to help restaurant workers as part of a relief fund.
“He has done so much for restaurants during all of this COVID, and it was kind of nice to say thank you to him,” Gandhi-Rue said. “As a restaurant owner, that opportunity was pretty wonderful.”
In addition to being a two-time “Guy’s Grocery Game” contestant, Gandhi-Rue also has appeared on national television once before extolling her love of Thanksgiving. The morning before Thanksgiving Day in 2019, she appeared on “Today” on NBC and represented Kansas in a segment called “The United Plates of America.”
She’s also not the first Wichita chef to appear on “Guy’s Grocery Games.” In November 2013, local chef and regular cooking show contestant Jason Febres was a contestant on the show’s first season.
Though she wishes she could host a watch party of some kind, Gandhi-Rue said it’s just not possible.
She’s underwater at the moment with catering jobs and preparing to serve Thanksgiving meals to go from her restaurant next week.
“I’ve just got too much on my plate,” she said.
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