Food TV’s gold standard returns: It’s “Top Chef” time!
By Brad Cramer
Bravo’s “Top Chef” returns Thursday night at 10:00 pm, with Top Chef All Stars LA, turning up the heat on returning cheftestants as they compete for $250,000, the highest cash prize in series history.
From our vantage point, there’s “Top Chef” and then there’s everyone else where food competition shows are concerned. Are there other shows that continue to shine, absolutely, but to us, “Top Chef” is the Chateau Lafite Rothschild of the genre. It only gets better with age.
Top Chef All Stars LA, Season 17 of “Top Chef” wends itself west to Los Angeles, where Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio, and Gail Simmons welcome back 15 of the show’s best competitors from the first 16 seasons. From the City of Angels, the lucky finalists will jet off to Italy for the dramatic finale.
It’s been nine years since Richard Blais beat now-disgraced chef Mike Isabella in the first “Top Chef: All Stars”. With Top Chef All Stars LA, the show is giving viewers a renewed chance to reconnect with old favorites or root against ones who previously got under our skin.
Speaking of getting under our skin, two of this season’s least-popular chefs, Jen Carroll and Angelo Sosa, are making encore appearances on Top Chef All Stars LA. Did either win a Quickfire Challenge during their first All Stars go-round? Nope. Did either even sniff the final four? That’d be no again. So why are they back? Polaroids maybe? (And yes, Polaroids are still a thing!)
With the Lakshmi/Colicchio/Simmons triumvirate holding down the fort, they’ll be joined by the likes of legendary chef Jonathan Waxman, renowned pastry chef Sherry Yard, author and former New York Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl, and “Top Chef” winners Stephanie Izard and Brooke Williamson in holding the cheftestants’ feet to the proverbial fire.
Restaurant Wars, a “Top Chef” mainstay, returns in a two-part installment on All Stars LA, promising the usual angst, tension and high-wire act that signifies the highly-anticipated (for viewers) and dreaded (for chefs) episodes.
As we eagerly await Thursday’s premiere of Top Chef All Stars LA, let’s take a look at the 15 All Stars who’ll be cooking for the $250,000 cash prize: