‘Top Chef’ reunion preview
-
- June
- 17
Hopefully “Top Chef” viewers this season had enough foresight (and/or spoilers) to know Stephanie Izard would take home the title, thus freeing themselves to bestow the $10,000 fan favorite award on the infinitely quotable Andrew D’Ambrosi. He was definitely my favorite of the 16, although Stephanie, Richard Blais and Erik Hopfinger were right up there, too.
Tomorrow night, we’ll learn who claimed that prize and more about the dirt behind the scenes in the premiere of the Season 4 reunion special (10 p.m. EST). And we’ll see if doing the reunion special after the season finale—a “Top Chef” first—helps or hurts the quality of the reunion content; I’m guessing the former.
I originally embedded Bravo’s preview clip here, but I then realized that it includes a couple of uncensored curse words and I like being employed. But it’s on Bravo’s Web site at the moment if you want to check it out.
Also, check out Entertainment Weekly’s short-but-sweet interview with Stephanie, who said she deserved to win the competition regardless of some complaints that she won because of her gender:
We were having the reunion show, and [show judge] Tom [Colicchio] was talking about how they came up with the decision, and I really believe that it was their decision. They compared our meals. I think [other Top Chef finalist] Richard and I are both good chefs, but he just didn’t make as great of a meal that night. So yeah, people can believe and say whatever they want; I just know in my heart that I worked really hard for that and I deserved it.
Despite producers cheapening the win by jamming the “a woman has never won the ‘Top Chef’ title” fact down the audience’s collective throat, Stephanie deserved to win, fair and square. But I also think it worked out perfectly; Richard’s self-described “choke” and Stephanie’s excellent meal made it very easy on the judges and the producers to declare her the winner.
The interesting conundrum would have been to see what would have happened if Richard’s meal was as good or better than Stephanie’s. But I suppose that’s a moot point.
(Photo courtesy of NBC/Universal.)
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 4:53 pm by Chris Serico.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Print
| 
Email
