Episode 2 of tvN’s Undercover Chef: Friends From Afar continued the spin-off’s strong start, averaging 4.5 percent nationwide and holding the No. 1 spot in its time slot for a second consecutive week, according to Nielsen Korea. The episode, which aired on November 5, also reached a peak rating of 5.9 percent, improving on the premiere’s average of 4.3 percent and peak of 5.5 percent.
The showing is notable for the audience the spin-off reaches. Among tvN’s core target demographic of men and women aged 20 to 49, the episode averaged 2.5 percent with a peak of 3.2 percent, ranking No. 1 in its time slot across all channels, including terrestrial broadcasters.
The premiere itself set the tone. Its nationwide average of 4.3 percent was nearly double the 2.3 percent recorded by the first episode of the original Undercover Chef when it premiered in May, a comparison that explains the confident headlines around the spin-off’s launch. The second episode’s gain over the premiere was modest, but the two-week winning streak suggests the audience that found the original series has followed it into the new format.
The episode centered on the role reversal that defines the spin-off. In the original series, Jung Ji-sun and Kwon Sung-jun worked as the lowest-ranked kitchen hands in restaurants in Chengdu, China, and Naples, Italy. This time, the colleagues who taught them overseas came to Korea and reported for their first shifts in the Korean chefs’ own restaurants. Kwon had previewed the setup with a pointed promise, saying the reunion was a chance to take revenge for the hardships he endured abroad.
In Kwon Sung-jun’s fine-dining kitchen, the Naples team arrived full of confidence and quickly discovered how different Korean fine dining is from Neapolitan home cooking. Antonio struggled to shape a tart and joked that he was fired, while Luisa mastered fresh tortellini on her first try, Paolo moved smoothly from preparing sea bass to grilling, and Laura’s tomato pasta staff meal drew praise from the Korean staff. Service brought fresh tension, with an open kitchen sitting barely a meter from diners and dishes running late, but the two teams steadied each other through the rush. Kwon later said he felt reassured because his guests all did their jobs so well, and the group toasted together after service.
Jung Ji-sun’s restaurant told a different story. The Chengdu team walked into a kitchen that was not yet in order, and Jung stopped everything with a sharp scolding that froze the room, a moment that drew laughter in the studio when a Korean staffer translated her warning for Guo Lihong through a translation app. Guo then struggled with an unfamiliar stove and wok, adding too much starch water before being told to start over, a stumble that echoed Jung’s own early days as Sunny, the rookie in Chengdu. This time Jung calmly guided him until he finished a dish fit for customers, while Shi Jiankai won the room with his mapo tofu at the staff meal and the 82-year-old grandmother who owns the restaurant stepped in to cook three dishes herself with 68 years of experience behind the wok. Watching from the studio, Sam Kim said working in someone else’s kitchen is definitely hard.
The format’s appeal is rooted in what the original series achieved. Undercover Chef ran from May 21 to July 23, following star chefs who hid their identities and worked as anonymous kitchen rookies abroad: Sam Kim in Parma, Italy, Jung Ji-sun in Chengdu, and Kwon Sung-jun, the winner of Netflix’s Culinary Class Wars, in Naples. The finale averaged 6.2 percent nationwide with a peak of 7.8 percent, while the Seoul metropolitan area averaged 6.8 percent and peaked at 8.6 percent. Among viewers aged 20 to 49, the finale averaged 3.2 percent with a peak of 3.9 percent, ranking No. 1 across all channels including terrestrial broadcasters, and the show held the top spot in its time slot for all ten weeks of its run, according to NewsEn.
The spin-off, directed by Hong Jin-ju and Yoon Min-jun, replaces the original’s survival story with a friendship story. Instead of enduring unfamiliar kitchens, the three chefs now host the people who once guided them, with Sam Kim joining Jung and Kwon to watch the reunions unfold from the studio. The four-episode run airs Thursdays at 8:40 p.m. on tvN and is also available on TVING.
The next episode airs on November 12 at 8:40 p.m. The preview teased a Seoul tour Kwon prepared for his Naples guests, alongside another day with Jung and her Chengdu colleagues, as the spin-off tests whether the warmth of the reversed dynamic can keep building on an audience that already nearly doubled the original’s opening night.
