Last night, the folks at Bravo offered a one-hour amuse bouche for the imminent third season of Top Chef. The format was one part reunion special, one part business as usual, with a dash of coming attraction.

We met the newest judge, Queer Eye's Ted Allen; we learned that the show is stopping in Miami for the upcoming series; and we saw a four-course challenge between teams of finalists from the first two seasons.

The courses were judged independently, and each featured a different main ingredient: scallops, lobster, duck, and Kobe beef. The team with the most head-to-head wins got to donate $20,000 to their favorite charity.

Here's the tale of the toques:

Dave (Season 1) vs. Elia (Season 2), preparing scallops
Stephen vs. Marcel, lobster
Harold vs. Ilan, duck
Tiffani vs. Sam, beef

I won't spoil the results, since you can still catch the show on Bravo this coming week or streaming at the Top Chef website. However, I will say this: The real winner, as always, was the relative insufferability of the contestants. Some chefs had mellowed a bit, others had clearly been toughened up by notoriety. But there's no denying that the people you love to hate are the real stars of Top Chef, and it looks like Season 3 continues on tastefully in that grand reality-show tradition.