TV Tattler: Celebrity Interviews
10 Questions With: <A HREF='http://television.aol.com/celebrity/tom-colicchio/456000' target='_blank'><FONT COLOR='#2864B4'>Tom Colicchio</font></a>
April 29 -- Contestants on <A HREF='http://television.aol.com/show/top-chef-2/1279033/main' target='_blank'>'Top Chef'</a> can take heart: Judge Tom Colicchio remembers the great dishes as well as the terrible ones (just make sure to cook one of the former). The New York chef, whose signature Craft franchise will open new branches in Atlanta and Foxwood's MGM casino, chatted with AOL TV's Kelly Woo about what makes a great chef, playing favorites and the profanity controversy.
<b>1. Why did you decide to set this season in Chicago?</b> Chicago is a great food town. We move around every year. San Francisco, Miami, so Chicago just seemed like the place to do it.
<b>2. Do you think the chefs getting more talented every season?</b> Yes, I do. Obviously there are very talented chefs in Season 1, Season 2 and Season 3 but the pool wasn't as deep. In the first season, it was interesting having a first-year culinary student and a home cook but it's very, very difficult for [them] to compete with someone who has spent 10 years in the kitchen.
<B>3. What is the essential ingredient for someone to be a great chef?</b> Putting the show aside -- because I usually get myself in trouble when I say this -- we're judging solely on the dishes that are put in front of us. We don't take personality into consideration, [or] leadership skills. You can be a great cook but if you can't run a kitchen, you're not going to stay in business long enough. Chef doesn't mean that you're the best cook, it simply means boss.
<b>4. Do you have a favorite this season?</b> I don't have favorites. I don't play favorites. In fact, we, the judges, we don't interact with the contestants at all. The only time we are interacting with them is on camera -- when I do a walk-through, where we're eating the food. All of the reality stuff that you see, we don't see that.
<b>5. So, you never think to yourself, "I really like this contestant"?</b> No, no I don't. In order to do the contestants service -- because they are working very hard and leaving their families for months on end -- we need to stay as objective as possible and that's why we judge solely on the dish. You can have a chef who wins every single challenge, but if the dish they put in front of us is the worst ... they are going home.
<B>6. We've seen that happen to great chefs, like Trey in Season 3. Do you still think he should've gone home?</b> He was a strong contender until he screwed up. Whether or not we thought he could have gone further, it didn't matter. That day he messed up ... I gotta tell you, some of the things he made that day were <i>terrible</i>. That bread pudding was godawful. The same thing happened in the finale with Sam [in Season 2]. We have no idea when we're judging that he's the fan favorite. I'd still make that same decision today.
<b>7. Would you still pick Ilan to win over Marcel in Season 2?</b> Oh yeah, Ilan was so much better. Marcel made a bunch of mistakes during the finale. In my blog, I used the analogy of wine. Sometimes you put wine in a barrel and get two different wines. One of them you say, "Wow, this is really good" and then the other one you say, "This isn't really good now, but 10 years from now, it's going to be great." I think Ilan was better that night, and 10 years from now, Marcel will probably be a better chef.
<b>8. What do you think about the controversy over the profanity on the show?</b> I don't think the show can do anything about it. I think they can do a better job of bleeping it out. But no one is prompting these contestants to talk like this. The issue I have is why they all think it's OK to talk like this. I think that 20-year-olds are growing up watching uncensored TV and reading the Internet and they feel that it's OK for this kind of language to be part of their everyday vernacular. I think it's wrong personally.
<b>9. How much input do you get into challenges?</b> The producers usually run them by me but ... I'm not drastically altering them at all. Sometimes when I have ideas, I bring them to the producers. They are all not set in stone by the time we are shooting. But I've also learned that what I think would make good TV doesn't necessarily make good TV, and some things that I think wouldn't make good TV make great TV.
<b>10. How does Padma eat what she does and look the way she does?</b> She exercises a lot and has a very fast metabolism. We eat a lot less than you think on-set, but she hits the craft services table, too, right after that. I always joke that once she hits 40, it's not going to be easy anymore.
