General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Baker and The Beauty

The Baker and the Beauty (Hebrew: להיות איתה, Lehiyot Ita, also known as Beauty and the Baker) is an Israeli romantic comedy-drama television series created by Assi Azar for Keshet 12 in 2013. It follows the unlikely romance between Amos Dahari, a Yemenite (Jews of Yemeni descent; Amos's working-class minority community) baker from a working-class family in Bat Yam, and Noa Hollander, an international supermodel from a wealthy background, and it has become one of Israel's most widely adapted scripted formats.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original series	Created by Assi Azar for Keshet 12, first aired 2013; Hebrew title להיות איתה (Lehiyot Ita)¹^•²
Original cast	Aviv Alush as baker Amos Dahari and Rotem Sela as supermodel Noa Hollander¹^•²
Original run	Three seasons on Israel's Channel 2/Keshet 12: seasons 1 and 2 of 10×60' episodes and season 3 of 4×60', ending November 2, 2021³^•²
US adaptation	ABC, April 13 to June 1, 2020, nine episodes, starring Victor Rasuk and Nathalie Kelley; canceled after one season⁴^•⁵
Telugu adaptation	Premiered on Indian streamer aha on September 10, 2021; produced by Annapurna Studios, directed by Jonathan Edwards, starring Santosh Shobhan and Tina Shilparaj⁶
International footprint	Five international adaptations produced to date; the format ranks 44th in K7's 2026 Tracking the Scripted Giants report³

Spoilers

Premise

The story plays on an opposites-attract setup: a chance meeting between an international celebrity and an ethnic working-class minority. In the original Israeli version these are Ashkenazi (Jews of Central/Eastern European descent; Noa's privileged background) Noa and Yemenite Amos, whose romance develops across their sharply different social worlds and pulls both families into the conflict.¹ According to TVmaze, the series is an Israeli comedic drama telling of a baker and a megastar who, though separated by galactic distance, discover romantic chemistry once their two worlds meet.²

The original Israeli series

The series was created by Assi Azar, an Israeli writer and television presenter who also co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest, and it was a major success in Israel.⁷^•⁸ It aired on Israel's Channel 2 in a Tuesday 21:30 slot with 30-minute episodes, in Hebrew, and ran through 2021, with its final episode, "Tell Me You Love Me," broadcast on November 2, 2021.² By distribution counts, seasons one and two each ran 10 episodes of 60 minutes and the third season ran four, although the Channel 2 listing records episodes ordered in blocks of four.³^•²

Global sales. Distributor Keshet International has sold all three seasons of the original, starring Aviv Alush and Rotem Sela, to the global streamer IZZY TV, with seasons one and two streaming and season three premiering outside Israel for the first time on July 9, 2026, subtitled in ten languages including Arabic, English, French, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. Season one was also licensed to Himalaya Television in Nepal.³

The American adaptation

ABC ordered the American adaptation to pilot in January 2019, with Dean Georgaris writing and executive producing, David Frankel directing, and Keshet Studios, Universal Television, and ABC Studios producing; original creator Assi Azar also executive produced.⁹ The US version moved the story to Miami and recast the leads: Amos, a Yemenite baker from Bat Yam, became Daniel Garcia, a Cuban-American baker, opposite Noa Hamilton, an Australian model-turned-fashion mogul.⁷^•¹⁰ The series premiered on April 13, 2020, and ran nine episodes to June 1, 2020.⁴

Cancellation. ABC canceled the show after one season in June 2020. Across its freshman run it averaged a 0.47 demo rating and 2.5 million total viewers in Live+Same Day numbers, ranking last in the demo among the ten dramas ABC aired that season. Showrunner Dean Georgaris had planned a second season built around four love stories at four different moments.⁵ Critics responded more warmly than the ratings: the season holds an 89% Tomatometer and an 87% Popcornmeter score on Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic recorded a 77 from TV Guide and a 70 from Variety.¹¹^•¹²

The Telugu adaptation

Annapurna Studios produced a Telugu-language version for India, first announced around 2019 for the streaming platform Viu. Viu exited the Indian market within a year, leaving the completed shoot without a home until the Telugu-only platform aha acquired it.⁸ The show premiered on aha on September 10, 2021, directed by Jonathan Edwards and scripted in Telugu, with Santosh Shobhan and Tina Shilparaj in the lead roles as baker Vijay and film star Aira Vasireddy.⁶^•¹³ The adaptation was updated for a Telugu audience, presenting the conflicts and aspirations of Telugu middle-class families alongside elite society, and it runs ten episodes of roughly 31 to 36 minutes.⁶^•¹⁴ Keshet later licensed this version to Flow, a live TV and streaming platform in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay.¹

Other adaptations and format reach

Keshet International counts five international adaptations of the format to date, licensed to countries including the United States, the Netherlands, and Russia.³^•⁶ A French adaptation, La Belle et Le Boulanger (4×60'), was produced by Marathon Studio and Terence Films for TF1, marking Keshet's first scripted format adaptation in France; French singer-songwriter Amir Haddad took his debut television role as baker Benjamin Mercier opposite Ludmilla von Claer as celebrity Louise Meyer.¹⁵^•³ In 2026 Keshet licensed the French version to Mediaset España in Spain, where it was slated for Telecinco, and to Suspilne Ukraine, where it was slated for Suspilne Kultura in 2027.³

The format's spread reflects its deliberately portable core. Keshet International's managing director for distribution, Salome Peillon, described it as a show with universal appeal, and the distributor's pitch frames the characters as rootable in any close-knit, family-focused community.¹^•⁶ Each version localizes the class and cultural divide: Yemenite and Ashkenazi Israelis in the original, Cuban-American and Hollywood circles in Miami, Telugu middle-class and film-industry elites in India, and a family bakery against the modeling world in Paris. In K7's 2026 Tracking the Scripted Giants report the format ranked 44th among scripted franchises.³

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026