Comments on: Why “Top Chef” Isn’t Genius, or Let’s All Sing With the Choir

By: Acquiring a Taste for "Top Chef Masters" (or, Corn Dogs as Metaphors) | Travelling Secrets

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:28:08 +0000

[...] dude: The joke you made about the pig’s ear wasn’t funny, so stop chuckling about it. I’ve written that OTC (Original “Top Chef”) takes itself too seriously, but watching those smug [...]

By: In L.A.

In L.A. — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:59:16 +0000

Excellent post! While watching the show, I had thought, “Is it just me or is this show reaching maximum campiness?” I see that I was not alone.

One last item about your ‘Big 4′ – Tom Colicchio is actually a gay man – Bravo is still in touch.

By: Mark Blankenship

Mark Blankenship — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:18:54 +0000

Michael — As always, a brilliant analysis, especially about the difference between a kitchen show and a host show. I think there must be a way to combine the two.

And I also agree with you about making reconginzable food. For me, Ariane’s Today Show victory with a simple salad was really heartening because as the hosts said, “Good is good.” I am not someone who wants to enjoy food intellectually, which is why I also shudder at “deconstructed” TC dishes. Give me six kinds of deviled eggs any day!

By: michelle @ TNS

michelle @ TNS — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:30:40 +0000

i’m so with you. has the fate of the free world ever hung on a scallop? i mean, someone correct me if it has, but i tend to think no.

i’ve been a loyal TC viewer since the first season and i still watch and have even started liveblogging. but the seriousness is making is really hard to say anything amusing.

the show needs a tim gunn. i vote for jacques pepin.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:19:26 +0000

Agreed on all counts–but this is morally complicated stuff, Mr. B. You see, I blame Mark Blankenship and The Critical Condition for even convincing me to tune in to Bravo’s reality competition series in the first place (and by now it’s clear that some of them will NEVER cut it with me), so I have the strange experience of reading this blog entry as an internicene battle: in my mind, Blankenship and Bravo conspired together to make me watch Top Chef and thus to return to the dismal karma of high school gym class abuse and bad after-dinner lectures from my father (yes, I’m talking about you, Tom Callichio). So, too late, Mark: you’re a promoter of these shows and in the case of Top Chef you owe me an apology and a ride on the ferris wheel to raise my spirits.

More seriously: it is my minor and distant experience with the food service industry and restaurant kitchens that they are absolutely humorless places with every detail holding the urgency of a NASA launch: is there ANY cooking show (especially in a restaurant setting) that seems light-hearted? I think if you draw judges from that world and set the competition up in a restaurant style setting, you’re inviting the spirit of military discipline and ritual humiliation. If you asked these people to lighten up they would blink at you in incomprehension; it’s asking ice to burn.

The alternative is the charming-person-in-a-kitchen-chatting-with-you-while-cooking show, which has always had its appeal and seems much closer to the actual sensual pleasures and improvisational fun of cooking and eating. (I’ll take Saint Julia Child the Tipsy and those woefully misguided Fat Ladies over mega-fantasy girlfriend Rachael Ray any day, but the premise is the same.) The question would be if there’s any way to get that spirit into a competition–even if that means morphing the show as the number of contestants decreases.

It also wouldn’t hurt if just once somebody made food I recognize and/or would like to try; I’ve never heard such bizarre combinations of ingredients in my life, and can never imagine the taste. A BIG problem in a cooking show, wouldn’t you think?

And somebody find them a different word than “deconstructed” when they mean something like reorganized.

By: Kay

Kay — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:03:18 +0000

Padma’s scar comes from a terrible car accident that she and her family were in when she was 14. Evidently she’s very open about it and doesn’t like to hide it.

By: Kingoftunes

Kingoftunes — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:42:00 +0000

As a general rule, I do not like reality shows. There is nothing “real” about them and anyone who is familiar with the genre is by now very aware of how things are edited to shape the narrative. However, I enjoy Top Chef the most out of all of them because the contestants, by and large, take this seriously. There is real talent involved in being a great chef. It’s nice to see a reality show focus more on the process and on contestants that have to display an actual skill. It’s cool that the judges want to push the contestants to get the best out of them. Let the other Bravo shows provide the camp (and I do love my Project Runaway!). But it’s also nice to have a show that plays it “straight”, so to speak. If Bravo is the gay channel, then Top Chef (and Tom) are the bears to Project Runway’s fab drag queen.

By: Brian Benda

Brian Benda — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:46:56 +0000

Do the producers of Top Chef realize that Padma has a gigantic scar the size of the Amazon on her left arm? And why do they insist on always featuring that side of her so prominently? I am thrilled she is comfortable with it, but seems like they could get a better camera angle.

By: Lucas

Lucas — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:38:07 +0000

Great critique, Mark.

I agree. They act like the fate of the world depends on all of this. A little whimsy here and there might make it all more palatable.

Also, so right about underestimating the audience. We called “the surprise Christmas present” ending about a 1/3 of the way in, and I think that’s just because we’re slow.