Top Chef

It's always a little strange when holidays come to reality-television shows, since you know it had to have been taped, well, beforehand, and so everyone is just faking that it's Thanksgiving. Such was the case when the Top Chef crew headed up to a downright balmy Rochester, N.Y. (they cooked outside for the elimination challenge) to cook Thanksgiving dinner for the rock band, Foo Fighters.

Why? Well, Bravo's reality shows excel at presenting contestants with dumb challenges made slightly less dumb by involving some amount of cool (see also the drag queen challenge on the last season of Project Runway).  read more »

This morning, Top Chef host-judges Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio treated the food press to a conference call to discuss the upcoming fifth season of the show, which was mostly filmed in Brooklyn. Besides learning that guest judges will include Eric Ripert, Dave Grohl, Martha Stewart, Lidia Bastianich, Wylie Dufresne, and Marcus Samuelsson, we found out that Ms. Lakshmi usually "gains about 10 to 15 pounds over the course of [filming] … I always go up one dress size, without fail." Mr. Colicchio was also adamant that people know his, uh, collection of seven restaurants is not "a chain." 

Also, did you know Mr.  read more »

Top Chef won't return to Bravo until later this fall, but Eater has been doing a valiant job of speculating on future cast members, who are shooting the next season in New York City as we speak. They've managed to potentially I.D. a handful of contestants so far, but only one is a native New Yorker (well, he cooked in Montauk, which is close enough for us): Danny Gagnon. The CIA grad is apparently as foul-mouthed as Gordon Ramsay. Hopefully he won't be quite as annoying when put through the TV grinder.

It's more or less an open secret, but we've learned that the Top Chef cast has definitely been living for about two weeks now in a terraced duplex penthouse in Williamsburg overlooking McCarren Park.

So far, the chefs have pretty much kept to themselves, said an extremely well-placed source, leaving around 8 or 9 in the mornings for a soundstage in Greenpoint and coming straight back in the evenings.

“They’re not allowed to talk to anyone, really, or even do their own thing,” the source said. They’re trying to keep things under control before the paparazzi start camping out.”

Luckily, it sounds like they have the typical luxe reality show digs, complete with a private roof deck and a sweeping view of the city skyline, to occupy them when they are not shopping, cooking or shooting.  read more »

On Tuesday, June 24, just before 2 p.m., the Transom stepped into an elevator and all of a sudden found ourselves gazing at dreamy Top Chef contestant Sam Talbot.

Holy smokes! Er, who’s gonna win Top Chef season whatever?

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Talbot, who wore a tight black V-neck T-shirt that revealed bulging biceps, accentuated by a necklace with a giant shark tooth.

Shucks. So, what else is going on?

“I just opened a restaurant in the Hamptons.” Right, right—that seafood joint, the Surf Lodge. Does he surf? “No, I wakeboard,” said Mr.  read more »

Monday

Is the impulse that drives viewers to A&E’s reality series Intervention charity? Or what the newspapers used to call "human interest"? Or is it just Schadenfreude? Either way, the show, which chronicles those confrontations between self-destructive people and their families and friends brokered by "intervention" specialists, certainly doesn't play for laughs. What you’re seeing is usually pretty horrific, and the train wrecks it picks through can actually become pretty touching stories. Methamphetamine and OxyContin addictions are common fare here; and the success stories, which are not guaranteed, are definitely the more edifying programs. So maybe it is charity after all? Tonight we meet Chad who, like most of the show's subjects, had a pretty troubled childhood—he ended up in juvie for felony arson. At age 15, Chad’s father introduced him to cycling, and he went pro and even cycled on the same team as Lance Armstrong. When he got kicked off the team for “personality conflicts,” however, he turned to drugs. He's homeless and spends his days drinking, panhandling and smoking crack. Can an intervention save his life? The show airs at 9 p.m. Of course before reality programs there were nonfictional programs about science and nature and history. The History Channel takes a break from reconstructing Hitler's last hours in the bunker to trot out an hour-long program about the origins of life on earth at 9 p.m. At any rate switch to Bravo at 10 and watch Clueless if you haven't seen it a few too many times already, or fire up the fourth season premiere of Weeds at 10 p.m. on Showtime.  read more »

MONDAY

Finally, they’ve given Julianna Margulies her own show, Canterbury’s Law (Fox, 8 p.m.), in which she plays a bitchy (natch) attorney for the falsely accused. Ms. Margulies has certainly paid her dues, appearing during her 18-year career on E.R., Law and Order, Scrubs, The Sopranos, and a whole host of made-for-TV movies, not to mention Snakes on a Plane. Her career strategy has obviously paid off: make the rounds playing a doctor or a lawyer and eventually, they’ll make a TV show for you. (Except if you’re Fyvush Finkel. Sorry!) It’s not a new idea. Jewish mothers have been on that tip for years.  read more »

Last night, Thomas Keller, the chef and owner of impossible-to-penetrate gastronomical temples like Napa’s French Laundry and New York’s Per Se, said he finds the recent celebrity-chef trend rather capricious.  read more »

Restaurant deals crumbled for Dave Martin and Sam Talbot, but do diners care? Zagat says not really.  read more »