Now filming in Indiana

Show me kitchen the series

A documentary series about real kitchens in the Midwest, the people who run them, where they came from, and what it actually takes to keep the lights on.

Watch on YouTube Follow on TikTok

The channel links go live with the first films.

Illustration: Chef Aziz Mountassar, arms crossed, lit by a single hard light with embers in the air

The premise

Thirty short films before the first episode. Real kitchens in the Midwest and the people who run them: where they came from, what they are up against and what it actually takes to keep the lights on.

When an owner wants it, the series follows a Show Me Kitchen opening or turnaround from the walk-in to day ninety, with the numbers on screen.

No actors. No second takes. The numbers on screen.

The shoot list

Scenes we are setting out to film. The stills below are AI illustrations made to plan the shoot. They are not footage, and they do not show real events.

Illustration: Chef Aziz calling an order at the pass under heat lamps with flames behind him — **Service**Friday, 7:40 pm, forty tickets up.

Illustration: Chef Aziz walking through an empty dining room with chairs on the tables — **The walk-in**Chairs still on the tables. Notebook open.

Illustration: Chef Aziz redlining a menu at a table covered in menus and sales charts — **The number**Every menu, every invoice, one red pen.

Illustration: Chef Aziz tasting a sauce from a spoon with his eyes closed — **The sauce**What a thirty-year-old recipe tastes like today.

Illustration: Chef Aziz outside a tired restaurant at dusk under a half-lit neon open sign — **The sign**Half the letters work. Half the room is empty.

Illustration: Chef Aziz leading a pre-service line-up with cooks and servers listening — **The line-up**Before service. The whole crew, one standard.

Illustration: Chef Aziz slicing a charred bone-in ribeye with a live-fire grill behind him — **The cut**Forty-two ounces, twelve minutes, no thermometer.

Illustration: Chef Aziz placing nigiri on a black stone plate behind a hinoki counter — **The counter**No menu. The guest watching every cut.

The fireLit by the grill and nothing else.

Illustration: Chef Aziz shaking hands with a restaurant owner at her door with a full dining room behind them — **The handover**Her room, her name, our numbers on the wall.

Illustration: Chef Aziz standing in the middle of a packed dining room on opening night — **Opening night**The room full before the neighbors finish asking what it is.

How an owner gets on the show

1
Ask for a visit
Use the form and say in your message that you are open to filming. Opening or struggling, both are what the series is about.
2
The walk-in
The same walk-in every owner gets: Aziz eats, watches a full service and reads the books.
3
Your call
If the work goes ahead and you want it filmed, filming goes into the agreement. If you do not, the work runs the same way, without cameras.

Want the cameras in? Ask for a visit

Tell us where you are and what is going on. Aziz reads every one of these himself. The first call is a conversation, not an invoice.

Ask for a visit