Photo: Melissa Hom/New York Magazine
I’ve been looking forward to last night’s match-up between the first two seasons of Top Chef for some weeks now, and not just because Sam Talbot (pictured above, with french fries) might be the most charming (and cheated!) contestant in the history of competitive reality programming. I wanted to see how the first seasons’ contestants would perform in a new environment. It’s been hard to tell if they were horrible because the show hadn’t yet hit its stride or if they were just annoying and boring. Turns out it really was the latter. Such a shame they’re better chefs.
They cooked their butts off, they won and, with the exception of Stephen, they had absolutely nothing to say. Ilan and Marcel, with their large personalities and absurd hair, were rarely out of the spotlight. And while being a douche is clearly just Ilan’s nature, I’m more convinced than ever that Marcel is just pandering to his audience. In the span of just one hour we got excessive gloating, a couple of fights and (yes!) another food rap. His saffron-infused egg foam was also the best dish of the night – if only for being the greatest show of passive aggression ever.
The new cast was on hand to judge the food, and, as you might imagine, they all thought that they could do better. This confidence will be short-lived though – they’re all about to be exposed on basic cable for the untalented, unattractive losers that most of them are. As far as excitement goes, the only real surprise of the night was at the judges table. Looking at sweet, stoned Padma Lakshmi – how is it possible that this was the first time I noticed the gigantic seven-inch scar on right arm? I thought maybe she’d pushed Salman over the edge since the last season, but it turns out she’s had it for 15 years. She’s got a pretty good attitude about the whole thing and, um, an interesting way of writing about it.
The next season of Top Chef starts next week, and if last night’s cameo by the competitors was any indication of how much I’ll like it, season two is looking more and more like an exception to a really crappy rule.