Chat with Top Chef's casting director

What separates the wheat from the chaff at the Top Chef tryouts? Open calls for the 6th season were held yesterday, and it still is all about the cooking chops; schticks won't cut it here. And if at first you don't succeed? "Yeah, it takes a good many of our competitors a few times to get on the show," says Braun.25-page applications let the team get into the mind of the applicants. But in the end, "it’s great if you can take apart a caribou in fifteen seconds, but if you can’t make an inventive dish with it, you might not be right for the show."