Andy DehnartHaving announced its new location long before production began, Top Chef 4 set itself up to be watched, and now is officially being stalked by the media. The Chicago Tribune’s Stew blog has offered the most information about the show and its challenges, starting with the very first challenge.
Most recently, the chefs worked the Meals on Wheels Chicago Celebrity Chef Ball on Friday night, and The Chicago Tribune reports that the production “was all so hush-hush; with the chef-testants sequestered away in their own kitchen area working up four different first courses for this dinner, courses the guests were asked to vote on. … But in another way it was truly TV-over-the-top, with cameras and boom microphones descending on tables — one guy held his camera like Desi Arnaz held a drum and lifted it vigorously up and down over the head of one hapless diner.” The paper praises the one group of people “who refused to sign releases to let themselves be filmed.”
Elsewhere, two Chicagoans who are contestants on the new show have been revealed: Stephanie Izard, who recently closed her restaurant Scylla, and Val Bolon, who “cooked at Spring, as well as HotChocolate, and was most recently a personal chef and part-time culinary instructor at Kendall College,” Time Out Chicago reports.
The blog Third Coast Toast aggregates information about the show from local media, and as a bonus, she also reads Bravo VP Andy Cohen’s blog, and filters out the relevant Top Chef 4 information so you don’t have to click through 1,251 pages of narcissism to find out what bar the show’s crew went to after the season three reunion show taping.
Private: Top Chef 4 gets an estrogen injection [Time Out Chicago]
Season 4 Contestants Continue to Sweat it Out in Chicago [Third Coast Toast]