The Prestige TV Podcast - Top Chef Is Back!

Episode Date: April 10, 2021

Juliet Litman and Mallory Rubin celebrate the return of 'Top Chef' by diving into some of their favorite contestants and dishes from 'Top Chef: Portland'. Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Juliet Litman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Order now at order. Sweetgreen.com. The title of Top Chef is something that is beyond my wildest dreams, but also with and grasp. Like, it's so close. I want to be Top Chef because there's a big part of me that carries Japan on my back, and I want to be a stronger and better mentor and a chef. Welcome to TV Concierge. I'm Juliette Lippon.

I'm the host of Bachelor Party. I am joined today by Mallory Rubin, one of the hosts of the Ring Reverse, and we're here to talk about Top Chef. Mallory, how are you? It's just great to be here with you. I know. It is great to be here with you. instincts are kicking in and I feel like we should start talking about Zach and Tyler C and all of our other loves. But also love food.

Top Chef is one of our loves. We did a great early pandemic pod about Top Chef last year. And that's why we're back because Top Chef is back and they're in Portland. How are you enjoying the season so far? I'm loving it. I always love Top Chef. It's one of the great stabilizing and comforting presences in my life. And I actually was thinking about the episode we did.

on last season and sort of couldn't believe that that was also within quarantine because it feels like 100 years ago that we did that podcast, but I guess it was. I know. It was a long time ago. That was Los Angeles. And I just, we're going to, we're going to talk about the dishes we are most excited about from this week's episode, just like personal preferences. Before we get there, one thing I really noticed and I was curious how you feel about this,

I feel like this has become a really like a West Coast show in a really interesting way. And I feel like I'm watching like the sort of like the rise of the Pact 10, Pact 12. I feel like it's like the rise of the West Coast on top chef. And will Larry Scott be joining you in the second half of this episode? My goodness. Maybe. I know that they are in Portland. But I just feel like there's such a bias towards like a West Coast way of eating and cooking

and restaurant food. And I was just wondering if you had sort of like a general impression of how the show has evolved over the years. Because I don't think it was always that way. Interesting. Well, I think that it makes sense in a lot of ways because of like you're saying, the ingredients, the kind of farm to table movement. But I do think we've had seasons fairly spread out, right? I mean, we had Boston, New Orleans, Kentucky, Charleston, all within the last handful of years or something. so. But this is a more recent trend

yourself. I feel like it's really about the food. Like, I just feel like the food that seems to be popular is sort of like an evolution of West Coast food, where it's like very into the produce and sort of like simple ingredients.

Maybe that's just because I feel like Sarah is so good and she is like the apotheosis of West Coast cooking to me. But also, I feel like the Mexican influence. But she's like, you know, not only the queen of yogurt, but that mountain town energy, right? I know, but I feel like that's very Pacific Northwest.

Smoked yogurt. That was really something. Interesting. I don't know. I think part of what's always so fun about Top Chef is all of the different styles. I think the interesting thing about the West Coast and even just Portland is a city that I was curious to ask you about, actually, is because this is in quarantine, though I will say I find the COVID protocol on the season so far, confusing and difficult to understand in terms of...

Okay, I'm glad you brought this up. We'll come back to it, but I want to touch on that. Ask your question. Yes. Well, how much do you think we're going to actually be out and about in Portland? Because the Bay City is typically part of the joy of the show, and it has been fun, you know, with the guest judges, the panel of guest judges the season. Obviously, Gregory, one of the greats and a favorite here, who is a Portland chef, just hearing him even talk at the top of the quick fire in this episode, for example, about the diner scene, the breakfast

scene in Portland. Like, you're getting little injections of that, that local identity, but two episodes in, there just hasn't been the same volume that they typically would be of, let's go out to these places or cooking this field or at this festival or whatever. And of course, that's to be expected and understandable. And even in the preview for, you know, not on the entire season, but next week, it looks like they will be actually going out into restaurants. But I'm curious how you feel about that aspect of the season really being more based and anchored in the test kitchen, the home base, and obviously the panel of judges making it like this sort of consistent presence across the season instead of each episode varying more.

Yeah. So I do not like COVID content. Like I don't like COVID conscious content. It's just like we're living it. I don't need to see it on TV. It's not why I watch television. So I was disappointed by that in the first one. But to your point, the COVID protocol is so poor.

I'm just like, okay, cool. They just don't have like a rotating judges. They have obviously everyone's been quarantining. They come in and out as necessary. So I'm like, okay, whatever. I'm happy. It's not part of the show. But I do miss like the feeling of a city because it is, it is really cool.

Like, you know, you think of all the challenges where people either are too hot or like right in the sun to build a fire. Like there's going to be no catering challenges, right? And catering is really hard. And I'm super bummed about that. I'm surprised how many people. people have not gotten food on the plate so far through two episodes. It's happened like more than I can remember in quite some time. But I do miss the feeling of a city.

It's like my take on this, they should like basically should have done Vegas. They're going to do it all inside, right? There's so many more venues to account for. And this, I guess they will be going to restaurants next week they're planning to. But it's confusing. Yeah. It does feel with Portland in particular like you'd love to just be out wandering the city, walking through all the food trucks,

etc. I'm speaking of someone who has personally never been to Portland. That's why my sense of how charming and wonderful it seems from afar.

You know, I think the other thing is like I, just to say clearly, I love this all-star panel of judges. You know, some of my favorites,

like Gregory, Dale, Melissa, Kwame, Dale, Blaze. I mean, this is an awesome group of bar. It's a great group.

Not just getting me, hey, this local chef. Yeah. who were cooking in their kitchen and the contestants, that moment where they're like, I can't believe I'm standing

in this person's presence and I get to use their oven or whatever. Like, I just love that part of it. So it is different, but it's always just still, no matter what, great to have a new secret to top chef.

It is. It's like sinking into a warm bath or perhaps more aptly a warm heaping bowl of polenta top. with a shrimp. So I just want to note, Tom this week was wearing

such a fucking incredible sweater. I knew you were going to bring this up. I turned to Adam when we were watching last night and I said, Julia, I will be mentioning this sweater. I have absolutely no doubt. I loved it. I love Tom. I've been waiting this for Tom.

And he looks so great in this sweater. I loved it. I know. Wait, I have a question for you on the Tom front already. I'm sorry. Did you, do you in general, both did you last night, but do you in general watch Last Chance Kitchen?

I do. I have not watched it yet, but you can spoil it for me. But I do watch Last Chance Kitchen. A Tom, a Tom experience, obviously. That's part of the draw. You get a little more Tom. He had so many terrible puns at the beginning of last night's last chance kitchen. But again, because it's Tom, I just found it so winning and amusing and charming.

It was great stuff. I won't spoil it for you. I'll let you enjoy it. But it was a fun one. I love Tom. When Tom cooked and Last Chance Kitchen in a previous season, I just was so into it. I love Tom.

That was like a transporting moment. Absolutely. The steak. Unbelievable. The sauces. It was incredible. Moving the butter with the spoon and, Tom,

he's just an icon. The thing I miss the most from a non-COVID season is the grocery shopping. I didn't realize how much I'd love to watch the run around the grocery store. Interesting. It's so unfun to watch them order their groceries online.

Also, as a chef, it's like, don't you want to like see what you're working with? Like wouldn't you pivot if you're like, oh, the greens don't look that good. So I'm going to do something different. Like that I found myself wondering about that. Yeah, last night actually too, because there are so many moments typically when they run through the Whole Foods

where they say, oh, you don't have the exact cut of pork that I'm looking for. I need to adjust in real time or the, you know, parsnip that I'm handling. It's not exactly what I need. But it won't surprise you to hear that I have had the outside. opposite reaction to it, which is, you know what I love to do? Shop online at home. Yeah. This is great.

This is lovely. This is wonderful. And even this particular challenge, like looking for the ripe brew of coffee that you want, can you find the exact sour beer that you need when you're just scrolling through was really something. It really, it really was. So at first I was like, should we talk about our favorite people or whatever? I was just thinking like, how should we approach this?

But I was thinking, let's talk about the dishes we are most intrigued by and from a personal perspective would most want to try. And I will say, like, one thing that I think is going to come up this season is that we're going to be so much more subjected to like the interests and taste of this rotating panel of All-Star judges than than in previous seasons. And we are already feeling that. I like love Richard Blaze. I love the crack shack in, in L.A. or the California area.

but I was so mad in the breakfast challenge when he asked for like a ridiculous order. Padmo was mad too, so I was relieved. Yeah, the kitchen sink. It was just like so annoying. I feel bad for the chefs that they have to kind of be subject to what the hosts are interested or the judges are interested in.

But, you know, it's just another kind of challenge. So now of all the dishes we saw last night, which was two challenges. One was shorter cook breakfast challenge, which I love. I love when I do a short order cook challenge or an egg challenge or whatever. And then the other was making.

a dish in partners that combines coffee and beer. I'm curious. And that was a twist. They gamified it at the end there. I just want to say I don't like food with coffee or beer in it so I would not have enjoyed that, which made it all the more interesting to me. What were the ones that really caught your eye? I thought a lot of the meals looked good. I will say that the quickfire was one of my favorite quickfires ever. I agree. I loved it. I loved it. Lump breakfast. I just love breakfast food. Me too. The only. The only one. thing that I didn't enjoy about it was the copious, voluminous, frequently commented upon of sweating. That was an extraordinary amount of sweating, which the food, though, I thought

looked great. And in particular, I feel like this is a little bit of a cop out to pick the dish that won, but I don't care. Yeah, because I love shrimp and grits. So, much. And Jamie's winning shrimp and grit, which was this creamy

polenta with sharp cheddar and a Cajun shrimp looked sumptuous and extraordinary. The judges

loved it. Melissa came in, and she was like, that was a legit shrimp and grits. It had been Kwame's order.

It was his, it was his pick. He called it a contender. He loved it. It looked phenomenal. And Jamie

beat Sarah, who had been on a tear in the first episode. She beat her in the head-to-head. Yeah, she did. So you know it must have been just extraordinary. Jamie speaks in sound effects. This is also what we learned from from that. When she won, she was so overwhelmed that she was like literally,

it reminded me like a Pixar character or something like that or something that would have been in Seoul or Sal. As Tracy Morgan said, at the Golden Globes. Jamie seems like really good. This, Tom said this, but this seems like a really talented group of chefs, like just really better than usual. No, I wonder also if that's because there's more chefs available because like so many restaurants were closed.

That's the sense that I got. Yeah. Because you've heard a few of the chefs mentioned, I mean, obviously, very upsettingly, having to shut down their restaurants. And then, you know, you've heard other people talk about how long it's been since they've been in a kitchen or been around other people.

So it definitely seems like that's fueling the candidate pool. Yeah. So Melissa asked for dim sum, which is... Yes. which is bold. And I was thinking, you know what?

I'd love to have soup. I'd love to have soup dumplings for breakfast. That sounds great, Melissa. Good pick. And Melissa's an icon. That's my take on Melissa. Love her.

She's awesome. Shoda made a mochi. And it looked fucking awesome. I think I love Shoda. He's like definitely my, me too. My crush of the season. Shoda and Chris,

those are the two that I'm just like, you guys seem incredible. Chris, extremely handsome. from New Hampshire. How often do we get a New Hampshire man on television, let alone top chef? It was kind of a coming out party for Shoda this week. He seems really, really talented. He's also involved in my next pick in my top three dishes here.

The Shoda Aveshar lobster dish that ultimately won. Again, I'm sorry for picking the winning dishes. They won because they looked great and apparently they were. This one, I thought, sounded. revelatory. Double cream, cream, coffee, stout reduction. That alone, I could just drink that. That sounds like something I want to fill up a coffee mug with and luxuriated for an entire morning. And then you add lobster, which I have personally been craving a lot lately. And, you know, you hear both at the table and then a judge's table later. everybody talking about the balance, the originality.

And I love those moments where when you're hearing what the chefs are going to prepare and you think, huh, that sounds new. And then Tom validates that instinct. That always feels good, right? When he praises the originality, Kwamey was like, please. Empty, Melissa said it just sung to me. That looked wonderful and was the thing I wanted to eat the most of anything in the episode. But there was something else I loved about it, too, that put it in my top three.

The bond that developed among the chefs, this beautiful thing. between Shodah and Abashar because Aveshar, because Avashar had a tough first episode, and he was not feeling confident. And it was honestly really lovely to see that moment at the end where they sort of thanked each other. And seeing Ava Shard find that confidence

through that partnership was just lovely. And of course, we had gotten to know Shoto a bit more throughout the episode, hearing him talk about his struggles over the past year. It was just actually really moving, and that's one of the things, obviously,

chef. It's not just watching the food and thinking, oh, I'd like to eat that or can I go to this person's restaurant one day? It's getting to know the people in their stories, which I love you, love. I'm glad you mentioned them because I think that also one thing that this challenge in particular made it really clear, which is a huge thrust of Top Chef, is this tension between like, avant-garde, forward-thinking food and technique versus completely nailing a really straightforward word simple meal. And I don't want to call it basic, but like simple. And I was really interested in the ribs and watermelon, which was a collaboration.

That's my next pick. A collaboration between Dawn and Gabe. Yeah. And so first of all, I'm so happy that they didn't lose. I was really worried they were giving us this edit, like the conflict edit and like one of that was going to go home. I'm so glad that wasn't the case. They both seem like they have a lot to offer.

But the thing is, we knew who was going to go home. Because the top chef edit always tells you. I know. It's always it's a lot. ball, you're out. We're out. But we won't say, because maybe you'll watch the episode,

you know? But I just loved that they were up there alongside the other guys because it was like really the two, that's kind of like the end and the yang of top chef. I'm like, do you go for like beloved comfort food done really well or something totally unique and creative that no one else is thought of thought of? I will say usually unique and creative wins in the end and the final challenge.

But I feel like the way they get to the final challenge is by nailing food that people love. And that's what Don and Gabriel did. Gabriel worked for Tom in New York, which definitely gives him a leg up. But it also seems like he's an awesome chef who knows how to do really good food. And Don as well. And yeah, he's certainly confident. Certainly confident. But he did let Don do. Don had one of the moments of the episode where she said that he was a, was it chef spaining or cook spawning instead of mansplaining. That was great. And she, she was like, I know, know how to make these ribs and you're not going to tell me otherwise, which was, which was wonderful. I thought they seemed like they actually like each other by the end, too,

which I was relieved by. The respect that builds, because of course, everybody has their own vision and especially in a challenge like this where you're on a team, but it's only a team of two and you each have to have a component, you've got to find a way to sort of simultaneously say, this is what I know I need to make and this is how I need to make it, but you also need to find a way to communicate with your partner. Like that happened, that was the issue with the pasta with Byron and Chris, right?

The Byron was like, I should have just said that I didn't think this pasta was thin enough. But to your point about nailing the classics, nailing the thing that people love. I thought that what was really cool about Don and Gabriel's dish

is that it still had these really elevated and original elements. Yeah, the techniques were original and unusual. Sour beer, compressed watermelon. Kwamey said it tasted like candy. I personally just love everything that was on that plate. Like, I love ribs. I love watermelon.

And sour beer is my favorite. I love sour beer. I've never had sour beer. Never even heard of it. What? I don't drink beer, really. Oh, my goodness. Oh, sour beers are great.

You probably wouldn't like sour beers. If you don't, if you're not much of a beer drinker, I know. You love the, we know the Juliet. Splash of pineapple. We know, we know. We know. Sour beers, I just love them. And so thinking about what the flavors and textures of that dish would have been, just really

excited. It seemed like a, seemed like a wonderful one. Last question. Who do you hope wins? Currently, I think I'm most invested in Shoda winning. He is my favorite so far, though. I like Sarah a lot. You know, Gabe, not Gabriel, who we were just talking about, but Gabe, I think, seems...

He seems like a really good chef. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of talented, I mean, as Tom said, and as you just noted, a lot of talented chefs. I think more difficult than usual two episodes in to say, oh, this is the clearly four or five best chefs in the bunch. It seems like we're going to need to get halfway through the season before we can really identify who will be there in the end. I think I'm pulling for Gabe or Shodah. But I don't know. I like them all. It's a fun season so far. Everybody, check out Top Chef. And if you do love Top Chef, Chris and Andy are covering it on the watch on Fridays. So listen to The Watch. We'll be back with more TV concierge on Monday. Thank you so much for listening.