Posted by Hannah Howard, June 11, 2008 at 4:00 PM
Do you love Top Chef, and yet sometimes find yourself ruminating, "Man, are the contestants old!"
Then Top Chef Junior has your name on it. Bravo announced today the development of its new competition series, where teens will compete for the Top Chef title and accompanying prizes and fame.
A docu-series is also in the works. If Jackie Warner of Workout fame gets a show about running a gym, then why shouldn't Jean-Christophe Novelli star on a show about opening a cooking school? Bravo executives think he should.
With Top Chef as the number one food show on cable, Bravo is seeking to expand their food domain. Frances Berwick, the executive vice president and general manager of Bravo Media, made the following statement:
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The Los Angeles Times profiles Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi, glossing over her past as a former model and actress who made the transition to cookbook author, and now as a judge on the popular Bravo TV series. She also drops the news that she's developing a new show where "a group of fun, eclectic people come over to her house for a dinner party; we watch her prep, get ready and guests arrive and eat; maybe someone plays music."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, May 9, 2007 at 3:30 PM
Eater just posted the press release for the upcoming third season of Top Chef, set to premiere June 13 at 10 p.m. ET. I loved the first season, most of which I saw in a marathon before the finale, and tuned out the second, but I think I might actually watch this one through!
Big changes: The show is now located in Miami and set at the beachfront Fontainebleau Hotel, which I'm guessing means we're going to be seeing fresh fruit, seafood, Latin influences, and bikinis galore. Padma fans, please shut your mouths and stop drooling all over your keyboards in anticipation—it's very unattractive. Also Ted Allen of Queer Eye fame is joining the show as a judge. Either someone at Bravo liked what they saw of his panel appearances on Iron Chef America, or they're trying desperately to keep the QEftSG flame alive somehow.
Small changes: Allen and last season's runner-up, Marcel Vigneron, will be keeping blogs on Bravo's site, joining those of Tom Colicchio, Padma Lakshmi, and Gayle Simmons. I bet Marcel's will be the most entertaining of the bunch and can't wait to read it! Less exciting: Bravo is going to start doing "mobisodes"—video interviews with the guest judges you can only watch on your web-enabled cellphones. I have a master's degree in nerd and I still wouldn't bother. I'm not typing URLs with my phone's teeny keyboard for anything less than super juicy unaired scenes, Bravo. Try harder next time.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, April 27, 2007 at 2:15 PM
Bravo's uber-successful reality series/competition Top Chef will be airing its third season this summer, and I guess maybe the Food Network was feeling sad and unloved, so they put up an ad on Craigslist for their own version of the show: "Chopped, a Food Network cooking competition is currently casting sous-chefs, who want to test their culinary skills against those of other sous-chefs. The show begins with four competitors and ends with only one as the winner."
On Top Chef, competitors include sous-chefs, executive chefs (albeit ones from small restaurants), and people fresh from culinary school, so while it's nice that the competitors on Chopped will be getting more attention and respect, doesn't having a sous-chef-only competition imply that they're mostly not ready to play ball with the big boys? If Rachael Ray (who is not a chef at all) gets to go on Iron Chef America, I can name at least half a dozen amazingly talented sous-chefs who should get to compete, too. [via Eat for Victory]
N.B.: If you've always wondered what a sous-chef is, they're the kitchen's second-in-command. The sous-chef entry on Wikipedia has more, but basically they're William T. Riker to the chef's Jean-Luc Picard.
