CHICAGO — Call it a real-life pressure cooker.
Famed chef Homaro Cantu is turning up the heat — documenting his experimental restaurant's frantic menu changes for a brand new reality show.
"Cooking Under Pressure," which premieres at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday on YouTube, will be "the most disruptive television show in a very, very long time," Cantu said.
The show is being filmed in Cantu's West Loop restaurant iNG, where the menu changes every six weeks. The chef, known for his use of edible paper and flavor-altering miracle berries, will document what's involved over the three days the restaurant shifts to a new menu.
"We spent three days thinking up the entire menu, and we shot and edited it," Cantu said. "I've been awake for 48 hours."
The new menu, also debuting on Nov. 13, is inspired by the Tim Burton film, "A Nightmare Before Christmas."
Production for "Cooking Under Pressure" is being done in-house by Cantu's newly formed production company, which he said will allow them to show "groundbreaking innovation in real time."
His research with the miracle berry, a fruit that alters taste buds to perceive sour and bitter flavors as sweet, and with "packageless food" — will be material for the show.
The cameras were there at Monday's Food & Wine Magazine event at the Museum of Contemporary Art; viewers will see some of that footage in a Jan. 1 episode — the release date of Cantu's book, "The Miracle Berry Diet Cookbook."
The cameras will also be there when Cantu and his chefs meet with a dairy producer CEO to pitch the miracle berry, and when Cantu travels to Europe in January to spend time with renowned chef Andoni Luis Aduriz.
"Three days later, the Mugaritz menu will pop up at Ing in Chicago," Cantu said.
This is Cantu's second turn in front of the cameras. In 2010, Discovery Network's Planet Green aired the eight-episode series "Future Food," shot at moto, Cantu's other restaurant at 945 W. Fulton Ave.
