Padma Lakshmi may have gained reality TV clout as the host of Top Chef. But for her new show, she made some significant changes.
“I wanted to do things differently. So there are a lot of changes that people wouldn’t recognize just watching the show,” Lakshmi, 55, told host Kevin Fallon on Obsessed: The Podcast about her CBS series America’s Culinary Cup.
The food enthusiast and longtime host explained that “not treating our chefs like children” was important to her, adding that she removed gimmicks like “locking them up and taking their phone away.”
The former Top Chef host said she finds moves like that “inhumane.”
“I also didn’t think it produced good food,” she continued. “You know, if you’re under duress and you haven’t slept because your bunk mate is snoring all night, that’s going to affect your performance. And, you know, if you think about any captain of industry, whether it’s, you know, again, boxing or tennis or singing, right? You don’t deprive them of their rest or their normal food, or, you know, access to their family.”
Lakshmi’s CBS show premiered in March, with Lakshmi serving as the primary host, judge, and executive producer.
She emphasized the importance of “atmosphere” on set, saying that her years as a reality show host showed her what she wanted to do differently. Beyond Bravo’s Top Chef, a competition she hosted for 19 seasons, Lakshmi created and hosted Hulu’s Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi. For her work across the two shows, Lakshmi has earned 16 Primetime Emmy Award nominations—but has never won an individual prize.
The bestselling author of several cookbooks, Lakshmi stated that she’s “not a chef” but a “food writer and producer.” Her decades-long experience in this world, however, taught her to listen to what chefs really need, which she used as a foundation for her latest series.
“I’ve been around, you know, hundreds of chefs, and I listened to them, and I heard what they were saying, and they were like, ‘We just want to cook. We just want to cook the best food we know how,’” she said. “We really are treating these people like the rock stars that they are.”
Lakshmi continued to underscore the difference between Top Chef and her new show, saying, “I just thought this should be for this is a really elite contest, and it should be focused on what matters to a chef. And what matters to a chef is, you know, these principles of really being a world-class, world-renowned chef.”
Eliminating the “gimmicks,” she said, made this work.
Lakshmi stepped down from Top Chef in June 2023, making a shock announcement that it was “time to move on” and “make space” for other projects.
“After much soul searching, I have made the difficult decision to leave Top Chef,” Lakshmi wrote on social media. “Having completed a glorious 20th season as host and executive producer, I am extremely proud to have been part of building such a successful show and of the impact it has had in the worlds of television and food.”
Lakshmi’s reign on the Bravo show is seen as both a catalyst for her fame and an elevation of the show’s status. The former model said that, despite her gratitude for this, the series interfered with her personal life. “You can have it all, but you can’t have it all at once,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in April 2024. “I didn’t have a lot of time for a social life. When was I going to find somebody I wanted to hang out with?”
Her departure made way for new projects and time with her daughter, Krishna, 16.
America’s Culinary Cup featured 16 elite chefs in its first season, competing to win a prize of $1 million. The show was nominated for two Critics’ Choice Awards, including a “Best Host” nomination for Lakshmi.
All 11 episodes of America’s Culinary Cup are available to stream on Paramount+.
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