Natasha Leggero deals with rats in the kitchen on TBS cooking show

Comic Natasha Leggero was initially reluctant to tackle her newest gig internet hosting the TBS sequence “Rat within the Kitchen.” 

“At first I used to be like, wait, what? I shouldn’t be a part of a cooking present, I’m famously a horrible chef,” Leggero, 48, informed The Publish. “I’ve acquired to make my daughter lunch each morning, and that’s a feat I wouldn’t want on anybody. I’ve been making an attempt to make kale chips for like, 5 years now, and so they at all times come out concurrently moist and burnt.

“I don’t have the contact.”

“Rat within the Kitchen,” airing Thursdays at 9 p.m., is a actuality sequence that’s half cooking competitors and half “whodunit” thriller. Every episode incorporates a totally different group of cooks (each residence educated amateurs and people with culinary-school expertise) who prepare dinner a number of dishes with the aim to win a money prize as much as $50,000 and break up it among the many group.

The catch: one individual of their ranks is a “rat” who’s secretly aiming to sabotage their dishes. They need to guess who it’s, and thwart the rat’s efforts … in any other case, the rat may take residence the prize cash as a substitute of the crew. 

“After I discovered [celebrity chef judge Ludo Lefebvre] was concerned, he’s such a tremendous chef, and I acquired to satisfy him,” mentioned Leggero. “He’s so gifted and obsessed with meals. It was a extremely enjoyable mixture, as a result of he can stay severe about meals, and his requirements are so excessive. And I can simply be there making jokes about all of it. It was additionally enjoyable to roast the meals — nobody will get mad at stuff you say to meals.”

Leggero, finest recognized for the Comedy Central sequence “One other Interval,”  (2015-2018, mentioned that she and Lefebvre (ABC’s “The Style”), had been simply as at nighttime as all people else. 

“Neither of us knew [who the rat was] and that was a part of the enjoyable,” she mentioned. “It’s virtually like ‘Clue’ or ‘Knives Out.’ We get to determine every episode who the rat is together with the viewers. That was the loopy factor — we had been floored.

“I’m so glad that we didn’t know,” she mentioned. “It was so enjoyable for Ludo and I to convene after everybody had offered their dishes and simply actually strive to determine who the [saboteur] was. Truthfully, we weren’t proper fairly often, so the rats actually did a tremendous job. You will have these preconceived notions in your head. And also you’re like, nicely this individual would positively be the rat! And typically these folks could be so pleased with these dishes that had been really disgusting, simply because their recipes had been unhealthy! So, there was that, too.”

She mentioned that essentially the most unappetizing dishes she needed to eat on the present had been uncooked hen and uncooked shrimp, after rats had efficiently sabotaged the cooking course of earlier than the meals was offered to Leggero and Lefebvre.

“I used to be normally rooting for the crew, as a result of extra folks would get the cash. It’s both 5 folks get to separate the cash or one individual will get all of it,” she mentioned. “However, if I used to be on the present, I’d need to be the rat, as a result of it looks like it will be so enjoyable to determine methods to trick all people.”