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'Top Chef' Season Three: Season Premiere

Posted by Harold Check, June 14, 2007 at 9:30 AM

One chef down. Thirteen more to go. If you missed the first installment of this summer's Top Chef, here's an edited version (Note: spoiler after the jump).

We're in Miami. There are so many damn contestants they can't squeeze in a 20-second voice-over intro for everyone. Who is the guy from San Diego? Dunno. Who is the girl from Brooklyn? Check the website.

The opening cocktail party takes place in the mansion where Gianni Versace lived and was ultimately murdered (um, creepy). The convivial kickoff cocktail party turns into the chefs' first quickfire challenge: You have ten minutes to make an amuse bouche using the leftovers from the buffet table. Surprisingly, the results looked great—almost top to bottom—and no one ran into time difficulties.

That wasn't the case for the elimination challenge, in which each chef (all 90 or so) was asked to create a "Surf 'n Turf" dish using exotic proteins like rattlesnake, kangaroo, geoduck, boar, abalone, black chicken, eel, etc. Two of the contestants got dinged by the clock and faced elimination for not getting their whole meal plated in time.

In the end, however, it was the well-honed tongue of guest judge Anthony Bourdain that brought the elimination into focus. Mississippi's Clay couldn't stand up to Bourdain's beating, and the Southerner was sent packing. It was no surprise that Bourdain made a compelling judge and an interesting choice for a first-episode pinch-hitter for Ted Allen.

All in all, it was a good start to the third season. The contestants' personalities seem like a nice mix of collegiality, competitiveness, confidence, and overconfidence. It's a solid recipe that has worked well for two seasons, and Bravo is smart to keep the menu largely the same for this upcoming run.

That said, I'm really looking forward to Ted Allen's contribution, which, despite his absence from the premiere, is already very evident on the Bravo website. If you're a completist, there's plenty there to keep even the most voracious fan satisfied from episode to episode. For instance, Tom Colicchio spills the beans on why Miami made a great location for Season Three: Despite being filmed in April, Miami gives the show a summer look to match its air dates.

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Tags: Top Chef, TV