Top Chef: Tom Colicchio

By JULIETTE ROSSANT [Editor: New review of Top Chef 2 now available - click here.] [Wanna know who won the first season's finale? -- click here] [Interested in Casting? -- click here] With the first of two final episodes of Top Chef airing on Wednesday, May 17, 2006 (and the final final on May 24) starting at 10:00 p.m. EDT, how does one describe the show? Let's be sure first to ask the right question: is cooking character-driven? A restaurant has character, manifested by design, music, uniforms on waiters, china and utensils, not to mention food and how it is plated. Still, when you take that first bite in a restaurant, do you experience character like the character in a novel? Moreover, what happens when you find the character to be a stereotype? Stereotyping has happened to you in a restaurant -- you know it has. It doesn't matter what the type is: fusion, California, French bistro, whatever. There are telltale signs that let you know what to expect. As Raymond Chandler once said: From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away. Enter Reality TV. Gone are the writers, the great concepts, the ideas that drive plot. Spontaneity is given all too much free rein. But there is still a stage -- and that stage is set. Enter stereotypes. The audience expects to quickly identify personalities, choose whom they identify with, and get on with the competition. The competition doesn't necessarily have anything to do with who the characters are -- it is just a way to get the characters interacting with each other. The resulting Reality TV show comes out sounding canned every time. Sometimes the canned quality isn't quite as tinny as others, and the least tinny of Food Realty TV shows over the past 36 months may well be Bravo's belated effort with Top Chef. What is good: Tom Colicchio is the best thing the show has going for it. He offers excellent, brief comments to the aspiring chefs. He also manages to exude some real character of his own: low-key outside, tightly wound inside -- and sharp, always sharp. Shots of cooking, discussions on choices of ingredients and dishes, however brief, help put some meat on Top Chef's bones. The pace is fast, even brisk at moments. Overall, Top Chef is reminiscent of Hell's Kitchen less Gordon Ramsay's over-the-top theatrics (see previous article) and Cooking Under Fire less the dull pace (see previous article). Of course what turns out to be good, is what is actually about food. Assuming the viewer is food-oriented. But the information about food we get in Top Chef still doesn't match Alton Brown in Iron Chef America. What is bad: The staginess of the judging The briefness of the cooking The stereotypes Worst of all is the time and effort invested by the producers in painting stereotypes -- setting contestants against each other through contrived in-fighting, for lack of real story or substance. Stereotypes kill appeal -- creating fusion, if you will, between the phrases "personal touch" and "touch of death." It is pleasing to note that some of the recommendations made by Superchefblog have found there way into Top Chef, such as the idea of sending chefs out to market to forage for ingredients (see previous article). Even here, however, Top Chef discards the opportunity of presenting a fun, exciting learning experience out in the market in favor of more character development -- of the stereotyped would-be top chefs. Let's accept, then, that Reality TV shows are all about stereotypes. Can that formula work in Reality Food TV? No. Why? Because Food TV is about Food. How to mix Reality TV with Food TV remains a mystery that no one has solved. One thing to keep in mind though, perhaps best said by Raymond Chandler: A good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled. (Check out Top Chef on iTunes.) Super chef: Tom Colicchio Related news: San Jose Mercury News Houston Chronicle - Tubular Blog Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Boston Globe Previous articles: Cooking Under Fire: Doused Hell's Kitchen on ICE Iron Chef America Meets Survivor [Food Television - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging, Television, Reality TV, Tom Coliccchio, Top Chef --> back to superchefblog