Top Chef

15 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Chances of Getting Cast on Top Chef Season 11

Padma's not sure about this.
Padma’s not sure about this. Photo: David Giesbrecht/Bravo

Pack your knives and stay: The Bravo show will come back for at least one more season, Deadline reports, which means more tempers, more Tom, more Padma, and, hopefully for all of us here at Grub Street, more Rees. No word on where the next Top Chef will take place, but casting begins next week in Austin. The details — including open calls in L.A., Chicago, Brooklyn, Vegas, and Miami — are here, but if you haven’t been working on your mother sauces since the fall and you aren’t currently a junior sous-chef at an enormous Asian fusion restaurant, what can you do to improve your chances of getting onboard the S.S. Watch What Happens?


1. Grow a beard.

2. Become very conflict-oriented. See how many fights you can start in a crowded bar.

3. Tell anyone who will listen that you’re going to be “bigger than Eddie Huang.”

4. Have at least one annoying hobby, like ukulele or knitting fair-trade toe socks.

5. Whenever you’re introduced to someone new, practice raising your eyebrows and make a nervous side comment that he or she “really knows flavors.”

6. Brush your teeth. Floss.

7. Embellish a sufficiently edgy criminal record. (Arson is fine if no one was hurt.)

8. Don’t watch any previous seasons of Top Chef, if you can avoid it. It’ll just confuse you.

9. Whenever your significant other cooks for you, firmly tell them it looks like shit and has to be re-plated. When he or she protests, tell them, “We don’t have time for this.”

10. Do indie porn, preferably homesteader-themed stuff.

11. Know your culinary influences, but make sure to put yourself near the top of this list.

12. Your grandma better know your agreed-upon and heartwarming backstory inside and out.

13. Tell your dog, “I’m not here to make friends.” You know, for practice.

14. Learn how to cook just well enough to fake it on TV.

15. As a contingency, cook something for Don King before the audition.


Casting [Bravo]
Bravo’s ‘Top Chef’ Renewed For Season 11 [Deadline]

15 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Chances of Getting Cast on Top