I haven't really commented yet on Top Chef, mainly because I wanted to give it a little time. In the past, it has run second place in my summer reality show hit list, behind Hell's Kitchen. Needless to say, considering the neanderthals Fox has recruited for the past two season's of HK, Top Chef has easily managed to take center stage. Here's a few reasons why:

  1. Pretty much all of the Top Chef contestants can cook, some of them extremely well. That has become surprisingly rare in TV food shows.
  2. The weekly competitions have morphed from the goofy scenarios of season 1 into interesting culinary challenges, where the framework is just a reason for some fine genre cooking.
  3. The judges are a heck of a lot better. Colicchio and Simmons are almost likable.
  4. Padme Lakshmi.

This article appears in Jun 20-26, 2007.