Best Cooking Shows

749 duels later, Kitchen Nightmares is still #1 in the Cooking Shows ranking with 1321 ELO points, with Top Chef close behind at 1290.

Kitchen Nightmares wins 67% of its duels and edges out Top Chef by 31 points, establishing clear dominance at the summit. MasterChef follows in third place with 1255 points after 14 duels, while Come Dine with Me claims fourth with 1249 points. The sharpest divide in the ranking appears between Come Dine with Me at #4 and Le meilleur pâtissier at #5, where 52 ELO points separate the two shows. This gap suggests viewers draw a line between competitive cooking formats and more specialized programming. At the bottom, Les carnets de Julie sits at 1086 ELO despite winning 43% of its 7 duels, indicating the community has weighed its appeal against stronger competition and found it less compelling than the heated confrontations and polished productions that dominate the top positions.

This ranking reflects 749 duels cast by 36 players across 10 contenders, last updated on 12 October 2026. The vote remains open: add your own duels to shift the balance, challenge the current podium or cement Kitchen Nightmares at the summit.

Updated on October 12, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →