Season two cast announced for Cooking With The Stars

Season two cast announced for Cooking With The Stars in partnership with Marks & Spencer

Hosted by Emma Willis and Tom Allen, Cooking With The Stars will see eight celebrities paired with a professional chef who will mentor, teach and take them from passionate amateur to restaurant level chefs.

Produced by South Shore and co-funded by Marks & Spencer, this six-part cooking competition will transmit later this Summer on ITV and ITV Hub.

The eight celebrities who will be putting on their aprons and heading to the kitchen are professional dancer and TV personality Anton Du Beke, Olympian Dame Kelly Holmes, This Morning’s Josie Gibson, Chaser Anne Hegerty, Love Island’s Maura Higgins, TV expert Dr Ranj Singh, comedian Joe Wilkinson and DJ Woody Cook.  

Across a series of exciting cooking battles, the celebrities will be trained by their mentor chefs to produce delicious dishes that will be judged by the remaining professionals. The bottom two will then have to fight for their place in the competition, creating a dish without any help from their mentor. The result of this eliminator will be decided by a blind tasting judgement from the professional chefs. Unaware of whose food they are tasting, their greatest supporter could swiftly and unwittingly become their worst critic and vote for their protege to leave the competition.

The professional chefs taking part in the challenge this year are British chef and TV presenter Rosemary Shrager (partnered with Anton Du Beke), renowned chef and business owner Ronnie Murray (partnered with Dame Kelly Holmes), chef director Jack Stein (partnered with Maura Higgins), Korean chef and restaurateur Judy Joo (partnered with Joe Wilkinson), Michelin Starred French chef Jean-Christophe Novelli (partnered with Anne Hegerty), Scottish chef and restaurateur Tony Singh MBE (partnered with Josie Gibson), author and regular chef on This Morning Clodagh McKenna (partnered with Dr Ranj Singh) and restaurateur and TV personality Mike Reid (partnered with Woody Cook).

Emma Willis said: “Tom and I had so much fun last series and I’m looking forward to getting back into the kitchen. The pressure the celebs are under is real and once the competition starts heating up everybody wants to win, but I’m hoping there isn’t as much blood as last series!” 

Tom Allen said: “Last series was so exciting! Emma Willis and I have been polishing our frying pans in preparation – we have so much fun working together. The celebrities are being trained by some of the best chefs in the business and with the clock ticking it’s always tense to see if they’ll improve their cooking enough each week to measure up to the judges’ high standards.”

Katie Rawcliffe, Head of Entertainment Commissioning at ITV said: “With the warmth of Emma and the wit of Tom I’m excited to see what culinary delights this year's cooking novices bring to the table.  The series not only entertained but inspired our viewers to get into the kitchen and try restaurant worthy dishes from the comfort of their own homes.  We are delighted to have some of the best chefs in the country guiding our celebrities who will be put through their paces in this intense, exciting and fast paced environment.”

Caroline Davies, Director of Programmes at South Shore said: “We’re thrilled that Cooking With The Stars is heading back into the kitchen for a second series. Our stellar Chef and Celebrity line up promises to deliver some must-see pairings and with Emma and Tom once again overseeing the cooking battles we can’t wait to see which of them rise to the occasion; and which crash out first.”

Sharry Cramond, Marketing Director, M&S Food and Masterbrand said: “We’re so excited to be bringing Cooking with the Stars back onto our TV screens after a successful first series. The line-up of chefs and stars look fantastic and hopefully will inspire all ages to get cooking.

“We are famous for our delicious prepared meals but encouragingly over the last two years we have seen customers do much broader shops with us. Through Cooking With The Stars we want to continue to show that we are the perfect place to find quality products, at a remarkable value, for the weekly shop - and that we are a credible destination for scratch cooking.

“We really hope that the new series will help inspire people to try the recipes at home and get excited about cooking from scratch with all the products, tastes and flavours available in our food hall.”

Cooking With The Stars is a partnership between Marks & Spencer, ITV and South Shore. It was recommissioned for ITV by Katie Rawcliffe, Head of Entertainment Commissioning, ITV and Paula Thomas Gallie, Commissioning Editor, Entertainment, ITV.  Executive Producers for South Shore are Rosie Franks, Caroline Davies and Melanie Leach.

ITV Studios handles global distribution for Cooking With The Stars.