Ilan Hall -

by gansie

Top Chef All-Stars Exit Interview: Episode 1

It’s like a family reunion: lots of familiar faces, lots of hugs, lots of passive-aggressive energy and lots of full frontal hatred. I think this season promises to be a fun one, with heightened emotions and high-level challenges. I never usually enjoy the first 5 episodes or so of Top Chef because there’s just too much going on with having to learn names and personalities and concentrate on 18 different dishes. At least for this season, we already know the chef’testants, know who we like and know who we want humiliated.

Unfortunately, this also means chefs that we love must leave. Sometimes too soon. Here’s the first chef’testant to pack up his/her knives. Find out who is PISSED and calls Tom Colicchio’s rise to stardom sad and heartbreaking.

Cheflebrity Smörgåsbord: A Situation at the Bar

The latest and greatest news about celebrity chefs, served up buffet style.

– Slightly hoppy with a strong finish of meathead: Iron Hill, a brewpub in Maple Shade, New Jersey, is celebrating everyone’s favorite Jersey Shore guido with a namesake beer.

– Ferran Adria, the chef that other chefs want to be when they grow up, is shutting his world-renowned El Bulli down for two years. Funny…if a genius closes his business for two years, he’s regarded as quirky or enigmatic. If you or I did it, people would think we’re bat-shit crazy.

After the jump…we learn that it’s important to sound out possible restaurant names before committing to one, that former competitors can pull together for a good cause and that all food writers will be the subject of a movie at some point.