Top Chef has easily become my favourite cooking show of all time. I don't know what it is about its combination of reality tv, food, famous chefs and excitement, but nothing comes close. The season 4 finale was a cliffhanger.
Usual warnings apply, there is a season spoiler in this review so please don't read any further if you don't want to know who won.
The Top Chef formula is pretty simple. Get a collection of pretty talented chefs together for the series. Every episode has a Quick Fire Challenge which either gives immunity for the next challenge or some advantage. This is followed by the Elimination Challenge and one person leaves at the end of each episode.
Pretty standard stuff but it's the way they do it that makes it compelling TV. The head judge is Tom Colicchio, one of the best chefs in America. Each week they have guest judges who themselves are usually incredibly famous too. The challenges are always interesting and often fun. They have had a few running themes over the four series (restaurant wars etc).
The general standard of the chefs is good rising to amazing. Of the three previous seasons only the winner of season 2 was a clunker. To this day I do not understand why someone of such limited range was made Top Chef. From what I can see, the runner-up that year is already doing better than him in the real world.
So on to this Season's finale. All predictions were that a woman had to win and it seemed like at times they allowed weaker female contestants through each stage. In fact they tried to go for the double-brownie-points by having three lesbians on the show. Luckily the most talented of the three beat the others but I still believe (like many viewers) that she simply didn't belong in the final and it was affirmative-action gone wrong.
Two people shone through from the very first episode; Richard and Stephanie. He is one of the molecular gastronomy guys and did some incredibly detailed things throughout the series. However he also showed he had the required core skills which strangely seems to be missing in a lot of people in that niche. Stephanie is a much more traditional chef but she just kept surprising the judges. Little genius touches here and there which were delightful.
As with most finales, the pressure got to them all and they made mistakes. Each of them had a famous chef as a sous-chef on day 1 which was great fun as always. The dishes themselves varied from failures like Richard's pork-belly or Stephanie's pound cake to some fabulous successes. Despite my negative comments above, Lisa presented some really great food.
And then it came to the decision. It was clearly down to Richard and Stephanie with the dour scowling crossed-armed grump coming a not-too-distant third. My gut said Stephanie, not because she is a woman, but because she delivered well on the day and consistently brilliantly through the series. And so it turned out. A fully deserved win for a great chef.
Next week has a reunion show and then I don't know how long I'm going to have to wait for Season 5. Hurry up and make another one already!
Leave a comment