Bravo sent along some more info on Top Chef Masters, the spinoff of the James Beard Award winning cooking show slated for a fall premiere. For those who don’t know the new show will features twenty-four contestants competing in challenges that mimic the Quickfire and Elimination challenges of the original series. Of course the title of “top” gets a bit suspect when you now have “masters” donning the cheftestant whites to compete. Many contestants on the original series are indeed chef’s in their own right, despite not being food celebrities.
Perhaps it’d more accurate to call the show Most Top Chef or Toppier Chef. I don’t know. Kelly Choi, host of Eat Out NY, will serve as host of the series with New York Magazine food critic Gael Greene, culinary dude James Oseland, and British journalist Jay Rayner serving as judges. Hmm. So it’s a little like Chopped, only not as stilted and boring. Actually this is like a flip of the original series with the big names doing the competing and the judges being awed by them.
The real question is who will be taking up the challenge. From last night’s episode we know Top Chef can lure in luminaries like Jacques Pepin. Who wouldn’t want to see Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert battle it out? I hope for Bourdain’s sake monkfish is nowhere near that challenge. Although it would be even more entertaining to watch Bourdain’s immediate reaction to being critiqued. Or perhaps Thomas Keller could make an appearance and cause Rachael Ray to cry. No, too mean; and Rachael is too wholesome and appealing to the working mom to bring her down. Now a battle between Keller and David Chang would be fun to watch.
The following is a description of the Elimination Challenge portion of the new show: ”[It’s] a more involved elimination challenge designed to test the versatility and invention of the chefs as they take on unique culinary trials such as working with unusual and exotic foods or catering for a range of demanding clients.” Am I missing the fact that the people competing on Top Chef Masters are supposed to be the highest level of chef’s in the world? Because it seems someone is, as any chef of that caliber should be able to make something out of any “exotic foods.” Eric Ripert makes a sauce out of uni and butter. Uni and butter, people.
