The return of Bravo’s Top Chef

The season 4 premiere of Top Chef aired last night on the Bravo network. For those of you unfamiliar with this show, Top Chef takes 16 contestants of various culinary experience and background and gives them the opportunity to prove their skills in head to head competitions. Week after week contestants face off in two types of challenges; a “quick fire” challenge, in which they can win small prizes and immunity from elimination in the larger, more serious “elimination” challenge. It is in this challenge that chefs must perform - the least favorite dish in this competition wins a one-way plane ticket home. (image of judges table courtesy of Wikipedia.org)

Season 4 started off with a “deep dish pizza” quick fire challenge. Chefs were given 90 minutes to create a gourmet deep dish pizza using any ingredients in the kitchen. There were some impressive pies made, but I have to admit I was disappointed overall. A few chefs had trouble with the dough (which was all pre-made) while others struggled to come up with toppings that were fun and exciting. It’s PIZZA for crying out loud! Anyone who didn’t come up with something that tasted at least very good, should have been beaten with dough numchucks and immediately kicked off the show.

The more serious of the weekly challenges, the “elimination” challenge, usually involves 3 or more hours of prep and cooking time. It is here the aspiring Top Chef’s really have a chance to show their skills. In this first episode of Season 4, chefs were paired off with each pair having to create a “classic” dish. Each chef made their own rendition of the dish and they were judged to see who came up with the better From crab cakes to lasagna, chefs were asked to create a classic dish in just three hours. Some of the resulting dishes looked very classic and quite tasty (a lasagna with homemade pasta comes to mind as well as a variation of duck lorange that looked delicious), while a few frankly appeared to be inedible. How does a “chef” not know how to make a basic soufflé or chicken piccata? One thing is for sure, this early into the season there doesn’t appear to be as much raw talent as in previous seasons.

But alas, there is hope. Two female contestants are romantically involved, while another contestant (I’ll refer to as Huang II - a reiteration of last seasons character) appears pretentious and argumentative. There is a big bald guy (similar to Howie from season 3) that has potential for having a temper (although he got pretty soft being on the elimination side of things), Richard with a Mohawk (Dale, season 3), Andrew (who reminds me exactly of TJ, season 3), and Antonia who is the “cute” replacement for last seasons Casey.

Kidding aside, Top Chef is a fun show that appeals to the home chef, the culinary inept, and the food and dining enthusiast. I’m looking forward to this season, even if the level of talent isn’t up to what it was last season. That said, if this trend keeps up, maybe I’ll brush up on some classic dishes, focus on perfecting a few techniques, and learn to make a dessert or two and send over my video application for next season!

Top Chef