Note: This will be the first of weekly recaps of “Top Chef: Las Vegas.” They will CONTAIN SPOILERS, so if you haven’t seen this week’s episode yet and don’t want to know the results, don’t read this. Thanks!
And so it begins. Seventeen eager chefs sporting at least 400 tattoos have arrived in a magical place where there are slot machines in the airport: Las Vegas.
Padma Lakshmi explains that the contestants are vying for many prizes, which include a roll of Glad Wrap and a subscription to Food & Wine. Or something like that. Maybe some cash.
Who do we have? Shall we meet them? Maybe not all of them - 17 is a lot of chef to absorb. But let’s start with a few.
We have, all together now, three Atlantans: Hector Santiago from Pura Vida, who likes to smoke and run his hand through his ponytail when he’s nervous. Go Hector! We have Kevin Gillespie from Woodfire Grill, who says he turned down a full scholarship to M.I.T. to go to cooking school. (Have his parents re-owned him?) Go Kevin! And we have Eli Kirshtein from Eno, our Atlanta-born-and-bred self-described “fat kid” who likes to cook “fat kid food.” Do I smell bacon? Go Eli!
But wait. There is a fourth chef with an Atlanta connection, and that would be one Michael Isabella, who is currently the executive chef at (the very good) Zaytinya in Washington, D.C., but who used to be the sous chef at Kyma. More on Michael later. He’s a handful.
Other interesting characters include the lone Frenchman, young Mattin Noblia, who now cooks in San Francisco. How French is he? Well, he likes to admire his reflection in a chef’s knife and wear a jauntily knotted red kerchief around his neck, which makes him look like a boy Madeline. Or maybe Tintin. He says (in his bio, online) that he’d like to share a candlelit dinner with Jessica Alba. I’m sure Jessica is into guys with kerchiefs.
Jennifer Carroll from Philadelphia seems to be Betty Draper character here - blonde and icy. She says she’s a “freaking bitch in the kitchen” and has “made enough boys cry.” Please, Jennifer, do it again.
The other Jennifer from Philadelphia, Jennifer Zavala, is the resident tat victim, with a chained heart inked across her neck and the word “scarred” spread across her clavicle below. Wow. I’d hate to see what she wears on her sleeve.
So, our contestants meet at their suburban McMansion, have a little “hi, roomie” talk around the pool, and then it’s time to get on the chef’s whites and caravan over to the Top Chef kitchen in some resort.
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