Celebs Share Their Fast Food Favorites; Chefs Compete to Make It in ‘Fast Foodies’

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Taco Bell’s Nachos BellGrande. Culver’s ButterBurger. Chick-fil-A’s Chicken Sandwich (extra sauce, please). McDonald’s Sausage McMuffin With Cheese. Name a fast-food restaurant, and most people can tell you their favorites in seconds. Surely, everyone has a guilty pleasure go-to item, right? Well, truTV’s new series Fast Foodies (Thursdays at 10:30/9:30c) puts a fun spin on that premise.

The initial idea for Fast Foodies was based around people’s love of fast food, and a subculture that exists of people who are trying to re-create it at their homes.

“We’re leaning into the fact that fast food, if you eat it or not, everybody typically has a memory around it. Whether it was when they were a kid or if it was kind of the dirty little secret, of what you were eating when nobody else was watching,” showrunner Michael Rucker explains. “That really galvanized the whole show as it was about the food that people do understand compared to maybe fine dining, and then showing how it can be inspirational at the same time.”

The setup of the series has award-winning chefs Kristen Kish (Top Chef), Jeremy Ford (Top Chef) and Justin Sutherland (Iron Chef) preparing a celebrity’s favorite fast-food item in Round 1. In the pilot episode (Thursday, Feb. 4) , Community’s Joel McHale stops by and challenges the chefs to re-create his favorite — Portillo’s famous Chicago-style hot dog. In Round 2, the chefs get to turn that item into something completely unique, while still maintaining the original flavors. It’s here where the creativity and fun really begin as these chefs hit it out of the park with their creations (poppyseed crisp! tomato foam! dill tuile!). The celeb determines who is the winner, and they’re awarded a cheesy trophy and bragging rights.

“One of my favorite lines from the whole entire episode, and the series, quite honestly, was when Joel said, ‘I want to be on this show every single episode,’” Rucker concludes. “That’s the feeling and the vibe that we were going for — that as a viewer, you’re like, ‘I want to go and hang out with these three world-class chefs and a celebrity.’ It’s unlike other food shows that have a competition element to it. This is really more about the camaraderie amongst our three chefs.”

Fast Foodies airs on truTV Thursdays at 10:30/9:30c