Presents a Night With Top Chef” panel that Bravo’s Andy Cohen hosted May 1 at the Television Academy in North Hollywood.
“On our show, the chefs are the stars,” Lakshmi said.
“For us, the focus is on the food and on the chefs. You figure out what’s compelling about seeing someone not do well and then do well … What you can do is set the stage, the opportunity for that wonderful stuff to bubble up. I think someone has an advantage if they are using a combination of high acid, a little bit of spice, and salt and fat.” Season 12 of “Top Chef” starts filming soon in Boston and will air this fall.
And I think our wonderful producers are incredibly talented at doing that season after season.” Lakshmi, who was joined at the panel by head judge Tom Colicchio, judge Gail Simmons and past “cheftestants” Richard Blais and Brooke Williamson, added that it helps that the show has the respect of the food industry — something she knows is important to seasoned chef Colicchio but also, as Colicchio joked, ensures that the personable host can get any reservation she wants. While the panel couldn’t divulge any spoilers on the new season, they did tease to expect lots of dishes surrounding baked beans, clam chowder and other stereotypical “wicked” dishes.
And, like the audience, they all loved Kevin from season six.
When describing his dishes, Kevin would often go on for 45 minutes or longer — but the judges, completely transfixed, wouldn’t notice how much time had passed until a producer stepped in to tell him to wrap it up.
Hold on to your toques, kids, we’re in for a bumpy one.
Risotto is one of those things that seems super easy but is really, really difficult to get right.
Even professional chefs have a hard time making it through Bravo’s culinary gauntlet, almost all of them falling prey to at least one of these 17 guaranteed pack-your-knives-and-go moves.
Salty sins, warm sashimi, and attempted murder (aka, serving raw chicken) are just a few of the tell-tale signs your favorite cheftestant is doomed to face the metaphorical chopping block.
So how does the cooking competition show keep things fresh?
Host Padma Lakshmi shared her thoughts at the “Watch What Happens Live!
Padma Lakshmi’s new memoir, Love, Loss and What We Ate, begins with a scene that cleverly combines her dual claims to celebrity: her marriage to celebrated novelist Salman Rushdie—who left his third wife in 1999 for the Delhi-born model and actress 23 years his junior—and her culinary cred, fostered as a judge on Top Chef, the popular Bravo reality show.