It took six seasons for Top Chef to find its winning recipe. And once the show tasted success, it never looked back.
“We submitted the most chefy episode we ever properly did. It was a bunch of French chefs with heavy accents sitting around a table,” Michelin-starred Top Chef host Tom Colicchio said of the show’s first Emmy win on Obsessed: The Podcast.
“I think that once we made a little bit of a transition... that the show was more about the food competition, less about the reality side of it,“ Colicchio added, ”then it’s just a matter of maintaining that.”
For more than 20 years, Top Chef has dominated the reality food TV landscape, but it was their Season 6 shift away from the show’s reality drama that earned them the top spot.
“We prefer to put food on the table as opposed to throw it at each other,” the five-time James Beard award-winner joked to host Kevin Fallon.
Top Chef won its first Emmy for Reality Competition Series in 2010, toppling The Amazing Race, which had won the category every year since its inception.
“There was probably some wisdom in focusing more on the cooking competition, less the reality side of it,” Colicchio, who founded New York City’s Gramercy Tavern, added. “Listen, I’m not going to be anybody’s monkey and just kind of mug for the cameras for whatever reason. It’s never going to happen.”
He does know one famous viewer of his show who appreciates the strictly culinary focus.
Colicchio recalled bumping into actor Liev Schreiber in New York, who instantly recognized him and blurted out, “Oh my God, I love the show!”
When Colicchio asked why, Schreiber explained, “I get to see the creative process in real time.” Whereas a film may take years to construct, a Top Chef challenge takes just minutes or hours.
“You say they have an hour to cook, and you see the creative process from start to finish,” Colicchio remembers Schrieber telling him, breaking down the steps involved in creating a dish. “It’s just fascinating as a creative to see that happen in real time.”
“I think there are a lot of people who are food or food adjacent who just love food, and they like to see the process, see what’s out there,” Colicchio said.
After 23 seasons, Top Chef has become a foundation of cooking TV, with many of its former hosts and contestants starring in other shows. Flip to any Food Network show and you’re likely to see a Top Chef alum.
“There are so many chefs that came off the show that found that they liked doing food TV, and that’s where their home is going to be,” Colicchio said, but it still isn’t enough to get him to flip the channel.
“I cook for a living. I don’t want to watch it, too,” he said. “I don’t know if a surgeon goes home and watches—in fact, I know that a lot of doctors don’t watch The Pitt."
Top Chef: Carolinas premiered on Bravo and Peacock on March 9. New episodes stream every Monday.
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