16 surprising things you didn't know about 'Top Chef'

Padma Lakshmi has hosted "Top Chef" since its second season, but long before her Bravo kitchen debut, she played a supporting role in the cult-classic, Mariah Carey film "Glitter."

She played Sylk, a pop star whose terrible voice is dubbed over by Carey's character Billie.

According to an Entertainment Weekly interview with Lakshmi, judge Gail Simmons, and guest-judge Eric Ripert, Bravo insists that Lakshmi wears an earpiece on-air so that they can feed her dialogue with "legally approved" information about the challenges.

Lakshmi has said she gains about 10 to 17 pounds each season — partially because her job requires her to taste all "cheftestant"-prepared dishes during filming,

During past seasons, Lakshmi said that she took calculated steps to lose the weight before appearing at the Emmys.

However, she recently told The Hollywood Reporter that she no longer intends to invest significant energy into whittling her figure down in time for the award show, citing her young daughter as a source of inspiration.

"This year, I've decided my weight will not be my focus. If I need a bigger dress, so be it. That one day — or any day — on the red carpet isn't nearly as important as making sure my daughter doesn't measure her worth by her dress size," Lakshmi said.

If a prospective "Top Chef" contestant wants to make a strong showing during the competition, they need to display major culinary chops, remarkable creativity, and a superhuman level of endurance to carry them through each round.

According to past contestant Shirley Chung and season-14 winner Brooke Williamson, these trials require enormous stamina, so getting yourself in shape is among the most important ways to prepare.

Chung told Delish in 2017 that she increased her weekly gym sessions from three to six, and Williamson became a SoulCycle devotee in the months leading up to the show.

After making it to the final four during the inaugural "Top Chef" season, Lee Anne Wong decided to take her knowledge of the show and try a new career as the show's supervising culinary producer.

On seasons two through seven, Wong used her insider understanding of the contestant experience to develop the show's challenges, source and style ingredients, and help set budgets and time limits.

According to Food and Wine, when Wong returned in 2018 for "Top Chef" season 15, she was the first chef to compete while pregnant.

However, the season took place in Colorado, and Wong chose to leave the competition early on due to altitude sickness.

The "Top Chef" molecular-gastronomy whiz kid and "Top Chef: All-Stars"-winner Richard Blais has an illustrious fine-dining pedigree, including training from Thomas Keller at The French Laundry.

But Blais started his culinary journey at a much more casual establishment: McDonald's.

His bio on Food Network reads, "He began his career, as so many young aspiring chefs do, as the 'poissonier' at McDonald's. It was here where he first dabbled in deconstruction in cuisine, serving Filet-O-Fish sandwiches sans top bun."

"Top Chef" regularly makes use of the unique atmospheres of its host regions, setting challenges in local restaurants and markets and inviting hometown-hero chefs to serve time on the judging panel.

When it came time to choose a location for season 16, "Top Chef" producers wanted to select an area with a reputation as a culinary "underdog."

Contrasting high-profile foodie towns like New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans, season 16's action takes place in Kentucky — a state famous for its bourbon production, but slightly less renowned for its restaurant scene.

"Location is such an important part of every season ... One of the things [that] has kept the show feeling fresh over many, many seasons now — 16 seasons — is that every season there's a different place to tap into the food culture and history," director-producer Dan Cutforth told Bravo TV about the decision. "So we try and think about that. We try to think about, first of all, places we haven't been, stories we haven't told."

During the 2010 Entertainment Weekly interview, Ripert said that the worst thing he had eaten on the show so far — hands down — was Ilan Hall's chocolate ganache with chicken liver on season two.

Lakshmi agreed with the choice saying, "It had a rubbery, spring action, and we had to eat it. That's the thing about our jobs."

Even though it only takes up a few minutes of each episode, the "Top Chef" judges' tables can take up to eight hours.

Lakshmi and Ripert told Entertainment Weekly that one season-three finale lasted until about 4 a.m.

"If we can't make a decision, the producers will sit us there," she said. "It's like detention."

Ripert added, "It's really great TV because at 5 a.m. you truly say what you mean."

According to the Entertainment Weekly interview with Lakshmi, Ripert, and Simmons, when the competition was too close to call on the first few seasons, they sometimes turned to their unofficial fifth judge.

A camera operator who they called "T-Bone" was responsible for getting all the still-life shots of the contestants' dishes, and since he always tried them afterward, the judges would sometimes ask for his opinion.

The seasons of "Top Chef" are set in different cities across the US, and the contestants are provided housing throughout filming.

They are also subject to the network's rules about external communication while they're there.

According to the 2017 Delish interview with Chung and Williamson, the show's producers inspect all of the contestants' luggage and confiscate any phones, laptops, or anything that could give them internet access.

The rules are put in place so that the contestants can't contact the outside world or look up recipes during the competition. They aren't even allowed to bring any cookbooks with them.

The chefs on "Top Chef" are surrounding by incredible food, but Williamson told Delish that she and the other contestants had terrible diets the whole time they were filming.

By the time they were done for the day, the last thing they wanted to do was cook a quality meal for themselves.

"We ate like s--- for seven weeks," she said. "I lived on Cup of Noodles. I had a Cup of Noodles a day for about a month."

During the interview, Chung also shared that she resorted to packing a banana every day.

"I had to, because I knew that if I didn't and got hungry, our choices would be Cheetos, and baked Sun Chips, Doritos, and fruit snacks," she said.

Head judge Tom Colicchio told the HuffPost Live in 2014 that he doesn't mind when the contestants talk back after receiving criticism on their dish.

"As far as talking back, I really don't care at all if they talk back. I mean, it's actually fun, and I'd rather they fight for themselves," he said. "I'd rather them say, 'you know what? You're wrong.'"

Eric Adjepong, Sara Bradley, and Kelsey Barnard Clark were the three finalists on season 16 of "Top Chef."

In a 2019 interview with Eater, they all agreed that the meat challenge — where the chefs were randomly assigned different cuts of meat that they had to break down from a side of beef — was the hardest of the whole season.

"Time is always against us in every challenge, but time was definitely not on our side that time. And I just wish we had a little bit more time to show as much respect to the animal as possible," Adjepong said.

"The meat challenge was horrible — I'll say it. Beef is something that I work with all the time, every day," Bradly agreed. " ... We didn't do it justice."

"Top Chef" is an expensive show to run, so naturally they have to supplement some of that cost with ad revenue. Additionally, as the show grew in popularity, more brands wanted to get their products featured on the show.

Lakshmi spoke about the "crappy" aspects of her job in regards to product promotion during a 2013 roundtable with The Hollywood Reporter.

"With advertising, you know for us it's a very expensive show to do," she said. "... And I'm the one on-air who gets, I don't want to say saddled or slammed with the crappy part of it, but I feel that I do ... I wind up saying the brand name in my introduction of the challenge to these chefs and it's never 'Get in your car' it's 'Get in your blah blah blah car.'"

She added, "I have to make that s--- sound natural, and it's hard."

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