Top Chef (TV Show)

Food Fight!

Top Chef Seattle: It's over. Really. We Promise This Time.

The Top Chef: Seattle season finale was really good last night. Kristen and Brooke competed for the Top Chef title in front of a live audience and had to serve up dishes for the whole audience of 160 people, plus past winners of Top Chef, plus the judges. They were told to plan for five courses, but ... More >>

Top Chef Seattle: Season Finale. Part 1. Because This Season Won't Die.

On the Season Finale of Top Chef: Seattle, they told us that the season finale would be a two-part season finale. I swear, this season won't die, you guys. At least the photographers at Bravo keep getting "I'm farting" pictures of Tom Colicchio. Everyone likes those. Enjoy.

BREAKING: Restaurant People Love Crossing Their Arms in Photos

Dallas chefs and restaurant owners looooove crossing their arms in photos. We should make it stop. It's the most important change that needs to happen in our restaurant scene. Seriously. Evidence:

Top Chef Seattle: Valentine Hearts Hats, Plus a Drinking Game for Next Week

The best thing about the Top Chef chefs being in Alaska is that Josh Valentine gets to wear even more hats! He wore three hats in this episode. You think that's uninteresting, and that nobody gives any of their shits about what he's wearing? I completely agree. And it's still somehow more interestin ... More >>

Top Chef Seattle: We Want To Eat Valentine's Eggduckengoose.

Last week, when they teased this week's episode of Top Chef: Seattle, Padma promised me that the chefs would battle it out during restaurant wars. I was really excited to see Viking Valentine with an axe, or maybe Merman Valentine busting out a trident on someone's ass. But it didn't happen. Instead ... More >>

Top Chef Seattle: Danyele McPherson Packs Knives, Goes.

If you guessed that Danyele McPherson would get kicked off of Top Chef for flipping the double bird at Gail Simmons and punching Joshua Valentine in his Valentines after Hulk-smashing the entire Top Chef kitchen, you'd be almost right. The scene actually went like this: She made a dish using bluebe ... More >>

A 'Stache, a Ginger and a Tesar: Top Chef: Seattle Features Three Badass Dallas Chefs

Every week, I will watch Top Chef. I will not recap the episodes scene-by scene, because that is dumb: if you wanted to watch it, you watched it already and you don't need me to tell you that there were opening credits, chefs got sweaty, and someone yelled "fuck" at food. If you want that kind of re ... More >>

John Tesar Will Be On Bravo's Top Chef

A few months ago I received a series of cryptic emails from an anonymous source telling me John Tesar was going to be on Bravo's latest chef shit show, Top Chef, Season 10. The email didn't say much, so I sat on the unsubstantiated claim. There were a few clues: namely the slow open of Spoon, Tesar ... More >>

Rowdy and Michelle Obama Visit a Dallas School To Promote Nutrition, Reality TV

Michelle Obama joined the folks from Top Chef this morning, as part of her tour celebrating the second anniversary of her "Let's Move!" initiative. The folks from Bravo staged a mock cooking competition in front of scores of crumbsnatchers (who didn't look that fat to me, by the way) from the Nancy ... More >>

Private Social Hears No Evil, and That's the Problem

The loudest restaurant in Dallas can't hear (or see or taste) its mistakes.

Top Chef Texas Recap: The Crying Game

There have never been more tears on Top Chef, including in our very own eyes, as there were throughout last night's episode. The crying wasn't from cutting raw onions. It wasn't from sliced fingertips. It wasn't even from the pork belly frying oil that nearly splashed in Ed's eye. The sentiment spur ... More >>

Top Chef Texas Highlights: Make Delicious Barbecue, in Texas -- No Pressure.

Last night's Top Chef delivered the most Texan of any conceivable Texas challenges: make barbecue that doesn't suck and do it at one of the state's best barbecue restaurants, Salt Lick in Austin. Oh, and make enough beef brisket, chicken and pork ribs to feed 300 people. No small task for the three ... More >>

Top Chef Texas: Dean Fearing, Lousy Steaks and the Emergence of a Bitchy Villian-Type

via BravoThe dish that looked most delicious in the entire hour of television was Greyson's Quickfire creation. ​This week's Top Chef didn't overly Dallas-ize Dallas like last week's -- for that, we are thankful. Dean Fearing, the original chef at Mansion on Turtle Creek and the man behind Fea ... More >>

Top Chef: Texas Cost Taxpayers $200K More Than First Reported, Thanks to San Antonio

​We've been telling you since the summer about the estimated $400,000 the Texas governor's office agreed to pay the producers in exchange for them promoting the state's brand in the ongoing, Texas-centric season of Top Chef. Last we checked in, the producers, a California company called Magica ... More >>

Top Chef: Texas Episode 2: Painful Moments, Best Dishes, and Other Highlights

via BravoLast night's City of Ate-Deemed 'Best Dish,' jump for delicious details. ​Last night's episode of Top Chef: Texas should have come with a five-minute bonus Colicchio-lead meditation at the end -- it was INTENSE. I get it, the show's in Texas where everything's bigger, and hence this s ... More >>

Top Chef Texas Recap: Highlights, Superlatives, and the Three Best Dishes

Top Chef Texas "Booyeah bitches!"​Last night at La Grange, City of Aters had good beer, better tacos, and an hour of fantastic television on an enormous projector screen. It was the first City of Ate Top Chef Texas viewing party, and watching the show with a beer in hand, a selection of $2 tac ... More >>

Top Chef Producers Sue to Suppress Details of Their Deal With Texas Taxpayers

Chris Christie, the seriously-non-president-running governor of New Jersey, recently pulled the plug on $420,000 in government subsidies for Jersey Shore, calling the tax incentives "wasteful spending" on a show that poorly represents his state. Texas Governor Rick Perry's office? It sees no such w ... More >>

Rolling Out The Red, It's Party Time At Private Social

​There will be people watching at Private Social tonight. A private VIP party planned as a precursor to tomorrow's grand opening, promises a red carpet and a number of local and National stars. Tony Romo and his wife are listed as attendees, confirming collapsed lung-age is no big thing--if he ... More >>

Top Chef: Texas is Official; Emeril Lagasse and Hugh Acheson Will Judge

Emeril: Top Chef's new jurist.​Official word just came from Bravo: The next season of Top Chef will be set in Texas. You already knew that if you've been following any number of blogs, including City of Ate, where we broke the story that the state will shell out an estimated $400,000 to see ... More >>

Top Chef To Cost Texas Taxpayers $400,000, Give Or Take the Bacon Budget

"Mmm. Taxpayer-funded chocolate is delicious."​For several weeks now, as Top Chef crews have bounced around the state shooting next season's Texas-centric version of the popular Bravo reality show, journalists and food bloggers have wondered: How much, if anything, did the state pay for the sh ... More >>

Yes, Top Chef is Shooting in Dallas; No, the City Didn't "Pay to Play"

​News broke a couple weeks back that Bravo's Top Chef, the king of reality food TV's very crowded hill, is busy shooting its next season in cities around Texas, including Dallas. And last week, things seemed to take a turn for the sinister, when Eater reported that a Dallas-based advertising c ... More >>

Marquee Grill & Bar: Tre Wilcox's Starring Role

Former Top Chef contender aims to please both Bubbas and foodies.

Five Food Shows Ready to Have a Fork Stuck in Them

Food Network Humor​After 12 years of growing grouchier and more haggard, Alton Brown announced a few weeks ago that he's putting Good Eats out to pasture. Presumably, he's ditching science class for something more lucrative, like Welch's grape juice and the warmed-over Iron Chef: America, leav ... More >>

Blais-y Eights: Reasons We Can't Root For Richard Blais

​This probably won't be a very popular sentiment in the Top Chef blogosphere, but we aren't exactly all aboard the Richard Blais bandwagon. Sure, Blais is a true Jedi in the kitchen, and he has an affable personality that shines through both on his happier Top Chef days and his thoroughly ent ... More >>

A New Way to Get Your Traditional Buzz On for the New Year

​You know Fabio Viviani as the heartthrob, fan favorite and all-around bad boy of Top Chef Season Five and the current Top Chef All Stars. What you may not know is that he is not only the co-owner and executive chef of Café Firenze Italian Restaurant and Martini Bar in Ventura County Calif ... More >>

Chef Tell: Mise en Place and Celebrity Chef Double Whammy

​First off, I was on vacation last week so apologies for the lack of Top Chef All Stars recap. And while we're on the subject of last week, yes, I need a vacation from my vacation and DANG! that was one amazing showdown by eliminated chef Jen. Also, I appreciated that Tom acknowledged that a chef ... More >>

Tre Wilcox Gets the Iron Chef-Style SmackDown at Le Cordon Bleu: For a Good Cause!

Stephen MaskerTre Wilcox of Loft 610​There was no back-flipping chairman or electric-green squeeze bottle of Bobby Flay's signature sauce, but Iron Chef (or Bravo's Top Chef) food nerds got their fix of food competition with Chef SmackDown at the Le Cordon Bleu College for Culinary Arts on Sun ... More >>

Hash Over: Movember, Mojito Monday,
Melting Pot and More

October is long gone folks, and we here at City of Ate couldn't be happier. Thanksgiving is around the corner, and we've almost recovered from yesterday's sugar high. So let's all put away the Halloween costumes and get ready for a week of food events, many of which are benefiting charitable causes. ... More >>

Go Fish Ocean Club: Time to Let Chef Tiffany Derry's Star Shine.

Chef Tell: Savory's Finale a Little Sick, Sweet's Premiere a Little Sour

​First of all, let's get something out of the way. We all need closure. After our lovely Tiffany Derry packed her knives and came home to Dallas to get hitched, I didn't recap the finales. Partly because I was heartbroken they sent Kelly home over Kevin or Angelo on Part 1 and partly because, well ... More >>

Gail Simmons Sees How the Cookies Crumble on Top Chef Just Desserts

Gail Simmons​The Emmy-winning and highly rated Top Chef franchise on Bravo puts the icing on its cake with this week's debut of Top Chef: Just Desserts (10 p.m., Wednesday, September 15, then moving to its regular slot at 9 p.m. the following week). Hosting the competition among 12 top-flight ... More >>

Sweet Deal from Bravo's Top Chef Just Desserts

Ritz-Carlton executive pastry chef Morgan Wilson​Reality TV just got a little sweeter. To celebrate the September 15 debut of Bravo's Top Chef spinoff, Top Chef Just Desserts, OpenTable.com is offering free dessert with meals purchased at more than 30 restaurants in Dallas and Fort Worth. Make you ... More >>

Chef Tell: Gettin' (Farm) Fresh

​Apparently, some of this Top Chef season's chefs have enough time on their hands they can give motivational talks. At least that's what super-confident Angelo likes to do with young Tamesha. Less-bitchy Kelly called him a Tony Robbins impersonator. I call him creepy.And while the beginning of the ... More >>

Top Five Things We're Expecting to Happen on Top Chef Tonight

​OK, so we're all really stoked about the start of Top Chef, D.C. tonight. Even Bravo producer and Watch What Happens Live host Andy Cohen is venturing into fanboy-level excitement, as proven by his repeated tweets on the subject today. (So cute. Love that guy.)Glad to have some Dallas representat ... More >>

Chef Tre Wilcox, of Bravo and Food Network Fame, Wants to Make a Celebrity of his Restaurant, LOFT 610

Top 10 Greatest Cooking Shows Ever

Programs on Food Network and Bravo and such have become a kind of obsession with some folks. But as current hot shows lose their sizzle and new stars emerge, will we remember Throwdown, Top Chef and the like?Certain shows remain in our thoughts, however, popping to mind at odd moments. Others influe ... More >>

Kitchen Wasteland

Just how many food shows do we need hanging out in and around Dallas, distracting our chefs and disrupting meals?Oxygen will be shooting the Naughty Kitchen at Central 214 for the next few months. The contest winner with the hair was back in the area--this time in Cowtown. A mom from Keller is vying ... More >>

Mama's Boy

Over At Unfair Park: Colicchio Stays Put

As Victory Park proves less and less victorious in recent months, stories have circulated that Tom Colicchio was considering moving out of the W and plying his Craft elsewhere. To which the Top Chef head judge says: Not a chance. Continue reading on Unfair Park

Hair to Care: Two Locals Make the Cut for This Season's Shear Genius

Dishing It Out

Tré Wilcox, Still Vying for Top Chef

Will Casey Thompson Kick Some Aspen?

Casey Thompson is Through the Bullshit

Casey's Hot, but Tré's on Fire

Is You a Top Chef? Then Pack Your Knives and Go.

Tryout City

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