Tuned In

Top Chef Watch: Bad Robot!

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Bravo

Spoilers for last night’s Top Chef finale coming up after the jump:

So last night Michael Voltaggio (nicknamed “Bad Robot” in the Tuned In household) defeated brother Bryan (a.k.a. “Good Robot”) and my personal favorite Kevin for the title in Top Chef: Las Vegas. I’m disappointed on the basis of what I’ve seen in the season overall, but my mantra when it comes to Top Chef finales is: I didn’t eat the food. Kevin looked to have had an off night, he said he had an off night, and although I also preferred Good Robot (for his food, not just personally), either of the Brothers V were deserving overall.

A few general thoughts on the final cookdown:

* Again the producers elected to pair the finalist with eliminated contestants as sous chefs for their last challenge. Both Preeti and Eli did things that handicapped their chefs in one way or another, and although the problems didn’t seem as fatal as Carla’s last time around, I don’t see why the producers want to introduce such a potentially major random element into what should be a last test of skill.

* My first clue that Michael had won: when he cracked, “I just don’t want Bryan to be Top Chef” at Judges’ Table. That—and of course the visit from Mom—was nearly the first time we’d seen a joking, likeable side to Michael, and the cynical reality viewer in me suspected we were being set up to accept his victory. (The cynical reality fan in me also suspects, of course, that he was never a big a jerk as he came off through much of the series, much like Stefan the previous season.)

* One last word in praise of Kevin, the belly-braising, bacon-caramelizing, pork-lovin’-est Top Chef contestant ever. The season largely cast him as the “simple,” home-cooking-oriented chef. I can see why, and it’s probably part of what made him such a fan favorite; he was the one cooking the sort of non-fancy, unintimidating comfort food people like to eat. But it also seemed to give him short shrift. In fact, with all his green-spirited emphasis on farm-to-table, locavore, use-every-part-of-the-pig cooking, Kevin actually seems to be more in touch with the zeitgeist of food culture today. It’s a kind of more hedonistic, carnivore-friendly variation of the Alice Waters philosophy, like you see practiced by a lot of young, buzzed-about chefs at places like Prime Meats here in Brooklyn. Whereas Michael’s food, with its elaborate presentation and technique and emphasis on exotica plays “trendy” on TV, but if anything, it may be just a touch dated; it could be fine dining at any time in the ’00s.

But in the end Top Chef is not a contest to judge cooking trends or personalities. It’s about who performs best in the challenges, and Michael stepped up last night. Well done, Bad Robot.