I grew up in a family of chefs. My father went to a culinary school, then started in a nursing home, and now is part of a major food-service company's think tank. My mother has spent decades studying every cookbook she could get her hands on and watched Julia Child's "The French Chef" religiously. My sister learned everything she could about Japanese cuisine and loves making sushi rolls. I always felt like I was the weakest of the four of us, but I seem to have a knack for grilling, baking, and frozen desserts. So after waiting three seasons, I finally decided to give Top Chef a chance.
Top Chef's Season 4 was based in Chicago. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 were based in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami, respectively. As you might expect from the title, it's a reality game show where the goal is to cook better than your competition. The winner gets $100,000 in cash, a feature in Food & Wine Magazine, a trip to the Food & Wine Classic (a culinary convention hosted by Food & Wine Magazine) in Aspen Colorado, and the title of Top Chef. The competition is fierce, the challenges are tough, and the show is incredibly entertaining.
Padme Lakshmi, host of Top Chef since Season 2, gives the missions to the chefs and also judges, but her most notorious role has to be her delivery of the eliminations near the end of each episode. She stares down the contestants in the judging area, lets them sweat for a few moments, and announces to one of the chefs, "Please pack your knives and go." As far as catchphrases go, this one perfectly sums up the tone of the show. I learned early on that chefs are among the most bluntly honest people in the world. The contestants on Top Chef are no different. I don't know how much swearing there was in the first three seasons, but this past season had chefs swearing left and right almost non-stop. And they've got good reason to swear: The judges are candid in their evaluations and the challenges constantly put the contestants under extreme pressure. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who didn't unleash an F-bomb or two after a chef the caliber of Ming Tsai or Ted Allen goes into excruciating detail about the fatal flaws in a dish they spent hours preparing and cooking.
Even if you could find such a person, I'm glad none of them made it to Season 4. For it is this brutally honest assessment of things that made the contestants' interviews throughout the show so entertaining. None of them were shy about what they thought of themselves, other contestants, the show, the challenges, or even the judges. All of them, literally and figuratively, brought something unique to the table. Whether it was Dale's technical mastery and fusion of various Asian cuisines, or Richard's strange molecular gastronomy contraptions and even stranger dishes, or Lisa's expert combination of spices, anyone with even a passing interest in food would find something to enjoy about the dishes or their preparation. And that's just the food alone!
Andrew was easily the chef who entertained me the most. His spastic traipsing through show after show and hilarious commentary were always highlights. Richard's cooking apparatuses were fascinating to watch as well, and his own quirky behavior also made him one of my favorite chefs. Lisa grated on my nerves near the end of the series with her seemingly constant whining and apparent overconfidence in abilities she really didn't seem to show, but redeemed herself in the last episode by proving through her cooking that she really did deserve to be there. Those are the highlights, but every chef had something interesting to show in each episode.
The judges were no less entertaining. Head Judge Tom Colicchio is one of the best judges I've ever seen on a reality game show. He knows what works and what doesn't in food, and dissects dishes with amazing efficiency. Regular judge Ted Allen also has an extensive knowledge of food, and always seems to know when a contestant's trying to embellish or outright lie about a dish. But without a doubt, guest judge Anthony Bourdain is my favorite. Between his witty quips, unabashed honesty, and equal authority on high cuisine or beer and pretzels, he's easily the most entertaining of all the judges.
At the end of the season I was struck by two interesting details about the winner: First, that she was the show's first female to win. While reality shows provide a fairly level playing field for contestants based purely on talent, all of the women on the show wanted to encourage more women to enter their field. While the winner understandably wanted to be known as a Top Chef first and a female Top Chef second, they all seemed to understand that winning the season would provide some inspiration to women who wanted to enter the traditionally male-dominated world of chefs. Second, the winner was not the loudest, most entertaining, or most innovative chef. All she did was make food that tasted great, and did it consistently. And she did it all in her understated fashion without resorting to flashy gimmicks. The message that sent was more subtle but no less important: It doesn't take a lot to make food taste great.
Reality shows are often cited as the worst shows on television today. They put people under a microscope for our entertainment. They ask people to do things that would normally take far longer and require far more resources. They edit footage of people to make them look whatever way the producers want them to look. Top Chef is no different in that regard. In many ways it is unrealistic, condescending, and puerile. But in other ways it excels. It features people who regularly prove that they don't take themselves too seriously. It shows that being a chef takes a lot of thought and hard work. And best of all, its biggest stars are effective culinary techniques and good food.