Selena Gomez to Heat Up New Food Network Show

Selena Gomez, who has sold more than 210 million singles worldwide and has 45 billion global streams (seriously who's counting), may not be best known for her culinary prowess, but she's on a path to change that. After all, if she can break into the decades-old creative team of Steve Martin and Martin Short on Only Murders in the Building (or the nepo baby royal marriage of Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz), what can't she crack?

The singer, songwriter, actress, producer and founder of Rare Beauty is more than game to take on a new foodie challenge.

In fairness, this isn't her first foray into the culinary scene. Selena + Chef premiered in 2020 and features the star cooking at home, tackling different cuisines with a new chef in each episode and it's been going strong for four seasons. However, part of the point of Selena + Chef is that Gomez is a newcomer to the kitchen and that it's on the rotating selection of guest chefs to help her build her skills.

We joked in 2022 that Gomez's amateur handling of large knives could easily classify the series as a tense psychological thriller. Time will tell if this new series will allow us to unclench.

The six-episode series, Selena + Restaurant, features Gomez and her friend Raquelle Stevens visiting some of LA's hottest restaurants. At each spot, chefs teach and then test Gomez: can she create a dish well enough to put on each restaurant's menu?

Even after having spent four seasons of Selena + Chef sharpening her skills in the kitchen, going head-to-head with restaurant heavyweights is a tall order. But who knows? Maybe she'll return to her Wizards of Waverly Place roots and make some magic happen.

(The actual upcoming reboot of Wizards of Waverly Place notwithstanding, of course.)

In the first episode, she meets with Wolfgang Puck at CUT Steakhouse in Beverly Hills, where she must pass an initial test and master one of Wolfgang's classic dishes before creating her own take on a spicy seafood dish. (Recreating an existing dish should be a piece of cake for Gomez, as she has a long history of alleged plagiarism.)

Then she's off to Los Angeles dumpling queen, Shirley Chung, where at her restaurant, Ms Chi, they'll make a fusion dish based on Gomez's childhood.

Other Hollywood hotspots include Lemon Grove with chef Marcel Vigneron, chef Stephanie Izard at Girl and the Goat, then Atla with chef Keith Corbin.

Perhaps Gomez will feel most at home at Moo's Craft Barbecue where Andrew and Michelle Munoz create Austin-style craft barbecue.

The new series premiers at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 2 on Food Network and will be available to stream on Max.