Gordon follows Jamie

Gordon Ramsay looks set to front a television series to discover a new top chef.

15:38 07 September 2004

Gordon Ramsay looks set to front a television series to discover a new top chef.

The 'Chef Idol' series follows hot on the heels of Jamie Oliver's successful reality show Jamie's Kitchen.

But where Oliver took unemployed youths and put them though a year's intensive training, Ramsay will test amateur chefs and invite the best to work in a restaurant, according to the Sun newspaper.

Ramsay is fresh from reality cooking success himself - and the star of Hell's Kitchen looks to have secured a 1.5 million deal with Channel 4 for the 'Chef Idol' series.

After trialling the amateur chefs he will declare the winner.

A Channel 4 source told the Sun: "He is looking at various formats and one is for him to create a star chef."

Hopes are high that the culinary standards from the contestants will be higher than those seen on Ramsay's other reality cooking programme - Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.