Top Chef: DC

Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin in New York joining the longstanding judging panel of Tom Colicchio, Padma Lakshmi and Gail Simmons.

also photos/bios here

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/13/top-chef-season-7-contest_n_575272.html

two separate people list their favorite recipes as "anything with peas" -- hoping that alexa von tobel is a guest judge tbh

http://dcist.com/2010/05/top_chef_thats_a_wrap.php

Huh, interesting to have Ripert as a full-time judge.

Other points of note:

1. Four black contestants!
2. Is Lynn Gigliotti, at 51, the oldest contestant in Top Chef history?

i feel like robyn from last year had to be older than 50

wiki says 43, so maybe

Yeah, I think Carla from S5 might've been around 43 or 44, too, I just don't remember any older than that.

this seems like the oldest season ever? some seasons didn't even have contestants over 40

eric ripert's rad, psyched that he'll be there full-time

Top Chef Masters 2, which is on right now, got good btw
As soon as they knocked it down to the final eight there has been some heavy stuff like wedding wars

Off the bat I'd say last seasons cast would wipe the floor with this bunch. Thinking that the annoying guy that won is looking like the favorite due to the others just sucking so much.

his food looked really good

All of the best guys seem to be type-a assholes. Doesn't make for very compelling viewing.

lol at dreadlocked dude that was clearly vexed cuz he couldn't bring his stash along

he was pretty bizarre

if he was properly blazed there damn well would have been enough maple flavor in that dessert

word

i was pretty shocked that they didn't make enough of a deal about him serving frozen puff pastry. i feel like chefs in the past seasons would've gone ape shit over someone serving something pre-made. but no one in the episode seemed really to care either way.

pretty sure they thought he was nuts and just ignored him.

good point

puff pastry takes like 4+ hours to make iirc. not a big deal to serve pre-made imo.

(haven't watched this yet btw)

the new sous chef at my gf's restaurant is on here. they did a screening/premiere there last night. will be watching with some added interest cuz of that.

the guy did get shitcanned on episode 1, I'd call that "making a deal" out of his puff pastry

Padma’s postpartum bewbs looked hueg last night btw

kenny!

also my gurl and i were sad to see hippy dude go cuz he was priceless when he talked

omg goofy hippie guy how did you even make it to the first round

also 2nd ep chef serving of sherry to kids = you are fucking retarded

OTM

she should've gone home for that but jacqueline was obv an abysmal chef... plus i think sherry girl brings some drama to the show

Angelo was basically trolling imo with that peanut butter + celery bs.

openly trolling -- gabe was right in his videogum post tho in that angelo should've realized that there was no way that kenny was getting sent home in the second episode, so angelo showed his hand/trolled way too early

i like kenny okay, and i like tim from DC a little, but maybe just cause he's from DC, and he's not that annoying aggressive lady from DC. angelo is the true worst, and i hope he goes down hard. the lady from atlanta is bleh, too, and her junk-food revelation last night was a little o_O and disingenuous or something? i think she just misses being around her gf and gf's daughter, and i feel that, but like, it seems kind bush-league of her to melt down like that, compared to when kevin from atlanta was much more professional in a tough situation last season, with his marriage basically dissolving right around the finale? i think it's just a real let-down after last season's really good bunch of chefs/"characters"

It is refreshing to have a bunch of assholes after a season where everyone was somewhat lovable.

the quickire double-apron thing was a cool challenge. still too many contestants for me to really get a handle on who's interesting/good, altho Angelo obviously being set up as the front-runner

Couldn't listen to that girl pronounce "carnitas" one more time! And she was so proud of them. Would have been very lol if she had flamed out but she freakin won.

Very strange sequence when the two losing teams were going at each other in front of the panel like they were. I don't remember anything quite like that in other seasons

I agree. Inter-team bickering, sure, but not ragging other teams that way.

She definitely invented pork carnitas, let's be real.

iirc it was totally fine of her to claim that shit, and the dude on the team was just being really paranoid about how his salsa wasnt gonna stack up

Couldn't listen to that girl pronounce "carnitas" one more time!

even tho i guess she was saying it "correctly" it's really fucking obnoxious and condescending when people do this

yeah I was also lol'ing over people getting persnickety about the pronunciation of gnocchi

In previous TC threads people have made fun of chefs for pronouncing words (ceviche, chipotle) wrong, and now we're making fun because they're trying to pronounce things correctly? They can't win!

lol yeah I know it's just funny to see people actually argue about it

mostly that girl just annoyed me in general iirc

Carnitas chick has got to get sent packing, god is she tedious.

tell it like it is, magill.

gnocchi came up in the national spelling bee finals and the judge pronounced it in a really goofy way

the little segment where Padma was with the kids was really cuet,they loved her.

God I wish someone would punch Gale with fruit.

Elan is mayor of Douchebaggington
Which is why he and Ed were a perfect match!

Totally. Ed was sort of likable at first but the last 2 challenges he turned up the douchiness super loud. He got pretty tiresome

I thought he was kind of funny. I didn't see it as totally mean-spirited, just loving to push angelo's buttons, who probably deserved it.

It started to get really cocky, chest beating, it became off-putting to me.

There was one small snippet where Ed was taking some potshot at Angelo "recovering" so quickly and Angelo snapped "I'm getting tired of your attitude" or something to that effect.

Ed lost when he let Ilan make that pedestrian dessert with "fleur de sel creme chantilly" because he didn't want to fuck up a lemon curd. Tom's look on his face when Ed said that was like "Dude, I would rather have eaten a fucked up lemon curd than what you served me!"

And Angelo lost when he served duck with marshmallows.

Well and Ed was acting like such a control freak about everything else, it just seemed kind of lazy to let Elan do the whole dessert. I know he said he had his doubts about it before it went out to the table. It was like he figured he had everything else in the bag, the dessert won't be bad enough to make him lose. Annoying.

was really a dumb move to take the last thing the judges will taste and leave it in the hands of your sous chef.

The problem with the dessert wasn't how it tasted anyway. It was that it was so uncreative in concept.

Also, Kevin nailed three of his four dishes.

Really weird that he won.

he seems like such a putz

weak crop of contestants this season

http://cdn.videogum.com/files/2010/09/ripert_bourdain.jpg

this was basically the best thing about this season. when hung and voltaggio and what's his face showed up last night i wished the show was now totally about them.

There was one small snippet where Ed was taking some potshot at Angelo "recovering" so quickly and Angelo snapped "I'm getting tired of your attitude" or something to that effect.

yeah, I even thought Angelo responding that way was as much jokey as anything.

yeah i think he was joking -- just like ed was fucking w/ him at the baseball challenge

what i've decided about kevin is that he wasn't suited for the challenges during the show, like the stupid wacky shit they concoct to make the show interesting, but once he got to the finals and they were just like "okay, cook food" he kinda killed it -- it feel a bit underwhelming but he seems like a really nice guy, so good for him

agree with jordan abt kevin winning feels right. also thought that he didn't seem all that great until the end and even then it wasn't far and away. i always chuckled a bit when i saw that kevin worked at a place called Rat's; who the hell names their restaurant Rat's?? i feel like he won cuz the other guys made more or worse mistakes. but the contrast between ed gaming and all psychological and kevin saying 'i wanna compete against the best' kinda sealed it. pretty much knew sicko angelo wasn't going to win but it was nice to see him get back on the horse. in a general way i think this was the most meh of top chefs i have watched tho i have not watched all of them, like i wish i would've seen the hung season cuz dude was kinda marvelous.

The Hung season was fantastic.

The Ilan/Marcel season was the hardest to watch because everyone was so loathsome.

Hosea was the worst winner.

Why the name Rat's? In Kenneth Grahame's classic, The Wind in the Willows, one of Seward Johnson's, favorite books, the character Ratty represented everything a host should be. As founder of Rat's and Grounds For Sculpture, Johnson likens himself to Ratty who threw the best parties with the best wine. Likewise, the two share delightful imaginations and far-reaching dreams.

Apparently it's a highly regarded restaurant in a beautiful sculpture garden:

http://www.groundsforsculpture.org/RatsRestaurant/index.html

My gf and my NJ families were all familiar with it.

I had the same reaction re: the Rat's name ("no one wants to think about a mouse in a hotel" etc)

have they brought back Hosea for anything? that guy is so terrible...

I kind of wish they would have a Top Chef All-Stars competition (have they done that and i've just forgotten? maybe?) - bring back winners and/or fan faves...bring back Hung, Sam, Harold, Richard Blais!, Stephanie, Ilan, hell bring back Marcel, Kevin, Michael V...whoever else. I would love that.

I agree upthread that Michael V & Hung showing up made the episode far more interesting than anything the chefs were doing.

Way upthread I mentioned that eater.com had a posting about Top Chef All-Stars being filmed in New York. Basically it is comprised of people who did not win Top Chef. I mentioned that if you went to the site there was a spoiler as Angelo was listed as one of the participants.

I thought Kevin was a pretty nice dude, and I am glad he won. His food seemed pretty bland & boring at first but it seemed it was just a confidence/nerves thing. Scary when he got stressed out, but overall he seemed pretty thoughtful, hardworking, likeable...and lol afraid of live prawns, hee hee!! that clip was hilarious.

xpost sweet!

more like an All-Losers amirite

They'll drive Scions to and from Whole Foods.

And make Bertolli frozen food while wearing Glad garbage bags.

Fashioned into clothing by runners-up from Project Runway (the Bravo years).

wait why do you guys hate Gale? she's so pretty!

also i love Hung

i actually love gale -- i was just zingin

oh good. i love her, too

Has anyone watched Desserts? It's kind of O_o but I don't hate it

it's a bit boring but def watchable

Lol @ Snow Queen: "because I make ice-cream, and I'm gay". Uh huh Liberace-face, I would never have guessed.

And WTF at the girl who's bio is "my husband and I are trying to have a baby"...did we switch to Real Housewives? Tmi for a cooking show

It's gayer than RuPaul's drag race - seems all the truly flamboyant chefs go pastry!

top chef allstars season 8

http://eater.com/uploads/top-chef-all-stars-contestants.jpg

ugh

Best part of the finale for me was hearing Angelo say, "Good for Kevin, he deserved it, he's a great guy" or something like that. Reminded me of when Stefan lost a couple seasons back and was totally gracious. I think often the editors can conflate these people's personalities so that they are just "the douchebag" or "the sweet girl" or whatever. I felt like Angelo started the season off as a total creep, but somewhere around 5 episodes to go I started to really like him.

i think the all stars line up is pretty amazing

Hopefully Blais won't choke this time.

"The red hots were for my mommy!!" - TC Desserts guy

that was one of the most bizarre things i've ever seen in my life

that guy is a massive, massive asshole

that was insane. of course they kept that guy on in the judging, lol

that guy is physically uncomfortable to watch

i liked when the judges asked if he was going to reform his behavior and he was like, "i can't promise that" and bravo was like, then you can stay.

I liked the part where he said "you see where being nice got me, I cooked like crap, now I'm going to start being an asshole and WIN THIS WHOLE THING and you all can SUCK IT"

it's like, how much more of an asshole can you be @ this point? if you can top it that's impressive

"the red hots were for my mommy" was some all time weirdness though

and then he dumped what's-his-name's chocolates and wouldn't admit it

train wreck

god that poor guy whose chocolates he dumped. i would have KILLED him.

the dessert cast is crazy drama

just in watching the show, it seems like it's harder to judge which desserts are good based on looks. like something could look really tasty but be sickly sweet. or otoh that atomic fireball ho-ho with licorice sauce (!) looked and sounded freakin disgusting but was in the top.