Top Chef Quotes

#1. My chefs don't apply for 'Top Chef'. They all know that there is no way. At the end of the process I look at the resumes of the last 25 options just to make sure they've never worked for me before.

Tom Colicchio

#2. I'd like to see 'Top Chef: Amateur'. Sometimes we have an amateur chef on the show and they just can't cut it against the pros but there are some great stories there.

Tom Colicchio

#3. When you have a chef that wants to be in the spotlight, maybe after one or two appearances on a show, they think they're at a certain level that they haven't reached yet in the kitchen. Shows like 'Top Chef', 'Hell's Kitchen' have helped bring attention to the culinary world.

Geoffrey Zakarian

#4. I've been a model for 15 years, and I've been on 'Top Chef' for eight seasons, and before that I had other cooking shows, so I've learned a thing or two about how to camouflage certain areas and how to draw the eye to a preferable area of the body.

Padma Lakshmi

#5. Part of my job as a food writer is to describe food. So my work on 'Top Chef,' I feel, is an extension of that. When we give a criticism to the contestant, we want to make sure we tell them why it's not working and why it would work if they did it a different way.

Padma Lakshmi

#6. Many of them have accomplished a lot before they ever get to 'Top Chef' although they're not well known. The show just provides them with a platform. There's just one winner and on some seasons you can get numerous chefs that are really good. Even if they don't win, they're all talented.

Tom Colicchio

#7. I became friends with a lot of chefs. I was a judge on 'Top Chef' last year. It was a dream come true.

Joe Jonas

#8. Food is entertainment now. People tune into 'Top Chef,' and they're not trying to replicate the recipes. Anthony Bourdain is entertainment. Instagramming your dishes is entertainment.

David Sax

#9. I love 'Top Chef.' I think it rewrote the book on how food shows are presented on TV.

Andy Cohen

#10. Shows like 'Top Chef,' 'Hell's Kitchen' have helped bring attention to the culinary world on a whole, but you have to be cautious it doesn't get out of hand.

Geoffrey Zakarian

#11. It is great to add some glamour to the food industry, like television shows have done for the food world and inspiring people to work in the industry. The flip side of that is unfortunately people think that after they get their qualifications, they get their invitation to compete on 'Top Chef.'

Curtis Stone

#12. You can't really class all reality shows together. For instance, 'Top Chef' is about talent and competition. 'Big Brother' is more like what happens when you get all those narcissistic personalities crammed in together ... and there are limits to that.

Sienna Guillory

#13. I am so proud of 'Top Chef' - I think it's got great cred.

Andy Cohen

#14. Now everybody thinks that once you do Top Chef, then 13 weeks later you're a chef. Nobody wants to learn to cook anymore.

Wolfgang Puck

#15. I haven't fully moved over to the iPad. At any given time, I have about four DVDs in my pocket. I'm constantly screening 'Top Chef,' 'Housewives,' and all the other shows we have in development, racing to meet a deadline. So I pretty much bring my laptop everywhere.

Andy Cohen

#16. I love 'Top Chef.'

Monica Raymund

#17. There's the common misconception that restaurants make a lot of money. It's not true. If you look at maybe the top chef in the world, or at least monetarily, it's like Wolfgang Puck, but he makes as much money as an average crappy investment banker.

David Chang

#18. During the course of filming 'Top Chef,' I gain 15 lbs., so I'm used to needing two dress sizes.

Padma Lakshmi

#19. We are not really privy to all that crazy stuff that goes on in the show. I go to work, eat, and talk about food. The wild things happen when we aren't around. I expected Top Chef to last three or four seasons and we are now shooting season ten.

Tom Colicchio

#20. Bringing your kids into the kitchen doesn't require you to be a top chef; only time and maybe a willingness to get a little messy.

Michael Mina

#21. I'm obsessed with 'Top Chef'.

Kate Winslet

#22. I love 'Gossip Girl.' I used to hang out with Blake Lively and Jessica Szohr. I'm also addicted to Bravo and reality shows like 'Top Chef.'

Jessica Stroup

#23. Making ribs in Texas isn't that unusual a choice for 'Top Chef'. We played the stereotypes everywhere we go. It's not only in Texas. We do it in New York; we did it in San Francisco. Listen if we shoot it in Seattle you know we're going to be throwing salmon somewhere.

Tom Colicchio

#24. I swear, I didn't really go in thinking, 'I'll be the Simon Cowell' of 'Top Chef.' I was just used to being a judge on British food shows where people are much more outspoken and rather rude. That's the culture over here.

Toby Young

#25. I spend so much time in Los Angeles and normally stay at a corporate apartment when shooting 'Top Chef: Just Desserts,' but when I have the chance to stay somewhere more luxurious, I love The Montage in Beverly Hills.

Gail Simmons

#26. 'Top Chef' is a very smooth-running machine. All the people working there are incredibly professional and absolutely at the top of their game.

Toby Young

#27. For me, the food is most excited in ['Top Chef Mexico'], I get to try it all. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

Ana Claudia Talancon

#28. I've been nominated for 12 Emmys, and we won - for 'Top Chef' - the only time I didn't go.

Andy Cohen

#29. I have great empathy for all the contestants that come on 'Top Chef,' whether they go home right away or they make it to the finish line. It's a very vulnerable position they put themselves in and I feel for them.

Padma Lakshmi

#30. It's an interesting thing, Top Chef. Some of the contestants will make you one great dish, and then make you something on the next show that will make you say, "Is that the same person?"

Wolfgang Puck

#31. If your grandparents are Mexican, you can relate through the roots of the show [Top Chef], through the food, through the traditions and find yourself and get to know yourself too.

Ana Claudia Talancon

#32. I never go to Vancouver without stopping by Thomas Haas' shop for the best chocolate in North America. A former chef patissier at Daniel, he returned to his hometown and created a top quality brand by sticking to his passion.

Daniel Boulud

#33. It's a very naive idea to think that the chef is cooking everything, and, on top of it, is irreplaceable. That would mean that basically he is the only genius, and there are idiots all around him, which doesn't make sense.

Eric Ripert

#34. Chef Michel Richard is always at the top of his game.

Jose Andres