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When Joey Devine and I started doing a Top Chef season 1 rewatch podcast as a way to pass the time between the end of the last Top Chef season and the beginning of this next one, we didn’t think it was going to take us eight months. The irony of being underemployed is always being stretched thin between the seven different sorta-paying gigs you have, and with Joey and I both being in that boat, our Top Chef season one recap show got the short end of the stick. Listen, I won’t bore you with the details. Mostly they’re boring.
The point is, Top Chef season 22 is set to premiere in a few weeks, and we finally finished our season one rewatch. Peacock actually stopped carrying the episodes about halfway through the podcast and we had to start buying them on Prime Video. You ever feel like the streaming ecosystem is like “soft Blade Runner?” No owning, only renting!
Anyway, I thought I would try to justify all the time we put into this by sharing a few of my takeaways from having rewatched all 12 episodes of Top Chef season one. Season one premiered all the way back in 2006, basically the dying days of the “bling era.” Being fake rich was all the rage, with ICE spiker hair on dudes and very tiny eyebrows on girls — a sort of post 9/11, pre-financial crisis bottle service aesthetic.
It seems like a long time ago, but possibly even longer in food years. The season was set in San Francisco (where Joey and I both lived at the time, coincidentally) probably much more closely associated with haute cuisine in 2006 than it is now. The finale went to Vegas (a place probably much more known for fine food now than it was then), and feels decidedly low-rent compared to finale trips now. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
1. People didn’t know what this thing was at first.
Top Chef essentially began its life as an attempt to do Project Runway with food (and also came out of basically the same era of reality competition programming that gave us The Apprentice, which created the myth of Donald Trump). It was kind of a scruffy reality show. The main tension, which you can sense basically throughout, was that the characters (chefs, contestants, chef-testants, whatever you want to call them) clearly didn’t quite know what they were signing on for. And really, how could they? This had never been done and even the producers didn’t entirely know whether it was going to work. These days, it’s a show for up-and-coming, but mostly already-somewhat-proven chefs to compete against each other and expand their brand.
In 2006 it wasn’t that yet, and so some people clearly showed up expecting it to be a reality show, other people showed up wanting to cook competitively, and some people were clearly just there to promote their tangentially-related food businesses (health coach Andrea, for instance, who acted like she was above both reality drama and competitive cooking for her entire too-many-episodes run — get her outta here!).
As Amar Santana, who had worked with Top Chef season 2 winner Ilan Hall, explained to us, “All of a sudden, this guy wins this show, and he’s in every single magazine. He’s with every single celebrity. He’s flying everywhere. And I’m thinking, ‘Wow, this guy doesn’t know how to cook, but he’s famous now.’”
And the era Santana was talking about was a full season later than this one. As of season one, no one involved quite knew what this show was, let alone that it could make or break your future restaurant.
2. Yes, there was a different host before Padma and Kristen.
Katie Lee, who was a foodie and married to Billy Joel at the time, hosted season one. There’s no real reason to dunk on her now 19 years later, after she’s had a mostly successful career in food television, but she definitely seemed flummoxed some of the time. Not really her fault, like I said, no one knew what this was going to or supposed to be at the time. Even in its much glitzier, thoroughly established later-season iterations, there are still plenty of moments on Top Chef when you can tell hosts or judges had to record some dialogue over again or add something in post to try to flesh out criticisms or challenge guidelines after the fact. Lee was great when she got to interact with the judges, but pretty wooden every time she had to read off a prompter (which is generally way harder than anyone gives it credit for).
Padma brought an entirely different energy (glamorous, gushy, flirtatious, occasionally tipsy) that worked wonderfully for the next 20 seasons, and Kristen Kish borrowed some of that and added first-hand competitor’s experience and a sort of dorky dad humor. Maybe Katie Lee would’ve figured it out, maybe should wouldn’t have. Seems like it worked out fine for both parties anyway.
3. If you didn’t know better, you could’ve thought it was a personality contest.
There are sort of two ways to interpret this season. On the one hand, Harold Dieterle, who went on to win season 1, seemed like the favorite basically from the get go. As a 20-something sous-chef at a fine-dining restaurant with a culinary school degree, he essentially established the future Top Chef competitor archetype. It seemed like he was the most competent chef, and when he won, it was easy to interpret the whole thing as a show about being the most competent chef.
Yet that’s not the only possible interpretation. Ken Lee, an Irish guy with some kind of personality disorder, showed up to episode one clearly fancying himself the Puck-from-Real-World of this new Bravo reality show (bad jokes, doing karate at the camera, screaming for no real reason). In those days, every reality show had a Puck from Real World, and it makes sense that someone would try to fill that role to ensure themselves the most screen time. If Top Chef had turned out more like, say, Vanderpump Rules, Ken Lee might still be a household name. Instead they booted him in episode one, even though he arguably didn’t have the worst food (Andrea pretty much always had the worst food, because she wasn’t really trying). It seemed as if the show was saying “this is about the food,” but maybe also “don’t be an asshole.”
About that… Season one ended up pitting Harold Dieterle against Tiffani Faison in the finale. If you’re a Top Chef watcher, you probably already know who Tiffani Faison is. She returned for season eight, and then she was on Top Chef Duels, and she’s been back to guest judge and has been on umpteen different food shows. Which is why it’s a little jarring to go back and realize that she ended up being kind of the Puck from Real World of the season. Yes, Tiffani was the villain, the person on the receiving end of almost all of the show’s memorable soundbites (I’ll get to that in a minute), and the center of the drama during the reunion episode (sidenote: bring back reunion episodes).
And her food in the finale was… not that bad. It didn’t seem like she made any huge mistakes, but again, most of the drama was about her. All four returning chefs wanted to work for Harold. At Judge’s Table when the judges polled the sous chefs about who should win, even Tiffani’s sous(es?) chose Harold. Dave and Stephen ended up working with Tiffani, showing up late and drunk and mostly being annoyed by her high-handedness. There was a recurring pattern in the show where Tiffani would do something kind of shitty, and then everyone (including the editors of the show) would be so mean to her about it that you’d end up feeling bad for her. That residual desire for her to get a fairer shake might be partly why they kept bringing her back.
And so while it was logical to come away thinking that the show was about the food, it was also possible to come away believing that it was a personality contest. Harold, the aw shucks New York guy who never wanted to piss anyone off (I would’ve nicknamed him “Ralph Macchio” if I’d been doing Power Rankings that season) seemed to have the best food. But he also seemed like he won the personality contest. because Tiffani was the mean, over-ambitious one. It almost seemed like Dave got eliminated in the pre-finale episode not necessarily because his food was the worst, but also to set up that classic babyface vs. heel contest, with nice guy Harold against mean girl Tiffani. Ample room for conspiracy theories, anyway.
Jesus, I wrote a lot about that.
4. They set the tone earlier for the types of behavior that wouldn’t be tolerated.
Arguably the biggest controversies in the history of the show were Gabe Erales winning season 18 and immediately getting fired from his restaurant over sexual harassment allegations; Paul Qui’s fall from grace after season 9; and the attempted head-shaving incident in season two that Tom Colicchio himself referred to as “an ugly act of hazing.”
There have been others over the years, with various judges and past contestants having to be edited out over various kinds of misconduct (usually sexual harassment or domestic violence). Usually the charge is that Top Chef didn’t vet the contestants well enough (and the producers have said they’ve made the process much more robust over the years — Amar Santana made the process sound pretty thorough even before that, as he told us in the first episode of this podcast).
It’s hard to expect the producers to know everything about every contestant, or how much vetting could reasonably accomplish, but watching season 1, released in an era when people on these shows were supposed to be kind of inappropriate and messy, it seems pretty clear that they at least attempted to discourage certain kinds of behavior. They didn’t boot Ken Lee in episode one solely because he had the worst food, it seemed more like they were trying to set the tone, and part of that tone was pushing back against boorish male behavior in kitchens. You could say that they didn’t do enough, but it seems clear that they at least tried, in the context of a television show.
Not exactly revolutionary, but at least mildly refreshing, given the time.
By the way, if anyone knows what Ken Lee is up to these days, I’d love to do a “where are they now.” My money is on living the expat life somewhere warm.
5. Season One’s characters are arguably part of the reason this show is still on the air.
One of the most shocking parts of rewatching this show for the first time in (*checks notes*) 19 years was how much of it I had retained. I am a guy who has had to, on occasion, google my own reviews of movies to remember whether I had seen them. And yet I found that I had almost 100% recall of all the famous soundbites from Top Chef S1. “I’m not your bitch, bitch.” “You’re a snake. ssss.” “You’re a tool, and a douchebag.” Etc.
Part of that surely has to do with the way these shows were edited at the time, with a 20-second montage of the best lines preceding and following every commercial break, such that the shows had about a 70/30 present-action-to-promo/recap ratio (TLC shows are still edited this way). In those days, you’d see every “juicy” line about 16 times per show. But (BUT!) at least some of me remembering it all has to do with the fact that this was just a memorable group of characters. Stephen, the pretentious sommelier with the tie knot bigger than my head should probably still be getting a nickel every time Top Chef airs. But there was also Miguel, the human Muppet who seemed like he was experiencing adult life for the first time. Candace, a former model/culinary student with the most 2006 personality of all time. Tiffani, “I’m not here to make friends” in human form, who was entertaining for all the reasons mentioned above. And of course Dave, the constantly frazzled stress case who would cry into his wine and always seemed to have his emotions turned up to 11.
Dave went from making enchiladas with potato smashers as his signature dish in the first episode to doing some sort of seafood crudo with hazelnut oil in the finale. It was like you got to watch him come into his own in real time. Through Dave, we all first learned what it meant when someone says “I’ve gotta start cooking my food!”
It was a scruffy reality show that was painful in a lot of ways, but I doubt we’d still be talking about it if this first cast hadn’t been so entertainingly messy.
6. The risotto curse started later.
There are so many things that anyone who watches this show now knows that you shouldn’t do. Cook anything two or three ways. Attempt any dessert (or savory dish, for that matter) that needs time to set. Include truffle oil. Use your molecular gastronomy kit to turn something into a powder. Etc. Arguably at the top of that list is “make risotto,” which, according to the brilliant Top Chef Stats website, has been responsible for eight separate eliminations over the course of the show’s 21 seasons.
It was interesting to watch Tiffani Faison not know any of that back in 2006, and create a finale menu that was basically a footpath made of upturned rakes. For her five-dish tasting menu, she decided to make everything a duo, such that she was responsible for ten dishes instead of five. She included a panna cotta (a dish that needs time to set) and a risotto.
Strangely enough though, her artichoke risotto and panna cotta ended up being the judges’ favorite dishes. The fact that she didn’t win might’ve contributed to the risotto curse being a thing, but at least this first time, it wasn’t the risotto’s fault
7. Top Chef used to be way more chill about the contestants getting drunk.
The Marcel Vigneron attempted head-shaving incident in season 2 alone explains why the show doesn’t do this anymore, but as a viewer, I have to admit that the drunken hijinks that went on in season 1, and the way the show presented them matter-of-factly, were pretty entertaining. I mean, these are service industry people in 2006, of course they were getting drunk. Simply combining service industry veterans with a reality competition format sends the drunkenness potential to frat party levels.
There was a drunken junk food blind taste test in one of the episodes. Dave crying into his wine glass in another. Dave and Stephen showing up drunk in the finale, complete with a montage of them chugging drinks and taking shots at various Las Vegas establishments. I get why they don’t do it anymore, but it was great TV.
8. Contestants used to be much less “acclaimed.”
Joey has described the most recent season of Top Chef as having reached “Peak James Beard.” We do feel like we’re fast approaching diminishing returns of how successful contestants already are when they get on the show. By contrast, season 1 had: a sommelier (Stephen), someone still in culinary school (Candace, the model), and a health coach (Andrea, ugh). Harold, Tiffani, and Lee Anne were sous chefs at reasonably known establishments, but a sous chef at a fine-dining restaurant was about as acclaimed as it got back in the day. Which makes sense. Like I said, no one knew what this show was going to be at the time.
I don’t know that we need to (or even can) entirely turn back the clock and cast only line cooks and sous(es?) again, but it was arguably more entertaining when it felt like the competitors really had something to gain (or lose) by being on the show. That being said, Andrea wasn’t already an acclaimed chef when she was cast, and that didn’t make her a compelling TV character. In fact she was my least favorite, mostly because it seemed like she didn’t care. You probably can’t find chefs at really any level who are as unguarded as season 1’s competitors were (in the age of the influencer, everyone has some degree of brand consciousness), but it’s the competitive spirit that makes it entertaining.
9. Tom Colicchio was great at this right out of the gate.
I liked to bust Tom’s balls, for his bitchiness, his nitpickiness, his pedantry about nomenclature, his hats… all of the things, really. I wouldn’t keep writing about this show if that wasn’t so fun. As this now-comfortable elder statesman of the Top Chef fiefdom, it’s a little jarring to see what he was like almost 20 years ago. In my SF Gate article, I described season 1 Tom as “an intense-looking Jersey guido with a soul patch.” (Had to fight for that guido line, you’re welcome).
He really was! It’s also hard to overstate how much he (along with Gail Simmons) also makes this show. Partly that seems to have to do with Tom’s aversion, even back in the earliest days, to the typical reality show bullshit. They seemed to try to establish early on that this wasn’t going to be all about drama, that it was going to be a legitimate cooking competition as well. I’m not sure how much the producers and brain trust cared about that (I very much doubt anyone at Bravo did) but it seems pretty clear that Tom did, and that simple fact altered the show’s trajectory. If it had been more of its time, it’s hard to imagine it lasting as long.
Corollary to that, Tom really does seem to enjoy juicy drama deep down, even if he doesn’t admit it to himself. In the season 1 finally, he pointedly asks each sous chef who they think should win. And then immediately tells the competitors who each sous chef thought should win. Asking them to name names and then immediately ratting them out, that’s messy as hell! And it was great TV. That is a man who at least on some level likes to stir the pot. All of which is to say that it feels like he didn’t want to make the typical reality show, but also that he had a natural, internal barometer for what would make good TV. Those are the two wolves inside Tom Colicchio. I can’t imagine the show having lasted this long without the tension between them.
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