Top Chef season 16: Kentucky

Two thoughts after episode 2:

Has Whole Foods really thought through how the show makes them look?

The elimination challenge was one of the starkest demonstrations of how teamwork can make the difference between winning and losing. And that it’s a double-edged sword.

I have a ton of respect for you and your ‘taste.’ I’ve never watched this show. Except for the first 20 minutes of the very first “Survivor” I’ve chosen to never watch reality tv. Should I change my mind and watch this? Is there any cooking show that you recommend/ TIA

1 Like

When it first started, Top Chef had a lot of stupid faked-up reality-show drama, but over the years it has gotten rid of most of that and has drawn ever more serious and experienced competitors.

I’ve liked The Great British Bake Off (aka The Great British Baking Show) up through season 7. I haven’t seen the ones with the new cast.

The only other cooking show I Tivo is Dining with the Chef.

http://www.nhk.or.jp/dwc/

I lost interest in Iron Chef at some point, too many Iron Chefs I didn’t care about. I should look at some of the recent ones

2 Likes

I thought it rather dumb that a chef wasn’t able to perform simple math and realize there was a problem before it got out of hand, I don’t think this is the first time we’ve seen a team work challenge with a team budget before, and I don’t recall one ending with the same problem as this challenge did.

Love that show.

Re Top Chef: I would never have let someone buy $500 pounds of meat and leave me without enough lemons, or other people with no spices. I don’t like that kind of pushiness.

1 Like

I thought it was dumb that they went to a Whole Foods 60 miles away instead of to Boone’s Butcher Shop 15 miles away.

2 Likes

That is dumb. I wouldn’t think they would travel that far away for product. But I guess sponsorship.

1 Like

Yes, Whole Foods wants to world to know that you can’t find everything you need there and what you can find will be fucking expensive.

1 Like

Last Chance Kitchen has been great so far. The Bravo Android app does an excellent job of casting it to my TV, excellent image quality.

1 Like

No love for The Final Table Robert? The Great British Chef wasn’t too bad either IMO other than the judging portion.

Final Table seems too Michelin-y for me.

I had never heard of this so, of course, googled. Had to laugh.

Michelin-y or not, I find it much more watchable than the old Top Chefs when the show was more about dramas between the chefs than cooking itself. Are the new seasons still going that route rather than focusing on cooking?

1 Like

The two articles I shared above are quite recent.

I finished the whole season already so I know that the show involves almost 0 dramas between contestants and focuses almost exclusively on cooking and their career trajectory.

1 Like

As I said, recent seasons have much less of that and mostly very serious competition.

2 Likes

Time for me to do some catch up. Thanks!

I’ll take @robert’s word for it as I didn’t start watching the show until about the 3rd season. But if you’re going to watch a reality show or cooking competition show Top Chef is it. I learn a lot from it. At one time it was rated the #1 food show on TV. This is saying a lot as it’s on Bravo, not The Food Network or Cooking Channel, and it started before The Food Network went full cheese (not including some baking competitions, early Chopped and Ina). The Food Network started pushing out heavy hitters in favor of creating their own stars. Shows like Next Food Network Star selected winners based on how telegenic they were then gave them their own show. It’s how we got Guy Fieri.

With Top Chef you have young James Beard winners, struggling young restaurant owners and sous chefs from Michelin star restaurants. They’re under a lot of pressure to do well. They live together in a fly pad and develop relationships for the good, the bad, but hardly the ugly (a few villains, but no table flipping and manufactured drama). They want this win bad. Even some non-winners leapfrog a couple levels in the food world. The judges are fun but have serious credentials and they attract serious guest judges - Michelin star chefs, celebrity chefs, food editors and the occasional, randomly fun guest judge. I loved NE Patriots, Rob Gronkowsi, and judge, Padma Lakshmi, talking about sausages on Top Chef Boston. It was fun watching her try hard not to melt into a puddle of blush. There are also some pretty soulful moments and the occasional cringy, manufacturing at play. But the recipes and challenges are serious and nobody, know matter how cute or popular they are is safe. A chef will f-up bad in one challenge and their ass is going home.

There are strong seasons and weak seasons. If you’re going to start watching definitely go far back to get a feel for the show. I need to catch up on a couple of seasons, but I :heart: the show.

Yah, I’ve heard it is really good. @paranoidgarliclover adores it, I think.

2 Likes

:rofl: snort, snort…ahhh. You could say the same about the writer.

It’s coming down to the final 6 cheftestants, and I’m still not excited by this season. Am I the only one? The cooking seems to be okay, but I find myself not as wowed as I have with previous seasons.

Summary

Though I don’t think Sarah should have her panties in a twist about her box mix debacle from last night. Don’t buy box mix if you don’t want to get shit for it…and what she thought was a short cut didn’t really help since her execution fell short. Also Adrienne didn’t out Sarah, when Chef Tom went through for inspection, he noticed it and mentioned it to Adrienne.

1 Like