To my surprise, I'm really psyched for tonight's "Top Chef All-Stars" premiere

Top Chef Season 6 finalists (left to right) Bryan
and Michael Voltaggio and Kevin Gillespie

by Ken

It's a good indication that your life is misarranged when your sick days are pleasanter and more productive than, er, you non-sick days. As it happens, i was home today, and stumbled onto Bravo's Top Chef marathon. It took me awhile to figure out what was going on, but when I did, I was fascinated: Bravo had scheduled the "finales" (i.e., the final pair of episodes) from each of the seven completed seasons, as a countdown to tonight's premiere of the first-ever "all-star" series, at least in the Eastern time zone at 10pm, with the usual immediate repeat, listed for 11:15, following the initial airing of the jumbo-size premiere episode (presumably with further repeats throughout the week).

Just last week -- presumably as a function of many cable channels' disinclination to run new episodes of ongoing programs during a holiday week -- Bravo re-aired a dinner from a year or so ago for selected past competitors hosted by the ineffably charming Fabio Viviani from Season 5, who to the astonishment of many viewers -- presumably including the ones who voted him the season's Fan Favorite -- had been eliminated before the final competition challenge. (He's one of the returning "all-stars.") Although I've seen, I think, every episode of every season, my memories of the individual contestants and events tend to be blurry and to run together, so it was interesting to remake the acquaintance of the invited group, and today I found myself wildly sucked in by the "finals" marathon. Between live viewing and DVR capture, I've rewatched a lot of it, and had many old memories confirmed while noticing all sorts of things I either didn't remember or maybe didn't especially notice the first time through. (For one thing, you watch differently when you know, or even just-sort-of-recall, how the competitions came out.)

Bravo has been promoting the heck out of Top Chef All-Stars, and I'd seen the list of returning to contestants -- none of the past winners, but a heavy concentration of others who made it to the final round, with some others who otherwise distinguished themselves. However, seeing a lot of these people back in their original competitive environments really made me eager to see more of a lot of the people who've been invited back. Richard Blais, for example, one of the three finalists from Season 4, who startled the judges by telling them, during the judging, that he had choked in that day's cooking, which indeed he had. Seeing more of Richard, I wonder how I failed to properly appreciate his considerable charm as well as his apparently considerable cooking skills.

He's not the only contestant who choked, or at least had a bad day, at an inopportune time in the competition. (I'm sure the pressure is all but immeasurable, and it's probably more remarkable when competitors aren't seriously affected by that pressure.) A number of the others are also among the "all-star" competitors.

Of course, when it comes to a wide body of knowledge and skills harnessed to a productive imagination, competitions tend to be singularly inefficient ways of finding out who's "best," even assuming that "best" has any meaning. As some readers are aware, a lot of my attention over the years has been involved in the classical-music world, where competitions have become more and more important, not just for commercial reasons (for which their appeal is obvious) but more disturbingly for artistic determinations. Now, the people who do well at competitions undoubtedly have generous measures of talent and skill, and many competition-winning composers and performers have gone on to distinguish themselves in the ranks of their profession. However, it's if anything more common for the people who "have it" over the long haul to have finished second or third or even out of the running in competitions they entered.

And it's even worse in the TV world, where it's increasingly becoming an article of faith that the way we find out who's "best" at whatever discipline is at issue is by assembling a bunch of pretenders and then eliminating them one by one until there's one person left standing. In most cases, the format focuses so heavily on anointing this mythical "best" contestant that there's not much consideration left for whether that "best" person is actually any good.

I don't think this has been the case with Top Chef. One obvious problem for viewers is that we don't get to taste any of the food, which after all is the entire raison d'être of the proceedings. So we have to trust our eyes, and our experience-based instincts, and of course the reactions of the various judges (about whom more in a moment) to sort of guess about the quality of the food produced. While some very talented people no doubt get eliminated earlier on, for all sorts of reasons (some good, some not so good), the people left standing in those final rounds clearly can all cook. And especially on a second viewing I've been fascinated to see the ways in which people I've satisfied myself can cook at a very high level may misfire on a given day, or in a given challenge.

Of course sometimes the reason isn't at all mysterious. In Season 7, that icky Angelo was felled by devastating illness the days of the final challenge. Since I was rooting heavily against him, I was chagrined to see how well he competed -- admittedly with remarkable help from his designated sous chef, Season 3 winner Hung Huynh -- under the circumstances. (Icky Angelo will be back with the all-stars too. Ick!)

THE CAIN AND ABEL OF TOP CHEF?

There's no point in my offering observations on individual cooks for readers who haven't seen them, but still in my mind the most fascinating competitors were the brothers Voltaggio, Bryan and Michael, from Season 6. In the early rounds of each season's competition the viewer is left to sort out the contenders from the lower tiers among the 15 or so initial contestants. There are often people who require a number of rounds to get their bearings, and gradually come out of seemingly nowhere to become real forces -- like one of my favorites, Carla Hall from Season 5, who's another of the returning "all-stars" -- which is also part of the interest of the series. True, some of the people who come on like gangbusters early on fall by the wayside, but usually they're going to be heard from most of the way. 

It seemed clear pretty early on that both Bryan and Michael were likely to be in it to the end. Now it didn't hurt that they're both extraordinarily good-looking (sorry to be so superficial, but I'm sure the producers don't expect us not to notice!), and sure enough, they were two of the three finalists -- along with one of those initial dark horses, Kevin Gillespie.

Michael V is for me without doubt the most interesting of all the Top Chef contestants. He's the younger brother, and there was a powerful sibling-rivalry element -- played out at the end with the participation of the divorced mom who raised them, apparently a dreadful cook, but seemingly a sweet lady who didn't have an easy time of it financially, and has spent more than her share of her time watching her boys compete. In the final judging, asked why he should be Top Chef, Michael began by saying, "I just don't want Bryan to be Top Chef." He was joking, of course, but not entirely. It seemed clear that Bryan would handle a win by Michael a lot more easily than vice versa.

Bryan seemed not only worlds more likable but also an obviously brilliant cook, whose food I suspect I would enjoy a lot more. However, Michael's obsessive cutting-edge culinary curiosity and extraordinary discipline -- at least in the kitchen -- seemed to me to place him in a category apart from all the other seven seasons' worth of Top Chef contestants.

The crucial demonstration for me was the season's "Restaurant Wars," the favorite challenge of most competitors, in which the contestants still standing at that point are split into two teams and with a day's preparation open their own "restaurants." Almost without exception, given the participants' level of talent, the results are seriously disappointing. But in that season, Michael V took complete charge of his team and, while winning no prize for collegiality, produced an instant restaurant that was both the most functional of all seven seasons (and by a wide margin) but also the most culinarily alert and inventive. There are times when you don't need fancy measuring instruments to know that you're in the presence of genius -- and that wouldn't have changed if Michael hadn't been the season's winner. He was, though.

In my recollection, at least, it was striking that Michael's "Restaurant Wars" team was an autocracy, with Michael's judgment controlling just about all decisions and his vigilant eye governing nearly all phases of the execution. Meanwhile on the other team the lovely and talented Jennifer Carroll, who to that point had seemed to be as formidable a contender as the Voltaggio boys, was the very model of cooperativeness and collegiality, and the results were disastrous. (Again in my recollection, it was at this point that Jennifer, who had seemed imperturbable, began to disappear from the competition. I'm pleased to see that she's among the all-star competitors. it seems clear that she lost her confidence in her original season. I'm hoping she'll be able to maintain it this time.)

IT'S KIND OF LIKE, YOU KNOW, REAL LIFE

Now this is a hotly debated point in the restaurant world, and in the nonrestaurant world as well. The dominant view in the modern culinary world is that kitchens have to be run by unremitting terror enforced by unrelenting verbal, emotional, and even physical abuse, which people like Gordon Ramsay genuinely believe is the only way to keep a professional kitchen functioning at any kind of high level. And I have to admit that in my own life, much as I hate it, I'm more likely to respond to demands on my time enforced through naked fear.

However, there are chefs who hate this approach, and insist on running their kitchens on a basis of collegiality, respect, and cooperation. There's no doubt that this is a much harder approach to make work successfully, because it depends on so many people living up to the trust placed in them, but it's not hard to see the possibilities for getting much superior results from people treated this way. This is, as it happens, the very same distinction an especially wise colleague in the online political world was just pointing out as perhaps the crucial difference between the worldviews of the Right and Left. Righties believe that you get more out of people by abusing them; lefties believe that you get more out of people by treating them with respect. (For what it's worth, in the six seasons that Bravo has had voting for Fan Favorite, only one competition winner, Season 4's Stephanie Izard, has won that title.)

This is just one of the human-interest themes played out in the Top Chef competitions, above and beyond the culinary dimension. In which connection it has also been fascinating today rewatching the judges and the limited portion of the judging process that has been included in the shows -- both the people we see all the time (most frequently head judge and cohost Tom Colicchio, of the Craft restaurant empire; host since Season 2 Padma Lakshmi; and judge through all seasons, and now also the host Top Chef Desserts, Gail Simmons) and the large cast of culinary celebrities who've passed through the show in various capacities. (I see from Wikipedia that Anthony Bourdain, who has already racked up five very solid guest-judge appearances, will be alternating with Gail Simmons on a regular basis this season.)

Anyway, I say bring on those Top Chef All-Stars!


POSTSCRIPT: STOP ALREADY WITH THE $$$$ GIVEAWAYS!

I meant to say something about the innovation of recent Top Chef seasons of finding excuses in every episode to hand out cash prizes. I hate this, and am unhappy to see how much money is being given away in Season 8. I had no problem with guest judges giving copies of their latest book as they announced the winner of the current challenge, or inviting the winner to dine at their restaurant. But now they're dispensing cash like "Sunny John" Boehner handing out tobacco-lobbyist $$$$ on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Is the incentive of winning the title of Top Chef really not sufficient? Early in tonight's premiere episode, Marcel "The Foam Guy" Vigneron recalls ruefully that he finished second in Season 2 and "didn't win a thing." True, the title and associated prizes go to only one contestant, but what all the others get is -- how to say this? -- newly TV-jumped careers.

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