Pack your knives: Seattle chefs stink up Top Chef
Nov 7, 2011, 4:43 PM | Updated: 7:23 pm
Seattle restaurant insiders might think pretty highly of their skills, but the cut throat reality TV world of Top Chef isn’t impressed. All three of the contestants sent home in the show’s season premier were from Emerald City kitchens. Even more humiliating, they were the only three ousted in the episode.
In a new twist, the popular show set this season in Texas started with 29 “cheftestants” in a cook-off for 16 spots. They had to win approval from two of the three judges, host Padma Lakshmi and celebrity chefs Tom Colicchio and Emeril Lagasse.
Colin Patterson of Seattle’s Sutra didn’t last long, getting axed after spilling soup all over his plates.
Soon after, Tavolata’s Simon Pantet was sent packing for a ham roulade stuffed with figs and goat cheese that was deemed dry and overcooked, and plate that Colicchio thought was too busy.
Simon Pantet/Tavolata
Later, Nina Vicente from Seattle’s The Coterie Room forgot to put the main ingredient of her dish on the plate.
“It’s abysmal,” says Hanna Raskin, food critic at Seattle Weekly.
Colin Patterson/Sutra Vegetarian Cuisine
Raskin says she spoke with Patterson after his brief TV appearance, and he admitted he kind of freaked out under the pressure of the show.
“As he said, Seattle’s pretty laid back and our chefs really don’t work on stop watches.”
Raskin says she isn’t sure if that’s good or bad for the local food community.
“Maybe that means our chefs are a little more inventive, they’re a little more creative, they feel a little less constraint,” Raskin says. “It does mean they make terrible reality show contestants.”
We do still have a glimmer of hope. Local chef Ashley Villaluz with Metiza Catering will appear in the next cook off in this week’s episode, the weight of a city’s entire culinary reputation sitting solely on her shoulders.
You can check out Seattle’s last best hope in her audition video for the Bravo show here.
-Josh Kerns/MyNorthwest.com
