‘Top Chef' begets Martha Stewart and José Andrés' new ‘Yes, Chef!' Will their kitchen therapy work?
Chefs who behave badly get their own show. Also, pink Champagne cake at Madonna Inn plus more road food favorites. And can fish be too fresh? I'm Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week's Tasting Notes.
'For far too long,' Martha Stewart says into the camera during the opening moments of NBC's new 'Yes, Chef!' cooking competition show, 'the pressure of the kitchen has been an excuse for out-of-control behavior.'
'That kind of behavior doesn't make a great chef,' adds her co-host, chef José Andrés. 'It holds them back.'
Stewart and Andrés are correct. And yet, that kind of behavior — yelling at fellow chefs, throwing pans in frustration, undermining colleagues and sometimes inflicting more harmful abuse — has been the roiling soup that has fed reality TV cooking competitions for more than 25 years. It's also been the kind of behavior that restaurant workers have tried, with varying degrees of success, to root out as cheffing became an aspirational profession instead of disrespected grunt work.
You can read about the pain as well as the allure of working in and around restaurant kitchens in several recent memoirs, including Laurie Woolever's 'Care and Feeding,' which restaurant critic Bill Addison praised in this newsletter last month, Hannah Selinger's 'Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly' and books by two chefs and reality TV cooking show insiders, Tom Colicchio's 'Why I Cook' and Kristen Kish's 'Accidentally on Purpose,' which I wrote about last week.
If you've watched even a few minutes of a reality TV cooking competition — from 'Hell's Kitchen's' Gordon Ramsay angrily dumping out a contestant's overcooked steak to even the sweet contestants on 'The Great British Baking Show' expressing frustration — chances are good that you've seen how the kitchen pressure Stewart talks about often does lead to bad behavior.
So can a reality TV cooking competition really help chefs become better people — and better bosses?
Possibly. But three episodes into the inaugural season of 'Yes, Chef!' — a show cast with '12 professional chefs, each with one thing standing in their way: themselves,' Stewart says — it looks as though the cards are stacked against redemption.
'In our kitchen,' Stewart tells viewers about the chefs, 'it takes a lot more than good food to win. They'll need to figure out how to work together.'
Andrés and Stewart have a lot of life experience and advice to offer, with Stewart admitting, 'I have been known to be a perfectionist. And that kind of holds you back sometimes.'
But when it comes down to which team wins and which team loses, it turns out that good food does matter more than bad behavior. (Note that there are spoilers ahead if you haven't watched the show yet.)
After TV competition show veteran and designated villain Katsuji Tanabe ('Top Chef,' 'Chopped') takes all the eggs in the kitchen so that the opposing team has none to work with, he and his teammates are rewarded with a win. The reasoning: The losing chefs struggled to, in the language of the show, 'pivot.'
Even worse for the development of the chefs, the decision of who stays and who goes at the end of each episode is not made by Andrés or Stewart. Instead, a one-on-one cook-off is set up between the contestant deemed to be the Most Valuable Chef (MVC) and another contestant that the MVC strategically chooses to go up against. If the MVC wins, the challenger chef goes home. But if the challenger chef beats the MVC, the challenger becomes the decider. So far, this has led to one of the better chefs, Torrece 'Chef T' Gregoire, being booted largely to reduce the competition, followed by the executioner of that decision, Michelle Francis, getting axed in the next episode, possibly comeuppance for sending home a popular player the week before and partly because of her dish — even though she was handicapped by the egg theft.
The sharp edges and head games almost feel retro, closer to the template set 25 years ago this month when 'Survivor' first aired and popularized the whole 'I'm not here to make friends' trope that was common in sports and then became emblematic of reality TV posturing.
We'll see as the season progresses whether the chefs can turn around the bad attitudes and insecurities that led to them being cast on the show. I certainly hope Andrés and Stewart are given more time to guide the chefs toward their better selves in future episodes.
But if you want to watch a show where the chefs are modeling kitchen behavior we'd like to see more of in our star chefs, may I suggest the current season of Bravo's 'Top Chef.'
Both 'Yes, Chef!' and 'Top Chef' are made by the production company Magical Elves, but 'Top Chef,' now in its 22nd season, is showcasing a group of chefs who actually seem to care about each other. Yes, there are big personalities on the show, notably Massimo Piedimonte, who often generates eye rolls by the other chefs when his bravado goes overboard. But he is seen in quieter moments trying to tame his impulses and become a better person. And there is genuine emotion displayed when chef Tristen Epps gets word right before a big challenge that his father-in-law has died and his mother encourages him to continue competing. The entire show, from the production staffer who takes him off the set to his fellow competitors seem to support him.
There is even camaraderie among the losing contestants who try to work their way back into the competition through the spin-off 'Last Chance Kitchen,' judged solo by Colicchio showing his mentoring skills. When Chicago's North Pond chef César Murillo is pitted against three-time 'Last Chance' winner Katianna Hong, co-owner of the recently closed Arts District restaurant Yangban, there is support and respect shown for both talented competitors by the eliminated chefs watching the proceedings, including chef Kat Turner of L.A.'s Highly Likely.
'Top Chef' used to have a lot more hotheads. 'I'm not your bitch, bitch,' was a catchphrase in the show's early years when one chef pushed another too far. But the new season, which has just a few more episodes to go, is proving that you can cool down the temperature in the kitchen and still entertain.
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the motel — the first use of the word is credited to the 1925 opening of the Milestone Mo-Tel in San Luis Obispo — Food's writers and editors joined our colleagues in Features to put together Motel California, a story series that includes a guide to the state's '34 coolest, kitschiest, most fascinating motels' and our team's picks for the best roadside diners and restaurants. Also in the package: Christopher Reynolds' account of his 2,500-mile search for California's greatest motels, a roadside attractions guide and Marah Eakin's profile of Barkev Msrlyan, creator of the Merch Motel brand of retro souvenirs.
Food's Stephanie Breijo spent time at the very pink San Luis Obispo landmark, the Madonna Inn, and says that the 'maze-like, kaleidoscopic lair of chroma and whimsy is home to some of the most iconic food on the Central Coast.' She came away with insider knowledge of the red oak grills at Alex Madonna's Gold Rush Steak House and of the Inn's famed pink Champagne cakes — made in the hundreds each week. But the pink cake recipe remains a secret. Breijo did, however, get the recipe for the Inn's Pink Cloud cocktail — topped with whipped cream and a cherry.
Plus: Julie Wolfson guides us to some great coffee shops along the Santa Barbara coast.
This week, the paper introduced a new feature, L.A. Timeless, which highlights stories from our archives. The first two stories this week come from former L.A. Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl, who wrote about learning to shop for fish at L.A. supermarkets with Jon Rowley, the man Julia Child once called 'the fish missionary.' I got to go along on that reporting trip all those years ago and I'll never forget the lessons Rowley taught us. Her companion story on Rowley went into one of his obsessions: '[T]hat fish can be too fresh ... a fish coming out of rigor mortis five or six days after harvest (in ice, of course) can be far better eating than a fish less than one day out of the water.'
Tickets are on sale for our second-annual Great Australian Bite. Last year, we were on the Malibu Pier. This year, chef Curtis Stone is hosting the event with Tourism Australia on his Four Stones Farm. He's partnering with chef Clare Falzon of the restaurant Staġuni in South Australia's Barossa. Read more about the event and how to get tickets here.
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