The TV Chick

An all new season of Top Chef Masters premieres tonight and resident reality expert Lindsay Silberman jumped at the chance to join a media call with new host Chef Curtis Stone and Judges Ruth Reichl and James Oseland. This season is going to be even better than ever, with a new format (just like the other seasons of regular Top Chef) and some great contestants. Stone, Reichl and Oseland previewed the upcoming season, talked about this season’s celebrity guest judges and more.

Curtis – you’re a chef, a reality contestant, and now a reality TV host. Which do you enjoy the most?
Curtis Stone: My entire world revolves around food, so this was a special opportunity for me. I got asked to be involved in a show with the world’s best chefs, and then sit at a table with the world’s leading food critics. I really got insight into how these guys judge us.

What piqued your interest in signing on for Season 3?
Ruth Reichl: I thought it was gonna be fun!
James Oseland: I had done the previous two seasons of Top Chef Masters and I have to pinch myself sometimes. It’s such an amazingly wonderful gig to have gotten, so it was an easy decision to make.
RR: And when we wrapped, Curtis cooked a meal for all of us. It was the best meal we had the entire season! His passion for feeding people really came out.
JO: That was so awesome. No holds barred awesome. The generosity and spirit Curtis showed too, it was so moving. It was the real deal.

What was the hardest part about being a judge?
RR: It’s one thing to be writing in the New York Times what what you think about someone’s food, but it’s another to have them standing right in front of you. Judging to their faces — that was the hardest part.
JO: For me the hardest part is eliminating people. It’s a gut-wrenching process. There are times when you literally have to push back the tears.
CS: For me, I definitely felt a little uneasy judging my peers.

In the previews we see an episode where the chefs have to cook up bugs and worms – what was your take on that?
CS: I had to eat all of those bugs! This was the best job of my life, but that was one of the worst days of the best job of my life. There were some good attempts and some that just didn’t work.
RR: I wasn’t there for that and I’m so sorry I wasn’t! I would have been the perfect judge for that. I find nothing weird or creepy about eating insects.

Are there any celebrity chefs you’d like to see compete on future seasons?
RR: I would love to see Wolfgang Puck do it. And Grant Achatz and Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller and Lydia Shire would be great on this show. I want to see everyone do it! You get to know people in a new way, watching them in this atmosphere. It’s very intimate. Some of these chefs are people I had known for a long time but at the end of the season I felt so much closer to them.
JO: I’d like to see what Pierre Gagnaire does with a fast food kind of challenge.

Let’s talk about some of the celebrity guest judges…
JO: What we learned in the course of sharing a meal with Christina Hendricks is that she and her husband are SERIOUS cooks. They’re not dabblers. We were talking serious cooking techniques. That was such a revelation. Who knew?
RR: On Mad Men she is the most beautiful woman in the world, but she is even more beautiful in person.
CS: We also had Kelis — the artist that sang the milkshake song. I didn’t realize that she had gone to Le Cordon Bleu. We also had Maroon5 on an episode, and we got a real look into their life, how they travel, what they eat on the road, and how their chefs do it.
JO: And the contestants from The Biggest Loser! That was one of my favorite meals. It was a real treat to eat with these guys and hear their stories. It was amazingly touching.

Have you ever had a pick for who you thought was going to win?
JO: One of the funnest things about doing Top Chef Masters is that in a way you’re kind of just like the viewer watching the season. You’re dying to know who’s gonna win and who’s gonna make it to the final round. Inquiring minds want to know! So you will always remain an egalitarian and fair judge, but in your mind you have a feeling it’s going to be ‘so and so.’ I always keep that to myself, though. I’m usually never ever right.

If you could be eating anything in the world at this moment what would it be?
CS: I’d be in the South of France eating clams right on the water.
RR: I would be in Santa Barbara eating sea urchins by the sea.
JO: I would be in Indonesia eating coconut rice flavored with lemongrass and ginger, wrapped in a banana leaf with chili paste and piece of fried chicken.

Be sure to tune in tonight at 10 pm to Bravo for the season premiere of Top Chef Masters!