There is only little attention payed to cooking shows in academic world. Mostly only mass media and public give their opinion on this topic. Due to many shows that exist and their spread, it is sufficient to concentrate on them also in academic writings. This diploma thesis tries to define cooking shows as genre. In analytic part it concentrates on one important aspect of cooking shows - their chefs. At first this thesis gives theoretic ground to cooking shows. It describes theories which are dealing with food. Then it takes a look on theories describing processes in contemporary culture. It is followed by chapter about reality TV and reality shows. History part about cooking shows contents also description of most important cooking shows and their chefs, both foregin and Czech production. At the end of theory part the position of cooking shows as TV genre is stated. In this thesis, new and unique term was created - TV chefs' values. It describes set of factors, which are important for TV chefs' to have to suceed. These factors are natural acting, sense of humor, loving food and vocational education in the field. The reseaarch was based on watching three cooking shows and interviews with people responsible for choosing chefs to these cooking shows.