When Top Chef returns to Bravo this week for its 21st (!) season, fans should expect some pretty big changes—and we’re not just talking about the departure of Padma Lakshmi, who left the reality competition series last year.
Top Chef season 21 premieres on March 20, sending a new batch of competing chefs to a new city with a new host and a new format. Sort of. The most significant change to the long-running reality series is, of course, the absence of Padma Lakshmi, who exited Top Chef after 19 seasons. As Lakshmi explained last summer, she wanted to prioritize her food and travel series, Taste the Nation, which has so far aired two seasons and a series of holiday episodes on Hulu.
Replacing Lakshmi is former Top Chef winner Kristen Kish, a celebrated chef and restaurant owner who has plenty of experience on television: Kish co-hosted Netflix’s Iron Chef revival and is one of three chefs featured in TruTV’s cooking competition series Fast Foodies. Kish is a Top Chef fave for a reason; she’s super charismatic and generally fun to watch.
Top Chef is heading to Wisconsin for season 21, which features 15 chefs from across the U.S. competing in the dairy capital. The new host is one of a few changes coming to the series this year: First and foremost, the winner(s) of each week’s Quickfire Challenge will now win cash instead of immunity from the next elimination. The chef who wins the Elimination Challenge will receive immunity from being cut in the next episode’s elimination round.
The last big change might be the most controversial: Top Chef episodes have been extended by about 30 minutes, with each episode clocking in at around 75 minutes. Bravo did the same thing with Project Runway, which launched with expanded episodes in season 8. That’s not an insignificant time commitment for viewers, and it’s also not clear how Top Chef will make use of this extra time.
(featured image: Bravo)
