Final Table

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Set around The Table: K Chef 2026, a cooking competition show within the story, this JTBC Saturday–Sunday drama follows the showdown between an overseas-trained chef who enters on behalf of Familia, a restaurant that has lost its customers, and the chefs around him. Kim Do-hoon both wrote and directed it.

JTBC will premiere the series on Saturday, October 24, 2026, at 10:40 p.m. JTBC's broadcast schedule lists it as rated 15. In Korea, Disney+ will release it starting on the 25th, and internationally it will be released on Amazon Prime Video. It is presented by SLL and produced by BA Entertainment and Film Company Dujung. When JTBC announced its drama lineup in July, it said it would air this series in October, followed by Sacred Jewel, a historical drama set in Goryeo.

Kim Do-hoon co-directed MBC's Moon Embracing the Sun (2012). He said he had long envisioned a drama with a chef as its protagonist, and thought that because the competition format itself is full of drama, putting chefs on that stage would naturally give rise to stories. The starting point of the project, he said, was to build the structure of a variety show into a drama and blur the line between the two. While preparing the food, he repeatedly told the chef team and the art team that the dishes in this drama were not dishes that exist today but dishes that will exist in the future, and that the chefs were wizards who cook. He also said that because he was both writing and directing, he worried he might get so absorbed in the world he had created that he would lose objectivity about the story, so he sought many opinions from those around him.

Ahn Hyo-seop plays Kang Han, an overseas-trained chef better known by the name “Chris K.” After drifting between restaurants abroad, Kang Han stops by Familia, a restaurant tied to memories of his father, and ends up becoming its head chef and entering the competition. Hong Hwa-yeon plays Choi Song-i, Familia's floor manager, who is trying to protect the restaurant built by her late father, a chef. Song-i, who has no kitchen experience, trains under Kang Han and becomes his assistant chef. Jang Ryul plays Cha Woo-jin, the owner-chef of the restaurant Exception, who was groomed as a prodigy from childhood and is Kang Han's rival, having faced him at a cooking competition abroad in the past. Jung Yoo-jin plays Seon Jeong-won, the executive producer who devised the competition; Jang Young-nam plays Moon Hae-sun, chair of Pyeongyeon Group, the leading company in the food service industry; and Cha Ji-yeon plays Baek Hyun-joo, her younger paternal half-sister, who is vying with her for the chairmanship.

It is Ahn Hyo-seop's first role as a chef since his debut. The production team said the competition in the drama is structured as a variety show, so viewers can enjoy the feeling of watching a variety show within a drama. Kim Do-hoon said that despite the short preparation period, the actors practiced cooking so diligently that by around the middle of filming they already seemed like real chefs, and summed up the series, which starts with food but ultimately focuses on its characters' stories, as “It begins with beautiful, fascinating dishes and ends with close-ups of the main characters.” He added that although it is a story about cooking, it is a drama that uses food to talk about family, relationships between people and fresh starts in life.

See alsoMoon Embracing the Sun 2012

Drama Lineup editors · Fact-checked against: enews.imbc.com, joonganggroup.com, wikitree.co.kr, tenasia.co.kr, tv.jtbc.co.kr, jtbc.co.kr, viva100.com · 2026-10-20