A new Philadelphia restaurant has brought reality TV together with a home cooking flair.

Recipe Philly is the first of its kind in the city, integrating television into the menu development process.

“The restaurant is called Recipe Philly because it is based on home chefs from the Philadelphia area that competed to get their home-cooked meal on the menu of a real, live-operating restaurant, which is Recipe Philly,” explained Ed Baumstein, the concept’s creator, to WHYY. “So, the design of the restaurant is all tied to everything Philadelphia and everything kind of home cooking mindset.

“In any other food competition that you watch, you follow the stories of the people, you get connected to individuals, and then at the end you get a winner, and then you move on to the next show, and you never hear about that person again,” he said. “Right here, after you find the winners, and there’s 31 of them, there’s not one. And you can actually come and taste their food in a real place.”

A casting call netted about 1,000 cooking hopefuls, who were narrowed down to only 60 for the reality show.

Baumstein explained that several tiers of competition netted multiple winners in multiple categories.

“We had 60 people that went through the competition, and there were 31 winners,” Baumstein told WHYY. “Each winner got $1,000 and got the name of their recipe on the menu. We then took 16 of the 31 who made the best dishes, and we put them in pods of four each, and then gave them a category to cook what we called signature dishes.”  

The “pod” that produced the best signature dish won that round, leaving each of the four pod members with $5,000. From this point, the four pod members competed to develop the main “Philly dish,” with a chance to win $10,000.

The show will feature several distinguished judges and be hosted by American Idol’s Josh Randall. 

Rory Balkin, the restaurant’s marketing director, confirmed that participating judges include Chef Jennifer Carroll from Top Chef All-Stars, Chef Clark Park from Chopped, and Josh Moore from Josh Eats Philly.

While the show is still in post-production, the restaurant gives guests a taste of what’s to come on TV.

The 175-seat venue at 1401 Arch St. is open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., and 10 p.m. on weekends.