Well, it’s over. Chef Blue Steel won. And it was a good fight.

Much of the season was a blur, especially around the time of Ashley’s departure. There was some great talent this year. The bar keeps getting higher. Let’s quickly recap the season. For a reminder of the contestants, click here.

• Top Chef six opens with Robin talking about her lymphoma in the first lines, the first of many times
• The faux-hawks show up, but less than in the past
  
• Definitely Vegas!
• Robin wins the first high stakes quickfire.  Pisses everyone off.  The first of many times.
  
• Wolfgang Puck judges vice cooking
• Kevin wins
• Jen Z. talks about how she needs to win for her son–gets eliminated
• Second quickfire.  Jen C. does a dish from her days at Le Bernardin.
• Ken and Barbie’s bachelor/bachelorette party
• Bryan wins.  Moves an eyebrow.
• Jesse cries.  Eve goes.
• Clam chowder at an Air Force hangar.
• Jesse cries.
• Michael V. wins.  Jersey Mike is in both the winners and losers line up.  But Preeti goes.
• Lots o’ French and snails.
• Bacon jam.
• The first elimination through quickfire.  Jesse goes.  Jesse cries.
• Daniel Bouloud, Joël Robuchon and just lots of French superstars.
• “I thought he was a unicorn.”
• French meats with French sauces.  Bryan wins a stage at one of Robuchon’s restaurants.
• Red scarfed Frenchman Mattin is on the chopping block, but Hector goes for chopping up his beef too soon.
• Cookin’ in the desert.
• Ron makes a voodoo snake repellent.  Michael V. wins for Japanese food for cowboys.  Mattin goes.
  
• Everyone hates Robin while wearing red scarves in memory of Mattin.
• Michelle Bernstein (supposedly a much despised judge in some corners) shows up.
• Robin uses her cancer story to explain her dish.  Wins the quickfire.
  
• Penn and Teller do the cups and balls routine, deconstructing the trick.  The chefs must make deconstructed dishes.  The Voltaggio Bros. get boners.
• Kevin wins.  Ron goes.
• People hate Robin.  Robin talks to herself.
• Slot machine ingredients and flavors.
• Tyler “I’m not a chef but play one on TV” Florence judges, along with other Tyler Florence wannabes.  You can see the contestants physically hiding their contempt.
• Jen wins a $10,000 shopping spree from Macy’s while being sick.  Ashley goes.
• Everyone hates Robin.
  
• Charlie Palmer judges, former boss of the Voltaggio Bros.
• Product placement quickfire, this time the snacks they stock the Top Chef living quarters with.
• Elimination: pair food with wine…GEEZ!
  

  From All Top Chef

• Eli and Robin fight while cooking dinner.  Eli walks off with his scallops.  Robin talks to herself.
• Editors try to create tension between the Voltaggio Bros.
• Charlie enjoys eating and looks like he will eat one of the contestants or squish one in between his forefinger and thumb.
• Toby Young annoys the audience with his forced cleverness.
• Kevin wins a guest chef spot at the 2010 Pigs and Pinot gala.  Ash packs his knives.
  
• “Best Restaurant Wars ever.”
  
• Relay race cooking–what replaces the blind tasting this season–turns out to be exciting
• Everyone hates Robin.
• Toby annoys with his wit.
• Robin and Mike V. fight.
  
• Mike V. wins and splits the prize money.  Laurine goes.
• TV dinner quickfire–most disappointing quickfire ever.  Missed opportunities for clever use of cereal with the chef who had never watched Seinfeld.
• “Who has a chance to go into syndication.” — oh, who wrote that one?
• Jennifer gets frazzled.
  

  From MinxEats

• NATALIE PORTMAN!!!  oh, she’s vegetarian…
• “Like a little prick on the tip of my tongue.”
• “Tiny in size but big in the mouth.”
• “You went from little prick to big in the mouth?”
• “That’s what usually happens.”
• Banana polenta.
• “Who’s his dealer?”
• Kevin wins.  Mike V. has sour grapes.  Jersey Mike goes.  Robin stays.
• Everyone hates Robin.
• Starting to dig Eli’s walk.
• Nigella and Padma in bed.
• Robin is messy.  Mike doesn’t like that.  They bitch.
• Corned beef Reuben Eggs Benedict with Thousand Island Hollandaise–oooh… yeah….
• Chefs get assigned to casinos to do dishes on each casino’s theme.
• Eli doesn’t like circuses.  Jen doesn’t like renaissance fairs.  Robin loves glass sculptures.  Kevin shakes hands with a dolphin.  Bryan buys a plush toy for his son.  Mike preens for the camera.
  
• Jen is frazzled.
• Eli’s soup tastes good.  Pulverized popcorn not so hot.  Nigella almost spits it out.
• Robin’s shattered glass sugar thingie doesn’t work.  She finally goes.
• “Like most people who come to Vegas, he has gambled and lost.” Oh, please, really, Toby?
• Michael wins a magnum of wine and a trip to a winery in Napa Valley–foreshadowing the finale.
  
• Bocuse d’Or–the biggest, biggest deal ever thrown into Top Chef
• THOMAS KELLER!!!
• Our man Eli goes gracefully.  Kevin wins and gets to be on the American team for Bocuse d’Or.

We said early on that Eli was the ZenKimchi favorite, given his close connection to the ZenKimchi brothers. His exit at 5th place was one of the most graceful eliminations I have ever seen. He left with honor. Robin, who finally got eliminated before him, may have been the most despised contestant despite not being an asshole. She was a very nice lady. A very nice chatty, chatty lady. She was this season’s cougar. In season 5, cougar Ariane was a favorite–starting out badly then proving herself before finishing her run. Robin was just the opposite. She won early on, as in the first quickfire challenge. But the more we saw of her cooking, the more we thought she belonged in the early seasons, not this one with all this talent. There were faster runners in the race, and she survived because they tripped when she didn’t. Her final episode was another poignant one, in which she tried to push her signature simple comfort food to the level of the Voltaggios and shattered like stained sugar glass (which was what did her in).

Eli almost went down in this episode, where the chefs had to create dishes inspired by different casinos. Eli had the unfortunate pick of a circus themed place. He made a soup that Michael himself said tasted good, but something happened in the presentation. Maybe it was the pulverized popcorn. I’ve noticed that popcorn garnish is the kiss of death on the show. But it looked like it had the texture of snot, no matter how good it tasted. On the bright side, Eli won the room service quickfire with his Eggs Benedict with Thousand Island Hollandaise.

He got his on what had to be the most grueling challenge ever on the show–make a dish worthy of the Bocuse d’Or worldwide culinary competition.  Can’t even wrap my mind around how to even start doing that challenge.  He went admirably.

Eli kept his cool in his elimination and didn’t trash talk (a first). We in the ZenKimchi household were proud.

Eli’s departure left Jennifer (Eric Ripert’s protege, who has a pre-Top Chef cameo in his book On the Line), Bryan and Michael Voltaggio and Kevin and his beard.  Kevin was the last Atlanta chef in the competition and the crowd favorite, so really, the whole world was rooting for him.  Michael lost points for committing the sacrilege of trash talking Kevin.  Bryan was making himself look better and less robotic by exercising the use of the muscles in the upper half of his face.  He came across as the most professional of the bunch and the guy who could really lead not only a kitchen but a multi-national corporation.

Cut to the finale, which is filmed almost six months after the previous episode.  Hairstyles and clothes change.  Michael upgrades his Blue Steel with a leather jacket.  Kevin puts pancake syrup in his hair.  Jen’s looking hotter and less frazzled.  Bryan had an oil change.

The finale was in Napa Valley–great autumnal location.  The final quickfire was cooking on a moving train.  The winner got a car.  Jen really wanted the car the most, it sounded like, but Michael won it.

The elimination challenge challenged the chefs to create dishes using local ingredients–as in, local to the Napa Valley.  You might as well have done the challenge in the Garden of Eden.  The food created for this challenged honestly looked better than the food made in the finale.  Then again, I believe that the last five chefs could have taken on most of the winners of previous seasons.

And this lets my ADD take over and think about certain patterns in the show.  If you really want a recap, there are other websites–and you can also watch the show.  Let’s assume you know what happens.  Here are some things that I’ve either noticed or just bug me.

The finale is not a finale.  There is no such thing as a two-part finale.  It’s an extension that seems to be getting drawn out more each season.  Originally, the finale involved only two contestants.  But then Dale proved to be such a favorite in season 3 that they changed the rules to do a three-way finale.  I thought it would be a one time thing but then it became canon.  There have been three-way finales for all the seasons since.

Also, I’ve noticed that after season 3, the dishes before the finale looked better than the dishes cooked for the finale.

But here’s the big one.  Okay, Top Chef fans.  After season 3’s winner Hung, name the winners of seasons 4 and 5.

You had to think about it, huh?

I bet you that Richard Blais, Fabio and “Hootie Hoo” Carla came to mind first.  Hey, they weren’t the winners.  But they were much more memorable than Stephanie (ah, remember her) and Hosea.  No, the German/Swedish/Austrian guy didn’t win season 5.  It was the guy who was caught making out with one of the contestants.

But the thing is, winning the title “Top Chef” doesn’t seem to be all that anymore.  It’s more significant to make it to the top five and stamp a good impression on the audience.  That’s why Richard Blais keeps returning to the show and blogging on the Bravo site.  That’s why Fabio hosted the Top Chef reunion dinner and has his own web cooking show on the Top Chef web site.

And that’s why people will think that Kevin won Top Chef.  He is a guy who captured the imaginations of the viewers.  His food wasn’t nearly as pretty as Michael’s, but that’s what made it more enticing.  The reactions of the judges to his food kept us wondering what kind of bacon crack he was putting into his food that we couldn’t see.  His “aw shucks” humility–note that he was one of few contestants who didn’t talk trash or self aggrandize–got the true Top Chef viewers.

We’re still thinking Bravo and the producers haven’t figured out that the Top Chef audience is different from other reality TV show watchers.  The people who watch Top Chef are more likely to spend their time watching the Discovery Channel and drive with NPR in their presets.  They see through the usual manipulations.  Even before the first episode we all (as in the foodie community) predicted that the Voltaggio Bros.  would be in the finale.  Top Chef viewers aren’t interested in the fake drama–like make out sessions, petty bickering amplified with music to create tension that wasn’t really there, even the attempted shaving of Marcel’s head in season 2 was not that interesting.

We want the food.  We want to see the techniques.

It’s kinda funny that Marcel’s molecular gastronomy tricks in season 2 were scoffed at, but they’re normal now, post-Blais.  People thought Marcel wasn’t a real chef because he complained about not having an immersion circulator.  This season there was rarely an episode without the immersion circulator in use, without someone turning the kitchen into Dagobah with liquid nitrogen, without someone creating a fake skin on a liquid.  The closest we got to criticizing was guest judge/busty restaurateur Donatella Arpaia claiming that some of Michael’s finale repertoire was just gimmicks (I think she’s a fan of ZenKimchi).

Now it’s time to start thinking about season 7.  Right now, the location is what’s being debated.  They won’t start auditioning contestants until February or March for the shooting that starts in April.  With the exception of season 1, I’ve noticed that the main episodes take place in melting pot cities while the finales are in places with distinct regional styles.  Take a look.

Season 1 — San Francisco, finale in Las Vegas (the exception)

Season 2 — Los Angeles, finale in Hawaii

Season 3 — Miami, finale in Aspen, Colorado (took advantage of the western style)

Season 4 — Chicago, finale in Puerto Rico

Season 5 — New York City, finale in New Orleans

Season 6 — Las Vegas, finale in Napa Valley

Speculation is that the next season will be in Philadelphia, DC or even in London.  London would be GREAT.  My bet is DC.  They may do the finale in London.  We’ll know when Top Chef has gone as far as it can go when they do a season in Paris with a finale in Tokyo.

What are your thoughts?

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Tags: top chef