Top Chef Rewatch: Seasons 7-12

Continuing my project to archive everything I tweeted out during my rewatch of the first 18 seasons of Top Chef a few years ago, my thoughts on seasons 7-12 can be found after the jump!

Season Seven:

• After a bit of a pause, we have competed another stage of our TOP CHEF rewatch journey: Season 7 = in the books! I thought that this one was VERY middle of the pack until right around Restaurant Wars. From then forward, it’s actually pretty darn good.
• The challenges weren’t quite as good as the previous few seasons. Most are fine, but sometimes they’re overly complicated (“Room Service”), the standards for judging aren’t clear (“Gastro-nauts”), or they try too hard to plug into the Washington D.C. setting (“Covert Cuisine”).
• Many of the recurring “kitchen” (the pea puree) and “house” (are Ed and Tiffany an item? Is Angelo manipulating people? Who’s the “alpha male”?) plotlines were also quite silly. This is infinitely better than awkward (Season 5) or despicable (Season 2), though!
• There aren’t many individual dishes that I’m likely to remember, but the frozen “Singapore Sling” with tropical fruits that Kevin makes in the finale is a major exception–this looked and sounded like my ultimate dessert!
• A number of chefs (most notably Angelo, but also Ed, Kelly, and others) CONSISTENTLY make interesting dishes as well, and per Tom (https://bravotv.com/top-chef/season-7/blogs/tom-colicchio/and-the-title-goes-to…) Kevin cooked the best finale meal of the first seven seasons. So: good food this season overall.
• Add it all up, and this is my third-favorite season to date, behind Seasons 4 + 6 and just ahead of Season 3. (My bottom three are Seasons 5, 1, and 2 in that order.)
• With the first edition of “All-Stars” coming up, I will be curious to see if we’ve already or are just about to reach the end of a first era of TOP CHEF. We will see! To close, just for fun, here are my “power rankings” heading into episode one of Season 8:
• 1. Richard, 2. Jennifer, 3. Angelo, 4. Carla, 5. Antonia, 6. Dale T., 7. Tre, 8. Jamie, 9. Michael, 10. Tiffani, 11. Tiffany, 12. Spike, 13. Marcel, 14. Fabio, 15. Casey, 16. Dale L., 17. Elia, 18. Stephen. Note: this = based on how well they did DURING THEIR SEASON.
• Anyway, @mepkat and I are looking forward to getting started on Season 8 soon, so stay tuned! We’re going to try to finish it before episodes from Season 18 start airing in April.

Season Eight:

• Season 8 TOP CHEF rewatch = in the bag! I’ve been looking forward to this one the whole time as an opportunity to check two assumptions: 1) this season had the best food yet, and 2) good food really is what I like best about the show!
• Re: assumption #1, Seasons 4 (several intriguing signature deep dish pizzas in the first Quickfire) and 6 (killer hors d’oeuvres by both Voltaggio brothers in episode 2) get off to quicker starts.
• Once this one gets rolling, though, it never slows down! Thanks in large part to Angelo at the beginning, Mike Isabella (about whom: sigh.) at the end, and Richard all throughout, I feel like there’s SOMETHING interesting going on food-wise in every single episode.
• It also features the best TWO finale menus to this point, the best LOOKING dish in TC history IMHO (Richard’s “black ice cream” in the Quickfire judged by Isaac Mizrahi), + the recipe I’ve personally made more than any other, Mike Isabella’s pepperoni sauce (again: sigh.).
• Oh yeah: and someone finally got Restaurant Wars right!
• So: assumption #2, IS it really all about the food? I still think it is! It’s not JUST whether or not IT’S good, though, it’s also how good the CHALLENGES are. Namely: do they actually test for the skills needed by a “top chef”? Season 8 does, even in episodes one and two!
• Other things that matter to me = a good house dynamic (I love the respect that everyone obvious has for each other in this one) and connecting to the host city/region in a meaningful way (thumbs up to the fishing/conch catching episodes, and also the Ellis Island one!).
• In conclusion, Season 8 had everything I like about TOP CHEF in abundance, and with great production values (with the exception of the filter they used for flashbacks, which I complained to @mepkat about every time I saw it) to boot. It is indeed my favorite one so far.
• Misc: poor Jen Carroll! Fabio was on the top (5x) or bottom (4x) in all nine of his episodes. Dale T. made us very proud: so grown up! Tiffani, too! Marcel = not so much. The whole “sneaky Spike” thing was like Sideshow Bob + the rakes: funny, then annoying, but then funny again!
• Anyway: we’re taking another break to watch basketball and give Season 18 at least a few episodes to breathe. We’ll be back with thoughts on Season 9 before you know it, though!

Season Nine:

• Season 9 of our TOP CHEF rewatch = in the books! It was absolutely fascinating to view this simultaneously with Season 18, the other post-All-Stars season. Unfortunately for Season 9, the comparison isn’t flattering.
• The problem for me was that they leaned WAY too hard into the idea that everything has to be bigger in Texas. First off, I’m not into all-nighter elimination challenges anyway, let alone more than one in a single season!
• Next, and probably most importantly, what they did to Beverly, Nyesha, and Richie in the chili cook-off episode and Beverly and Sarah in the “Culinary Games” episode was just cruel. You can tell that Padma knew it, too, at least in the former instance.
• One more example: what top chef skills is making people ride around San Antonio on borrowed bicycles, cooking in strange kitchens, and then transporting their fully-cooked meals across town on said bikes testing, exactly?
• In the final example above, the chefs rose to the challenge brilliantly. Awesome. Quite a few episodes (see “Fit for an Evil Queen”) actually feature great food. But how much better could this crew have done if they were given a better opportunity to shine?
• Springing LAST CHANCE KITCHEN on the final four with no warning was also pretty cold. All in all, I feel like this cast was treated pretty unfairly, which makes really unfortunate that none of them competed on Season 17. Although maybe it also explains why!
• The purest example of this season’s insistence on going to extremes was of course starting out with 29 chefs, which I remember HATING. Weirdly, I actually liked THIS the second time around, since it meant we go to see complete dishes from everyone early in the season!
• Anyway, add it all up and Season 9 is *not* one of my favorites. I’m ranking it in the bottom half after Seasons 8, 4, 6, 7, and 3 and ahead of only Seasons 5 (thinking about Hosea and Leah still makes me shudder), 1, and 2 (such jerks!).
• I’m not sure how far we’re going to take this thing–there won’t be any reason to rewatch the current season, obviously, and Seasons 14-17 are still pretty fresh in MY mind (can’t speak for @mepkat
  on this one). We’re definitely doing at least a few more, though!
• That said, with the Knicks and the Penguins both in the playoffs and my mother-in-town (not a TC super fan) visiting for an entire week starting on Friday, it might take us a hot minute to get started on Season 10. Stay tuned!

Season 10:

• Re-watch of TOP CHEF Season 10 = in the books! I’ve done enough of these now that it’s hard to get too hepped up a middle-of-the pack entry in the series, which this one definitely was.
• The good: 1) Brooke, Kristen, Lizzie, and Sheldon all consistently make interesting food all throughout the season, and many other chefs have their moments! 2) I LIKED most of the challenges, and didn’t really HATE any of them.
• The bad: I didn’t like the live finale at all, and I also didn’t like the uneven method for paring 21 chefs down to 15 in episode one. Even after two viewings I still don’t know what Wolfgang Puck is looking for in an omelet, and Tom’s crew had it way harder than everyone else!
• Asides: 1) NOW I remember why I like Stefan so much! He’s much less of a creepazoid in this one than he was in Season 5. 2) Please note that we did not re-watch LAST CHANCE KITCHEN, which seemed like a good one.
• Finally, what stuck with me most from this season was actually Josh’s smoked fried chicken w/ hot sauce + blue cheese from the “Wolfgang Clucks” episode. Only: I totally remembered this as a Kevin Gillespie dish! Weird. Anyway, I’ve made this a bunch of times and it’s awesome.
• In the end, I think I’d rank Season 10 fourth after Seasons 8, 4, and 6, but it’s much closer to 7 in fifth than third. Then come 3, 9, 5, 1, and 2. On to Season 11!

Season 11:

• S11 TOP CHEF = in the books! I remembered this as a GOOD season, but was pleasantly surprised to discover that it’s right up there with 8, 4, and 6 as one of the best to this point.
• What it has going for it compared to the 4 + 6 is less (in intensity and seriousness, if not volume) drama: I’m learning that it makes a huge difference for me when everyone asks like a professional and gets along with one another!
• Where it maybe suffers in comparison just a bit is in the food department. The chefs all cooked at a high level throughout the season, and I love how the challenges celebrate New Orleans + Maui, but not many individual dishes stand out in my mind as PARTICULARLY memorable.
• Not in a good way, anyhow: I definitely remembered Nick’s disastrous “corn silk nest”! FWIW, my favorite challenge was probably the hot sauce one with Dr. John. I’ve described more than a few things in terms of their “hip tang” since re-watching it.
• It was interesting watching this at the same time as S18. @davisre and I chatted a bit about the ideal usage of returning chefs after my S10 recap, and while I do love an all-stars season, “veterans” are more enjoyable as judges and sous chefs than competitors.
• This was also, like S18, a diverse cast by TOP CHEF standards, which is important in a competition like this: it’s fun to watch talented people start with the same prompt and take it in all sorts of different directions.
• On the topic of Nick’s controversial win, I have no complaints about any of the judges’ decisions. But note: in every previous season immunity was off the table by E12. He would have gone home in E13 w/out it. I like that they’re still experimenting, but this was a mistake.
• I think that’s pretty much all I’ve got to say about that! @mepkat and I were thinking we might stop around S15, but are now flirting with the idea of going as far as Hulu will take us for free. Whatever the case may be, I’ll be back with thoughts on S12 pretty soon!

Season 12:

• Season 12 of our TOP CHEF re-watch = in the bag! This one is a total throwback to the glory days of Seasons 4 + 6.
• Like those seasons it features three tiers of chefs: 1) the favorites (Gregory, Mei, and probably Doug), 2) other contenders (Melissa, George, Katsuji, and maybe Adam and/or Katie), and 3) everyone else.
• Like those seasons it REALLY gets good right around Restaurant Wars when only tier 1 + 2 chefs remain in the competition and when (probably not coincidentally) the house dynamic also improves dramatically.
• Dishes I most wish I could try include both of Mei’s congees, pretty much everything Gregory makes in Mexico, Mei’s finale dessert, and the whole “New England literary works” dinner. Also, “The First Thanksgiving” is an all-time favorite episode.
• “Flaws” of this season include a cast that probably isn’t as impressive top-to-bottom as the few that preceded it, and while I didn’t HATE any of the challenges, I didn’t LOVE all of them either.
• Add it all up, and this is my fourth favorite season after 8, 4, and 6 (in that order) and just barely ahead of 11. Then come 10, 7, 3, 9, 5, 1, and 2 in that order. On to Season 13!

Links to previous posts about Top Chef can be found here.