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Top Chef: Charleston

huiray

By huiray
in Food Media & Arts

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huiray

huiray

Posted
Posted

Top Chef Season 14 in Charleston - filming is currently ongoing.

 

Some links courtesy of posters on another forum:

http://islandconnectionnews.com/top-chef-comes-kiawah/ 

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/Eat/archives/2016/04/20/top-chef-to-begin-filming-mid-may 

http://www.postandcourier.com/20160517/160519678/top-chef-adjusts-to-small-town-living-in-charleston 

https://twitter.com/LauraPavlides/status/733081836725915648 

 

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  • 5 months later...
blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

Posted
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I was initially surprised to learn that fully half of the contestants are returning from previous years.  

Sam Talbot (Season 2: Los Angeles) 
Casey Thompson (Season 3: Miami & Season 8: All-Stars) 
Amanda Baumgarten (Season 7: Washington, D.C.) -
Brooke Williamson (Season 10: Seattle) - 
Sheldon Simeon (Season 10: Seattle)
John Tesar (Season 10: Seattle) 
Shirley Chung (Season 11: New Orleans) 
Katsuji Tanabe (Season 12: Boston) 

 

Maybe it will make the early episodes more engaging.  It's usually sort of a blur in the beginning, I tend to wait until they barber down the list a bit and then go back and watch the early ones.

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IndyRob

IndyRob

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3 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

Maybe it will make the early episodes more engaging.  It's usually sort of a blur in the beginning,

 

I think the All Stars season was successful because of this.  But that list doesn't really seem like an All Star one.  Let's hope it's not Top Chef: Retreads.

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Brown Hornet

Brown Hornet

Posted
Posted
On ‎11‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 7:37 PM, IndyRob said:

 

I think the All Stars season was successful because of this.  But that list doesn't really seem like an All Star one.  Let's hope it's not Top Chef: Retreads.

 

I guess it depends on how you define an All Star.  Most of those former contestants made it to the final four of their respective seasons and I believe a couple of them were in the finals. 

 

I understand that they need to keep tweaking the formula but I'm not sure how I feel about the 50/50 split between old and new contestants.  Hope they find a way to do justice to southern cooking this year.

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Brown Hornet

Brown Hornet

Posted
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My random thoughts on first episode -- spoilers ahead I guess:

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Still not sure I like the old vs. new format.  One of the things I like about Top Chef is getting to know the new chefs.  Bravo will never do this but I wouldn't mind if the show took an 18-24 month sabbatical to come back with a new crop of talent.

 

Really happy that Jim, the southern trekkie won with basically fried chicken livers.  That hits like about a dozen different sweet spots for me. Also impressed with Silvia -- 2 chicken dishes including a fresh pasta in an hour is impressive.

 

Of the new chefs Emily looks like she is stepping up for the villain role -- I like that she seems to be pretty talented as it will probably make for some entertaining viewing.

 

Not much to say about the returning chefs -- John Tesar really does seem to have mellowed since his last season.  I was still rooting against him in the elimination quickfire but secretly I'm kind of hoping he sticks around.

 

Re the shrimp and grits challenge -- 30 minutes seemed too short. It almost forces you to use quick grits instead of stone ground.  Maybe it's just me, but decent stone ground grits always seem to take a good 40-45 minutes.  Shirley's dish was the one I would love to try -- I really like how she both honored the original dish while taking it in a different direction.    

 

 

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blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

Posted
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I just finished watching.  I thought that dividing them up for that first quickfire challenge was a good move as one only needed to focus on 8 at a time, which is about my limit in terms of keeping people straight. 

 

51 minutes ago, Brown Hornet said:

Really happy that Jim, the southern trekkie won with basically fried chicken livers.  That hits like about a dozen different sweet spots for me.

I was really worrying about Jim - he got a good bit of early camera time, which foreshadows elimination almost more often than it does a win!  I was also rooting for his chicken liver dish as I just recently made a fried chicken liver with balsamic marinated fig dish from Deep Run Roots and I loved the idea of his combination of flavors as well.  I'm glad he went ahead with that dish vs the others he planned and that he didn't get eliminated so we can watch at least a little more Jim.

 

55 minutes ago, Brown Hornet said:

Re the shrimp and grits challenge -- 30 minutes seemed too short. It almost forces you to use quick grits instead of stone ground.

I totally agree.  A pressure cooker would make nice stone ground grits fairly quickly but even that wouldn't allow enough time to do anything very creative with them.

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gfweb

gfweb

Posted
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9 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

Well, isn't that jolly!  We had taped it and watched it tonight.   Just as they were about to announce the winner of the elimination round, the tape ran out. Grrrrr.!

 

 

Bravo.com has it available

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Okanagancook

Okanagancook

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2 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Well, isn't that jolly!  We had taped it and watched it tonight.   Just as they were about to announce the winner of the elimination round, the tape ran out. Grrrrr.!

 

That is interesting because that happened to me too..I thought I made a mistake.

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Tri2Cook

Tri2Cook

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I'm not sure that's what happened to either of you. I wasn't recording it, I was watching it as it aired (on foodnetwork Canada) and it just suddenly cut from them being about to announce the results of the elimination round to You Gotta Eat Here starting. No "to be continued" or "tune in next time for..." or anything. Just cut off and went to the next show. Like there should have been another couple minutes of show that they just weren't willing to make room for or something.

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It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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David Ross

David Ross

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I've grown weary of Top Chef in recent years. While I realize that editing adds drama for the viewer, and I suppose people like Chefs sniping at one another and running to grab a mushroom out of the pantry, it's just not my thing much anymore. I do watch some of Top Chef toward the end of the competition and I'm always interested in seeing what the Chefs create, but I can only take so many wedding catering challenges. I've been hooked for a few years now on MasterChef UK The Professionals and The Great British Menu, both on the BBC. You can catch it on YouTube and I find it far more interesting, creative, inspiring and more focused on the real challenges a Chef faces in a restaurant kitchen.

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David Ross

My blog-http://todayshomekitchen.com/

Host, eG Cook-Off's, https://forums.egullet.org/topic/143994-egullet-recipe-cook-off-index/

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  • 2 weeks later...
Brown Hornet

Brown Hornet

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I've been pretty impressed with the quality of the competition so far based on the last two episodes.  Every dish in last night's episode looked fantastic -- I love the episodes where even the 'losing' dishes were still great but just not quite a great as the winners.  Usually this early in the season they are still weeding out clearly inferior contestants but this season everyone has brought their A game.     

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  • 4 weeks later...
blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

Posted
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I enjoyed the last episode of Top Chef. Great Charleston tie-in to feature Edna Lewis as a "Southern Legend."  It seemed like the chefs all really took the work of Edna Lewis to heart and tried to make dishes inspired by her philosophy.    

Apparently these chefs weren't the only ones so inspired as sales of Edna Lewis' cookbook, The Taste of Country Cooking, received a nice boost after the show aired.  It was up to #5 amongst Amazon's cookbook bestsellers and is now out of stock!

 

It was clear that frantic whirlwind Amanda was going to be out soon but I'll miss her.  I liked that her exit interview was positive.  I was sorry to see both Sam and Silvia out so early and from the preview photos of next week's episode, it's not looking good for another of my favorites.  Time will tell.

 

This season, I've been enjoying the episode reviews (and comments) over on A.V Club

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David Ross

David Ross

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I do like the show so far this year in terms of the creativity and level of the dishes, but I'm getting a bit tired of seeing some of the past contestants.  However one Chef I'm so glad to watch again is Sheldon.  Not only a good Chef but he comes across the screen as being a nice guy.

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David Ross

My blog-http://todayshomekitchen.com/

Host, eG Cook-Off's, https://forums.egullet.org/topic/143994-egullet-recipe-cook-off-index/

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blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

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11 minutes ago, David Ross said:

I do like the show so far this year in terms of the creativity and level of the dishes, but I'm getting a bit tired of seeing some of the past contestants. 

 

I know what you mean.  Especially since the rookies keep getting eliminated. 

 

I have to say that the most recent episode was one of my least favorite so far.   I'm not a fan of quickfire eliminations and I was a fan of poor Jim!  I will miss his goofy smile.  

The whole pirate treasure map, running all over Charleston in a rainstorm to find their ingredients was a silly waste of time.  

The case of Jamie offering to give up his immunity was an interesting turn and Emily trying to throw John under the bus at judges table was surely meant to stir the pot for upcoming episodes but actual cooking was surely an afterthought in this round.

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Toliver

Toliver

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"Restaurant Wars" returns in tonight's episode. 

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“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

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blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

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Posted (edited)

Wow, what a contrast between the two Restaurant Wars teams - zero question about which team won!  The John-Katsuji combination was clearly toxic to the whole team - poor nice guy Sheldon, trying to cook in that mess!  And speaking of mess, I laughed out loud when I saw guest judge Daniel Humm cringe as he entered that disaster of a kitchen - I had just watched a short video of him in his own kitchen at Eleven Madison Park as part of the edX Science and Cooking course.  His kitchen could certainly have been staged for the video but it was absolutely immaculate, like a sterile suite in a meticulous research laboratory with many chefs in pristine whites working calmly and diligently.  No wonder he was so appalled!

 

Edited to add that I miss @huiray's contributions to these Top Chef discussions (and elsewhere in the forums, too).  Ah well. 

 

Edited by blue_dolphin (log)
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