Top Chef's Tom Colicchio on life at the top of the food chain

When Top Chef premiered on Bravo in March 2006, few viewers would have recognized the show's bald and blue-eyed head judge, Tom Colicchio. Though he was already a big star in New York's food community, leading Danny Meyer's Gramercy Tavern and his own Craft to coveted three-star reviews in the New York Times, Colicchio was still a chef, someone who spent most of his time in the kitchen, not mugging for the camera. But the past year has changed all that for Colicchio, whose opinions always overpower the more delicate temperaments of his fellow judges. To Colicchio, a dish isn't mediocre, but boring, not bad, but terrible. He may be in good spirits tonight, though, when the third-season finale of the reality cooking competition airs on the heels of his newest restaurant opening, an offshoot of Craft in Los Angeles. Radar caught up with Colicchio to talk haute cuisine, Top Chef contestants past, and how he thinks he'd fare in a reality TV cook-off.

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RADAR: Do you feel more famous now that you're a TV star?
Colicchio: Definitely. TV reaches a lot more people than a restaurant can.

I'd also imagine that TV success fuels business in your restaurants.
People do come in. When we opened in Los Angeles, a woman caught my eye. I came by and said hi, and she said, "I had no idea you were an actual chef. I have so much more respect for you now!"

As a classically trained chef, does it bother you that people may come into your restaurant more for your celebrity than your food?
It doesn't bother me. However they get there is okay. To me, the popularity of restaurants came about in the '80s, when people realized they couldn't keep going out to clubs every night and they started to come to restaurants for entertainment.

Would you be entertaining as a contestant on Top Chef? How would you do on the show?
I think I would do fine when I was a lot younger. It takes a lot of stamina to do the show. Routinely, judging table lasts until four or five in the morning. It's a lot of hours. But when I was 26, I had a three-star restaurant from the New York Times, so I think I'd be okay.

Do you ever listen to the contestants' challenges and think you'd struggle with them?
It happens a lot. When you sit around and think about it, you think you could do it. But when you have 30 minutes to do something, they're just reacting as cooks and chefs.

Yet sometimes you seem less than sympathetic when you visit contestants as they're cooking. Are you trying to undermine or intimidate them?
Here's the thing that's very subtle: I'm not allowed to give them direction. My role is very different than Tim Gunn's. I'm judging them. So I can ask questions. I can ask leading questions if I want, as long as they're questions. Some people pick up on it and some don't. I might say, "You're braising when you only have two hours. Do you think you'll have time for that?"

Do you ever think it can come off as smug?
That may be the editing.

Did you try to clue C.J. in that his broccoli wasn't going to work? [Colicchio called the dish the worst food made on Top Chef in all three seasons.]
That one, no. When someone says they're doing broccoli, okay, fine. It's not a matter of what they're doing, but how they do it. He took the lid off the container when it went in the oven, and it dried. With most cases, it's not what they make, it's how.

Bravo Photo/Glenn Watson

If that was the worst dish you've had on the show, what was the best?
First-season finale. Tiffani did a dish that was an artichoke risotto–like dish with braised pork belly. It always sticks in my mind as the best thing we've had. You know, she did twice the number of dishes as Harold. I think had she just done the five, she probably would have won.

Contestants usually fail on the show when they try duets. Why don't they stop making them?
We've given the message at judges' table time and time again. It just doesn't sink in. I don't know why. I understand the desire to do more and to wow someone, but you have to pull it off. It's hard to do. And I think the contestants forget about that. They forget about it in their desire to do the best they can do. If they had the chance to refine these dishes, some of these ideas are really great.
You're trying to be the guy with the fastest knife skills, or the guy who could run the station by himself. You want that recognition. If you have a kitchen with 20 people and you're not the best, are you going to be a great chef? I don't know.

Is it fair to judge then, since in real life they'd have more time to perfect a dish?
Yes, because it's a competition. We're judging them against each other. They're all working with the same time. And in a restaurant, there's a limit to how long people will wait for their food, so you're under time pressure.

Some people have said that Top Chef is inspiring a new style of food. What do you think?
I don't think that's true. I haven't had too many dishes that I haven't seen somewhere else. There's not a whole lot new out there, with the exception of some molecular gastronomy stuff going on. But even that, you start to see patterns. I don't think it's become its own style. Style doesn't happen that way. It happens with an individual. You do start seeing patterns within an individual chef. But I don't think Top Chef has become a style.

Have you ever listened to a challenge and, based on the ingredients, known exactly what kind of dish would win it?
It's not about picking three things and saying, "That's what I'd do and that's the winning dish." Even with restaurants, it's not about the menu. Anyone can go download the menu of the French Laundry and put it in your window. It doesn't mean you're the French Laundry. It's about executing the idea. You can have this great idea, but if it's lousy to taste, you're not going to win.

How would you do cooking on the show, say, in a showdown between [season one winner] Harold Dieterle, [season two winner] Ilan Hall, and whoever wins season three against you, [co-judge] Gail Simmons, and [co-judge] Ted Allen?
I don't know how to handicap that one. I wouldn't back down from that, but I don't think it's going to happen. You know what? Ask [season two chef] Sam [Talbot] that question. He and I cooked together in a challenge in South Carolina.

How did it go?
We did just fine. I can hold my own against any of these guys. I'm not too concerned.

Is that sense of competition natural among chefs?
Coming up, you're trying to be the guy with the fastest knife skills, or the guy who could run the station by himself. You want that recognition. If you have a kitchen of 20 people, if you're not the best, are you going to be a great chef? I don't know.

Does that competitiveness disappear now that your role is that of a judge?
No. I'm a chef. I'm a restaurateur. I don't view myself as a TV guy. Going to the Emmys pushed me in that direction, but I'm a chef in a restaurant and I love what I do. My thoughts most of the day are about the restaurants and how to make them better, not the show.

Photos: Bravo Photo/Barbara Nitke, Getty Images/Kevin Winter

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