Jen Agg is doing a reality TV show
She is not—we repeat, not—the mean judge
Pigs are flying and it must be a pretty frosty day in hell, because Jen Agg just announced her foray into reality television. The acclaimed Toronto restaurateur and detonator of truth bombs will be starring in a reboot of the old series Restaurant: Impossible called Restaurant Impossible: Last Call, where she and Aarón Sánchez (of MasterChef fame) will attempt to rescue struggling restaurants across North America.
For food TV fans, the format sounds familiar: three days and $20,000 to give businesses on the brink a second chance at survival. What’s surprising is that Agg—who has side-eyed television chefdom in the past—is one of the hosts. “I NEVER thought I’d say yes. I really didn’t,” she wrote in an Instagram post announcing the upcoming series.
Restaurant: Impossible first aired in the 2010s, in the heyday of restaurant-makeover shows. The reboot will feature the same Cinderella-story format while digging a bit deeper into the economics and management of running a restaurant—with which Agg is intimately familiar.
“One of the premises is that we are asking people who might be resistant to change, even though they desperately need it, to buy in and let us help them,” Agg says. “Even when I might go in at the beginning feeling like, Oh my god, why do these people have a restaurant?—eventually I buy in as well. These are real emotions. I know it’s kind of hard to believe that, but it’s true!”
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The trailer tells us that Agg has not abandoned her signature straight talk. Case in point: a clip where she explains why an Indian restaurant must have naan. But it also hints at her softer side, as in a scene where she is hugging someone and—Are those tears in her eyes?
Given Agg’s distaste for sugar-coating, one might reasonably wonder whether she has been cast as the “mean judge”—but Agg says there is no mean judge. “Directness is kindness,” she adds, which is not quite “Pukka” (Jamie Oliver) or “Bam!” (Emeril Lagasse) but has the makings of a pretty decent catch phrase.
Restaurant Impossible: Last Call premieres on the Food Network and Citytv+ this July.
Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”
