Top Chef – All Stars Dinner

Reunion time! Bravo asked Fabio Viviana (previous season fan favorite) to host a dinner at Social for 11 of previous chefs from Top Chef. Not only do we get the great normal entertainment provided by Top Chef, but we get to reminisce with previous contestants… some memories and complaints should be flying around the dinner table.

The previous chefs that will be joining Fabio are Richard Blais (season 4), Harold Dieterle (season 1), Dale Levitski (sseason 3), Tiffani Faison (season 1), Ilan Hall (season 2), Marcel Vigneron (season 2), Casey Thompson (season 3), Lisa Fernandes (season 4), Carla (season 5), Hung Huynh (season3), and Stefan Richter (season 5).

After a little reminiscing about previous episodes and whose is doing what, Fabio pulls out the knife block. 5 knives, 5 seasons. The knives are numbered, with each knife representing the course they’ll be serving. The teams each get $500 to work with.

After shopping, the cooking begins. All the chefs seem to have a good time getting back into the kitchen.
During commercial we get to see some unseen footage when the judge tells Marcel to shut up during one of the judges table. Marcel fires back when some choice words and ends up walking out after Gail has to put in some comment telling Marcel to calm down. Good for Marcel; the judges were being some a-holes in my opinion, but good old Marcel is always quick to get hot headed too.

Back to the reunion dinner and dinner gets served. As expected, the old memories and squabbles come out of the woodwork. More old videos are shown after Fabio and the others discuss the unfair judging that most of them received at one point or another. I agree with them; a good portion of the judging is harsh, but that’s the entertainment factor.

Fabio does more prying into previous hot topics, one of them being Marcel. Fabio’s doing what Bravo wanted, but I felt like I was watching the animated cartoon where someone keeps poking someone with a stick. Poke, poke, poke. Enough with Marcel already. Fabio starts in with the head shaving incident that got Cliff kicked off. He asked Marcel if he felt like a victim… Of course he was Fabio. He was the victim of a prank that went wrong and then it didn’t stop when it should have. I’m really surprised Marcel keeps coming around to these reunions.

Now that this reunion episode of Top Chef is almost over, I’m kind of disappointed with it. What could have been an interesting simple competition between previous contestants has turned into an unnecessary history of previous seasons. I think Harold kind of agrees as he’s saying “let’s talk about something positive.” With that, the show comes to somewhat of an abrupt ending.