With last night’s finale of Project Runway—which, don’t worry, I’m not going to spoilerizeify for you—plenty of us are going to want to fill the hole that the fashion show’s absence leaves in our Wednesday nights. Especially those of us who are Bravo executives. Heidi Klum’s Survivor-on-the-catwalk has given the cable channel ratings and currency that it hadn’t enjoyed since Queer Eye’s flame—as it were—died down.
So Bravo has decided to give another arena of upscale artistry the Runway treatment, with cooking competition Top Chef, which takes Runway’s spot next Wednesday at 10 p.m. E.T. Top Chef has many of the same attractions, especially the high-class, documentary-like visuals and the focus on professionals who seem to care more about their craft than TV fame. (Though, in the Food Network era, it’s hard to distinguish between the two.)
Indeed, the look and structure are so similar, it’s surprising they didn’t just call it Project Entree. There are outspoken, aspiring cooks ranging from beginners in their early 20s to salts in their 40s and 50s; a seasoned professional in the Tim Gunn mentor/judge role (Tom Colicchio, of Manhattan’s Gramercy Tavern); and an eye-candy hostess (food writer Katie Lee Joel). The setting does change, from New York City to San Francisco, which Manhattanites may disdain as a rival food capital but at least offers better local produce. (In another nice twist, at the end of each challenge, the chefs get to taste, and bitch about, one another’s dishes.)
But is food as sellable a subject as fashion design? You’d think so: we all eat, after all, and thanks to Emeril and his spawn, haute cuisine has become more popularized, in ratings terms, than haute couture. Food is about not just pleasure but lifestyle and even politics, embodied on Top Chef by an organic-veggie evangelist who makes a vegetable-shrimp stir-fry that looks like a bomb went off in a produce aisle. And as Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential showed, restaurant kitchens are places full of high stress and eccentric characters.
Then again, a lot of programmers have thought this—yet Fox’s sitcom based on Confidential failed; its summer reality cooking show, Hell’s Kitchen, did only marginally better; and NBC’s The Restaurant failed to keep Rocco DiSpirito’s bedroom eyes in America’s sights for more than two seasons. Food Network’s Next Food Network Star was a success, but it had the sense to be a meta-competition that was less about sheer cooking than being a TV personality.
One practical disadvantage Top Chef will have is sensual. On American Idol, you can hear and judge the performances. On Runway, you can see and rate the outfits. But lick the screen as much as you want, you will never be able to taste the lamb enchiladas with homemade tortillas and rajas that one chef plates up in the first episode, though the sight may have you running for your refrigerator. A smart restaurateur would be planning Wednesday night Top Chef viewing parties.
The first episode had me sucked in, regardless; then again, I’m a hobbyist cook and full-time glutton, and I’ve spent much more time shoveling down short ribs than accesorizing outfits. Whether the rest of America will take to Top Chef as well, I have no idea. But I’m probably going to gain ten pounds watching it.