Stream It Or Skip It: ‘MarkKim + Chef’ on Max, In Which Two Of Thailand’s Biggest Celebs Learn To Cook From The Pros

Thai celebrity couple Kimberley Anne Woltemas and Mark Prin Suparat have taken the Selena + Chef formula and brought it to Asia. In their new series, MarkKim + Chef, out now on Max, the two kitchen novices are joined by a different celebrity chef in every episode who guides them step-by-step through the creation of a meal. They learn proper techniques as well as the history of their country’s most famous dishes and become competent in the kitchen, before settling in to feast on what they’ve made.

MARKKIM + CHEF: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An exterior shot of the home of Kimberley Anne Woltemas and Mark Prin Suparat. “Welcome to MarkKim + Chef,” Mark says.

The Gist: Woltemas and Prin are two of Thailand’s biggest stars and one of the country’s most popular couples. They’ve been together for over ten years and got engaged in 2022, and in order to prepare for domestic bliss, they’ve decided to get schooled by some of Asia’s finest chefs to help them learn their way around the kitchen and understand the history and technique behind popular dishes.

In the show’s first episode, the pair prepare a meal of tom yum kung soup for Mark’s parents, sister, and his sister’s husband under the tutelage of Chef Pom, a chef at the royal palace and the judge on Master Chef Thailand. She’s warm and funny, and when Mark explains that they’re cooking for his family, she jokes, “Are these four people going to be Mark and Kim’s victims?”

Over the course of a half-hour, the pair are shown proper techniques and learn about differences between types of peppers and types of broth and are basically shown all the things that very casual home cooks don’t often learn. Once the meal is complete, they sit down with their family to enjoy the fruits of their labor and rate how they did on a scale from one to ten.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The obvious comparison is Selena + Chef, in which Selena Gomez collaborated with a different celebrity chef for every episode to learn how to cook a different dish. This show mimics the exact formula of Selena’s show, down to the FaceTime instruction and family participation.

Our Take: Selena + Chef was a popular series with a clever concept, and it was a great way to get TV made during the pandemic, given the relatively closed-off sets for both Selena and the professionals who taught her. Perhaps its because of that show’s success and our familiarity with the formula that it doesn’t seem jarring or strange to have the chef on MarkKim + Chef offering their instruction via video conference, despite the fact that we don’t need to social distance anymore.

Mark and Kim are a sweet couple who seem open to learn and, just as important, open to laughing at themselves and acknowledging the things they don’t know. Their likeability and overall popularity are crucial to the show, since this is not a cooking show that’s meant to instruct the audience. Having said that, I’m at a disadvantage by not being all that familiar with them – if I was a genuine fan of their work, I’m sure I’d be more invested in their quest for domestic bliss. From what I can tell, though they’re affable, they’re not necessarily quick on their feet with jokes or even scripted dialogue, which I think the show could benefit from in some small measure.

As a viewer, what’s most obvious at least in the first episode, are the cultural conversations that are really fascinating: As someone who has never learned much about Thai culture or royalty, hearing Chef Pom discuss life in the palace, and the way Thai royals speak and eat isn’t something I’ve ever learned about or even thought about. It was genuinely interesting to learn about an aspect of Thai culture I’ve never considered, but which is obviously integral.

Sex and Skin: Onion skin, yes.

Parting Shot: “This is more delicious than eating out, babe!” Mark tells Kim as they, and their whole family, enjoy the meal they prepared.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I think probably everyone knows we love to eat,” Kim explains at the beginning of the show. “We also love to cook, but we’re not really good at cooking,” she adds. Thus, the premise of the show, in which two not-great cooks learn from the best their country has to offer.

Our Call: SKIP IT. I used the word “affable” before to describe Mark and Kim and it feels like the best way to describe both them and the show. It’s likeable, it’s pleasant, there’s nothing bad about it, but somehow that doesn’t feel like enough to wholeheartedly advise readers to watch unless you have a vested interest in Mark and Kim.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.