Padma Takes On Top Chef, Judging Secrets, and the Evolution of Food TV!!

Cooking competition shows are heating up this week as Padma Lakshmi’s new show (America’s Culinary Cup) takes on Top Chef. Adrienne and Joe debate which format will win out, and whether or not the Culinary Cup will capture our attention. In this episode, we discuss: The new ACC format and fine dining focus Judging vs competing: Which is more fun? The secrets of judging on food tv Would you rather: 30-minute quick fires vs doing a dish demo How cooking shows used to be (teach us something!) vs today’s style of TV Walk In Confession: Joe’s memories of competing on Iron Chef Follow the show: @chefscutpod Follow Adrienne: @chefadriennecheatham Follow Joe: @insta.flamm

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  This week on the chef's cut, we are going in on cooking competition shows. There are so many cooking competition shows now. Is the market too saturated? Is Padma's new show coming for Top Chef?

• 0:15Joe Flamm?

  Bigger money pot, going against the Top Chef empire.

• 0:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  And for a walking confession, we get a behind the scenes of Iron Chef from a baby Joe Flamm back in the day.

• 0:25Joe Flamm?

  And I never signed anything, so I don't care. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna fucking blow this up.

• 0:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  First, we need 10 seconds of your time. Please go back to rate and review this show wherever you are getting your podcasts. It really helps a lot and we appreciate all of your work to help keep the show going.

• 0:43Joe Flamm?

  We have America's Culinary Cup coming up. We have Padma.

• 0:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 0:48Joe Flamm?

  Who left Top Chef and now is launching. This seems to be, you know, she left, she did some other things, right? She wrote some books, she was doing, you know, Padma.

• 0:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  She had her show on PBS, yeah.

• 0:58Joe Flamm?

  Couple of different things, but now this is same format for the most part, launching on the same day.

• 1:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Hmm.

• 1:06Joe Flamm?

  Gathering a chef's bigger money pot, going against the Top Chef empire of Tom. So it's like, who's Brady, who's Bill Check? It's like, this is, I feel like we're gonna find out.

• 1:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, Padma is like, in one way, it's like Padma built Top Chef, but now she's like coming for Top Chef. It's like, ooh.

• 1:26Joe Flamm?

  That's what I'm saying. This is, this is early 2000s Patriots drama.

• 1:32Joe Flamm?

  I love it.

• 1:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, okay, sports, I get it. I'm, I'm, yeah, I totally know the sports references.

• 1:37Joe Flamm?

  And I think, cause it's like, okay, Padma left, Top Chef has kept coming. Kristen Kish comes in, phenomenal job, she's crushing it.

• 1:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 1:45Joe Flamm?

  You got a new season coming out, we got North Carolina coming up, right?

• 1:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 1:49Joe Flamm?

  Stack list of chefs on there. I know there's some people, I think, on that list that you know for sure. Some friends of mine on that list, we got a Chicago, old Chicagoan, I know, secret bear is out on there. And then there's a couple of kids who are out of Michigan now, who are like a husband, wife combo. Um, who they were in Chicago before that. I know that. But again, they, you know, Top Chef always gets a great list, always gets a

• 2:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 2:12Joe Flamm?

  massive mix of people on there from all over of all levels, really, really talented group.

• 2:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  And Padma Show is looking like it's leaning more towards heavily established fine dining chefs. So it's a little bit different in the way that where Top Chef has a lot of diversity in the types of cuisines and styles that the chefs cook. It looks like America's culinary cup. It's like they've got Phil Tessier, Boudalow is coming back for the competition. Like, you know, and all there's so many other people, obviously, but those two like definitely stood out.

• 2:41Joe Flamm?

  Right. I think it's interesting because you have those big names like Boudalow is probably the biggest like, you know, for lack of a better word, maybe like commercial name on there.

• 2:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  That people, yeah, people know.

• 2:51Joe Flamm?

  That people know, but like Katie Button's a big name. Katie Button's a really big name, I think, in, you know, I mean, the food space as well. But then you have like, you know, Phil Tessier is one new name where it's like, I don't think a lot of people know who Phil Tessier is if you ask somebody on the street. But like chef wise, you know, that dude.

• 3:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  He's a legend.

• 3:11Joe Flamm?

  He won but Cousteau.

• 3:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is like insane. Like you, you people need to Google that. It is insane.

• 3:16Joe Flamm?

  Right. So like, and then you have a bunch and then everybody else in there is hitters, right? It's all hitters. It's all, you know, like.

• 3:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  Emily Ewan, Beverly Kim.

• 3:25Joe Flamm?

  Oh, yeah. Beverly Kibbs is there who's, you know, incredible. Diatta from Chicago, from Mito Kaya is a phenomenal chef. Chris Morgan, I don't know if you know him, he was the opening chef at Maydan.

• 3:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, nice.

• 3:39Joe Flamm?

  And he worked at, God, he worked at like the Dabney before that. And

• 3:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 3:42Joe Flamm?

  He's, he's a monster chef. Like, it's a list of like, like hitters on hitters. Very serious, but very, it does seem very fine dining. And I think you see them, the judges too, right? Where they brought in.

• 3:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 3:56Joe Flamm?

  You know, Wiley Frayne, who.

• 3:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  And Michael Simarusi, right?

• 4:00Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, Simarusi, who are like pinnacles of fine dining, kind of of like, I feel like that like 2010 era.

• 4:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, like these were legends.

• 4:09Joe Flamm?

  They're both still doing it. They're both still super successful, but I feel like that like

• 4:12Adrienne Cheatham?

  They were like, growing up in restaurants, those were like, constant names you're hearing about.

• 4:16Joe Flamm?

  And like that golden era of molecular gastronomy, especially with Wiley, right?

• 4:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 4:21Joe Flamm?

  With like WD-50.

• 4:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, pre-Olinea, Wiley Dufresne was like, the only one really in the US, kinda, from what I remember hearing, coming up as a cook. Like, I remember always hearing about him, and then you started to see it enter other markets, like Chicago, West Coast, but Wiley Dufresne kinda kicked it off with WD-50.

• 4:41Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I remember, you just hear stories about it. This is, you know, pre-Instagram, pre-all these things. So like, before his cookbook came out, you just hear stories about the crazy stuff they were doing. I think it's really interesting where it's like, so it's positioned super similar. I know I sent you the clip yesterday, but it's like, they're showing the kitchen, and the kitchen looks like a similar layout, right? It looks a lot like our Colorado kitchen, where it's like, it's got the wood-fired oven, and it's got the ovens, and it's got the stations, and the pantries, and it's like-

• 5:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  The difference, you know what? I noticed the big difference, though. They trade, instead of like stainless steel, it's like white surfaces, which is like, it just looks diff- It's like, more fine dining kitchen, because it's like, oh, you better work real clean, because that's not a stainless steel countertop.

• 5:24Joe Flamm?

  You better work tight.

• 5:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  Everything's gonna show.

• 5:26Joe Flamm?

  But I think like, that's interesting. And I think, you know, Top Chef go to North Carolina. I think North Carolina, you know, that's not a place I know a ton about. And, you know, it's like, maybe I did go there this year? I can't say as of yet. But I think it's a cool landscape of like, you have coast, you have mountains, you're on the tip of Appalachia and Low Country cuisine. So like, I think that is one of the really, really cool things about Top Chef, is that the seasons, you know, are so impacted by geographically where they are.

• 5:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. And that's so cool, because we get to see it, and we get to know some of the like culinary influences of that area. We get to see the chefs interacting with that environment, and the influence that it has. And I wonder, I don't know how it's gonna go on Padma's new show, but it, I'm wondering if there, if every challenge is within the kitchen, because it does seem like it is a little bit more contained, because, okay, I have a confession.

• 6:23Adrienne Cheatham?

  I may or may not have been contacted about applying to be on America's Culinary Cup when they were, when they were corralling chefs for it.

• 6:34Joe Flamm?

  You, you, you declined the offer?

• 6:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  I mean, I have a job. Like, I can't, if I had a restaurant, that's the difference between doing private work and being in a restaurant. In a restaurant, it's hard enough, right? You have to shift people around to be able to cover you if you need to go away for a while, which is already hard. But as, you know, a person who's doing private work with a client, I have to be on call. I may not cook every day during that two-month period, but I'm on salary to be on call when this person is in New York. So I have, I can't say I'm going away for two months while I'm being paid.

• 7:13Joe Flamm?

  You also don't have a team. So it's like, you know, if I'm leaving, it's like, you know, it might cost me more money to leave because I'm gonna have to hire extra bodies to cover the fact that I'm not there to cover whatever I need to cover. But I have people on people, right?

• 7:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 7:28Joe Flamm?

  And so I think like, that's the advantage of restaurant, is you have teams.

• 7:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  You know, it's, it's so different.

• 7:33Joe Flamm?

  If you're not there, nobody's there.

• 7:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  Exactly. It's like, a couple of days, no problem. I can prep the food and have it. I can leave instructions for one of the staff to like, heat up or serve or all that stuff. If it's, you know, just one or two people. But if, you know, if somebody's having four-course dinner for 15 people while I'm out of town, that's a big problem. And like, I can't, you know, I can't sacrifice my job to go do a television show for two months. And then it's also kind of like what Nina Compton said. You're like, I already came in second once. Like, what if I do another show? And I like shit the bed on the first challenge? That would be wildly embarrassing. And I can get over that, but it is the fact that like, I'm accountable for my time

• 8:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  that I'm paid for. So I can't just roll out.

• 8:21Joe Flamm?

  As somebody who just went on another show and lost on the first challenge, um, you know, I, I can speak to. Uh, this a little bit.

• 8:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Can you tell us the show?

• 8:32Joe Flamm?

  Uh, it was when I was just on Tournament of Champions.

• 8:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 8:36Joe Flamm?

  You know, I went on. Yeah, and I lost on the first challenge. You know what I mean? The qualifier against my good friend Dan Jacobs. But that's a different field. It's a different field than Top Chef. You know what I mean? Where it's like Top Chef that way it felt a lot heavier of like, oh, my God, what if I go home first? It felt like there was a, like, kind of a, you know, a, what's it called to it? You know what I mean? A stigma.

• 8:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  A stigma?

• 8:57Joe Flamm?

  A stigma of being like first out there where it's like Tournament of Champions. It feels different. It's a little bit more lighthearted. It's a little bit more fun. You know, you got like the randomizer and so it's like a little bit more, you know, tongue in cheek, right?

• 9:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  And also, okay, talk all the, all the, it's okay that you want to, but also you already won Top Chef. So it's a little bit, there's less of a stigma if you go out first because you've already won a show. And also doing Top Chef was, I mean, for me at least, it was my first time doing a cooking competition show. So going out early, you know, it's like, that's, that's the tone you set for your career almost. Versus something like Tournament of Champions where everybody's established.

• 9:36Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, I guess that's a really good point. You know what I mean? It is like a lot easier to be like, oh, well, I've won before. So it's like, I can, you know what I mean? Feel a little better about it, but it's still hard. You know what I mean? You still feel like, you know, cause like especially, you know how it is. Like we've been on a competition show together and once you go on, everybody's like, you win, you win, you win. Oh, I bet you won. I bet you won. And it's like, no, dude, I got cooked in the first round and I was there for a day. And like, I had a great time and I would absolutely do it again. I had a lot of fun doing it. And I was, you know, feeling all those nerves going into it, like you just talked about, like, what if I go and I just lose right away? Will that be like so embarrassing for me?

• 10:13Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 10:13Joe Flamm?

  Of like the last time I'm on TV, I'm winning Top Chef and now the next time I'm on TV, I'm going home in a qualifier.

• 10:20Joe Flamm?

  But you you know what, like, this is gonna be like, this is like cheesy, but what helped me like, really kind of wrap my head around it and like, keeps me lighthearted and I'm like, how can I go? And I sit here and one of the things that's like, now that I have kids, it's like, have to talk to my kids about like, you know, like when they lose like a basketball game and be like, like, you know, and they're super upset and they're mad. And I'm like, dude, like, hey, like, come on, like, it's a game.

• 10:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 10:43Joe Flamm?

  Like, you know, don't let this, like, what are you doing? Like, don't like, you know, crash out because you like, lost a game. And then it's like, you know, I'm like, telling a seven year old this and expecting them to be able to regulate their emotions. And then I'm going on some silly TV show and be like, oh, no, I'm gonna crash out because I lost and like, not want to watch it and like,

• 11:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  You're like, I have to set a good example for the kids.

• 11:03Joe Flamm?

  But it's like, but that's how you feel when you're in that situation. You know what I mean? Like, you feel that, like, you know, frustration, that shade, that whatever. So I think that's helped me give me some perspective. But I think like, this is, you know, this show's a brand new show. You know, it's the biggest purse that's ever been out there.

• 11:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes, a million dollars.

• 11:20Joe Flamm?

  Million bucks, that's.

• 11:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  Holy moly. What is Top Chef? Is it 250,000 now?

• 11:24Joe Flamm?

  I think it's 250 now.

• 11:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  How much was it when you won? Was it 100?

• 11:28Joe Flamm?

  125.

• 11:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay, so they're upping the prize there, but it's, that's not a million.

• 11:33Joe Flamm?

  It's not a million, dude. Millions.

• 11:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's, I mean, that's real talk. That's, I, when I heard the prize was a million, I was like, maybe I could risk it all for, because if I win this, even after paying taxes, I would have recouped my losses.

• 11:49Joe Flamm?

  Well, and I mean, like, you know, a friend of mine reached out, they were considering doing it. I was like, I mean, like, whatever, how many chefs are on it? 12?

• 12:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Something like that, yeah. I think it's 12.

• 12:03Joe Flamm?

  It's like, when else are you, when else are you gonna have an opportunity where you have better odds, one in 12, of winning a million dollars? You know what I mean? Like if I sold you that Lotto ticket, you'd buy it every day.

• 12:14Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, hell yeah.

• 12:15Joe Flamm?

  So I mean, like it's a tremendous opportunity, but it is a lot to put yourself out there. And like, I think, you know, people don't realize, you know, the massive time commitment these shows are, you know, where you're a couple of months stopping your life. Where TOC also isn't that massive of a time commitment. So it's like, that's, that's the other, like a lot more lighthearted.

• 12:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  With a lot of the shows now, what they do is if you get eliminated, you get to go home instead of having to stay sequestered. When we did Top Chef, if you went out first, second, third, whatever, you were still sequestered for that entire two month period. Yeah.

• 12:47Joe Flamm?

  We all went home the same day.

• 12:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Cause they didn't want people going home like, oh, you went out early because then people in your lives and in the restaurant community would know that you went out earlier, didn't win. So it was just like, nope, just send everybody back at the same time and nobody will.

• 13:02Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. And I think that's what they did with this one too, with, with, uh, with, with this new Padme show. But I think, you know, one of the interesting things to me about it, it's like Top Chef, I think is interesting because I felt like Top Chef was the first cooking show where you also had the reality portion of it. When we were on the show, they would say, oh, we're going to shoot morning reality or night reality, I think is what they called it.

• 13:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 13:27Joe Flamm?

  Remember? And like, they would come and just like film us at the house.

• 13:30Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. And I would just, I would just lock myself in a bedroom. Honestly, I was like, if I don't give you anything to work with, you don't have anything to work.

• 13:39Joe Flamm?

  But they had that portion of it. It wasn't just chefs cooking in the kitchen. There was, we were being at the house. We were getting up in the morning. We were being in cars on our way to things. You know, there's all these other parts to it. And I felt like that was the first show that ever did that.

• 13:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 13:52Joe Flamm?

  So I'm curious with the stuff, you know, hearing about this, this new show where they're like, we want, you know, the best chefs cooking the best food, right? It's like, so is that reality piece of it removed?

• 14:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, probably. I mean, that's a real wonder. Yeah.

• 14:07Joe Flamm?

  Like, because I haven't seen anything on that. Like, where are they living? Are they in hotels? Or is it just like, they cook, they go home, we don't see them when they go home? You know what I mean? It's just that classic format of a chopped or Tournament of Champions, where you see them cooking and you see them in an interview. And that's it.

• 14:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right.

• 14:23Joe Flamm?

  There's no, you know what I mean, extra

• 14:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  No reality side to it, yeah. Because like, I do remember when, when I got the call from one of the producers on the show, I was kind of hyped. First of all, I'm like, oh, wow, you guys thought of me? Like, that's dope. I would love to do the show. And then the more I got into the reality of going away for two months, I was like, I don't know if I can make this happen. But when they were talking me through the process, was really cool to hear that they were changing things up significantly from the way they did it on Top Chef. So I kind of saw it as like, Padma is coming for Top Chef, in a way, challenging the show, but also changing the paradigm a little bit, because they were saying, we really want to focus on the cooking.

• 15:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  You know, we're not going to stress people out with crazy challenges. You have to run a mile up a hill and then come down the hill in a shopping cart and then jump out and start cooking. Like, they weren't doing any of that. None of that. Nothing like fish in this pond and catch a trout and then you can go cook it. It was just like, cook the best food that you possibly can. And here's some, some parameters for the challenge. But it was just like, we want these chefs to make the best dishes that they can in whatever theme we give them. And they were challenging them in different ways on like, different styles of cuisine. So you have to be able to know a little pastry. You have to know other cultures' cuisines. You have to, pretty much all the things that you think of

• 15:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  for a well-rounded chef. What makes a well-rounded chef? Understanding of different techniques, understanding of different cuisines. All of that, they were trying to wrap up in this show and take away the stressful drama and just focus on the technique, which I thought was really cool. And I was like, I could thrive in that environment.

• 16:14Joe Flamm?

  I think that's really cool. And I think like, from a chef's perspective, we think that's really cool. But I think it's one of those things where it's like, you know, there's a ton of cooking shows out there, right? And there's a ton of cooking competition shows out there.

• 16:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 16:28Joe Flamm?

  I think they're hard to make, like really good ones. Like we've even seen, you know, like, you know, that relaunch of Iron Chef they brought back with Chris and Tish. You know what I mean? And they had monster names on that, you know, Netflix, it was going to be huge. And that thing just didn't catch. You know what I mean? For some reason, there's that one that just came out, Next Gen Chef. We'll see if that one comes back. You know, there's, uh,

• 16:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  Next Level Chef.

• 16:50Joe Flamm?

  There was another Bravo one, Around the World in 80 Plates. You know, there's been a million Top Chef spinoffs, you know, Top Chef amateurs that, you know what I mean? There was one season of that. Uh, the Top Chef Masters, which I think were the, the best.

• 17:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 17:05Joe Flamm?

  You know, from a chef perspective, but it's like, they must not have done well because they've never run them back. For me as a chef, like the greatest, the Top Chef Masters were the greatest parts of the Top Chef franchise. But I think for viewers, they must not have felt the same way. So I think there's an interesting dynamic for like, as chefs, what we want.

• 17:21Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 17:22Joe Flamm?

  So that'll be the interesting thing, I think, with this show is like, you and I here, it's all about the cooking. It's, we're like, oh, let's go, dude. You're gonna set me up. You're gonna give me a full armory. You're gonna give me a full everything. And I just gotta go toe to toe. Your best, my best. You know what I mean? Controlled conditions, everything we need. We're not in a food truck. We're not at, you know what I mean? 15,000 feet of elevation. And we're just gonna, you know what I mean? It's the, you know, I'm gonna point at the middle of the ring. You're gonna meet me there and we're gonna throw.

• 17:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right.

• 17:53Joe Flamm?

  We're gonna throw till the clock goes, right?

• 17:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Chefs are like, give me that all day. But viewers.

• 17:59Joe Flamm?

  But does that make a good show? Is what we're gonna see. And I think that's the most exciting part to me. It's like, is that gonna make a show that people are gonna be super into?

• 18:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  I also wonder, because there are so many cooking competition shows now, is the market too saturated? Why are cooking shows so popular? Like, I have so many questions about this in general. Like, when we were growing up and coming up, a lot of cooking shows were Paul Prudhomme in the kitchen, Rachael Ray, or

• 18:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yan Can Cook, Julia Child, Emerald, right? Like, all these chefs showcasing how to make something.

• 18:35Joe Flamm?

  Standing in a kitchen and they're making a dish every day. They were teaching you how to cook. Those were cooking shows. Cooking shows existed as like teaching you how to cook. And the only real competition show that was out there was like the OG Iron Chef, right?

• 18:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yes.

• 18:49Joe Flamm?

  And then, you know, it was like all like super dubbed Japanese. And then they started having American chefs there. And then Bobby Flay shows up and wins and skates on the cutting board. And then everybody hates Bobby Flay because he stood on a cutting board.

• 19:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  I remember that episode so vividly. I was sitting on my couch. I think I was in college when it came out and I was just sitting there watching it. And he jumped up on the cutting board. I was like, who, why would he do that? Everybody from that moment, that's, I think, why they started that show, Beat Bobby Flay? Because everybody was so angry at him. He was like the villain in the culinary world.

• 19:23Joe Flamm?

  But I mean, it's, it's just interesting how it shifted. Now that I feel like there's way fewer of those shows where they're just showing you how to cook. Right? And it's like, and none of them are like the really, really big name chefs. You know what I mean? Guy Fieri doesn't have a show where he's just like, hey, it's Tuesday with Guy and we're making, you know, Flavortown enchiladas. That doesn't exist, I think, as much. You see it more, I feel like now with like celebrities where you have like Stanley Tucci and like, you know, Selena Gomez and, uh, you know, like all these like big name celebrities who they'll have chefs on cooking with them. I think the only person really in that space still is like Anna Garten.

• 19:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, yeah. Martha Stewart's not in the kitchen cooking and doing stuff like that. And I think you made a really good point. The shows used to be about teaching people how to cook. Now it's about entertainment. And I think something that is really interesting is that now people are learning how to cook by watching videos on social media. And they're watching the cooking shows for entertainment. So if I want to learn a technique or if I want to learn how to make. Sheet pan chicken with roasted mushrooms or something. I'm not necessarily watching the cooking shows for that. I'm consuming that on Tik Tok or IG.

• 20:34Joe Flamm?

  Right. So going to Chef Adrian Cheatham's Instagram and watching her, you know, make something. But it's like, cause you can do that from there. That's not, you know, I mean, you don't have to create a whole show. You know what I mean? There's influencers all over the world where they're just doing cooking out of their apartments and backyards and wherever it may be. So I think it's just an interesting shift. So it's like, one is like, is there room in this space for another great cooking competition show? And I love them. You know what I mean? I think they're really fun. And I think anything, you know, the one thing I'll say about going on Tournament of Champions is in that space, like, you know, the first day, like Guy Fieri sits everybody down and he's like, hey, he's like, this is about you. This is about you getting your name

• 21:17Joe Flamm?

  out there, your brand out there. This is about bringing awareness to what you're doing. Like, talk about your restaurants, talk about your food, talk about whatever's important to you while you're out there. You don't know how many episodes you get. You don't know how much time you get. Like, get your brand out there. Get your name out there. Like, anything you could do. That's what this is about. And so I think like, cooking shows as a functionality of that are super, super important, right? It's hard to get your brand out there. It's hard to run a restaurant. It's hard to, you know what I mean? Plant your flag.

• 21:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Cut through the noise. Yeah.

• 21:48Joe Flamm?

  You know, it's like, like we were talking, you know, when we were talking to Eli and he's talking about how, you know, the pinnacle of chefs he makes fun of. He goes, because it's been the same 10 people at the top.

• 21:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  For 20 years. Right.

• 21:58Joe Flamm?

  For 20 years. And you're like, you know, and that was kind of like, oh, whoa, like, yeah, you're right. And so it's like, to try to break into that, you gotta do anything you can. And I think these, these cooking shows provide a great vehicle for the you and me's coming up, trying to, you know, mark our flags next to these giants, these Daniels, these Thomas Kellers.

• 22:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  You can be an amazing chef. You can have four restaurants, one restaurant, six restaurants, and cook amazing food across all of your outlets. But how do you cut through the noise? How do you get people's attention to know that you exist, that your restaurants exist, that they should come to them? How do you, like you said, put yourself out there and get those eyes on you, which translates into butts in seats, which at the end of the day is what keeps restaurants open, is people coming into them. So I love that he tells you guys to go ahead and talk about it, because a lot of times as chefs, we're really timid and don't want to feel like we're tooting our own horn too much. We're always, chefs

• 23:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  are kind of self-deprecating. We're kind of like, I don't want to seem egotistic or self-centered. So we always downplay. And going on television is like, no, this is your chance to do that. So I love that he actually encourages the chefs to do it, because he's right. You never know how many shots you're gonna get to get these people's eyes on you. So when they come to your town, they can come to your restaurant. Or if they live in your area, they can come to your restaurant.

• 23:32Joe Flamm?

  Right. You never know, all the stuff we do, media, whatever it is, shows, like, what's gonna hit for somebody in what market. And so it'll be interesting, I think, with this show, with Padma's new show, like, one that it's going toe-to-toe with Top Chef.

• 23:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. That's crazy.

• 23:48Joe Flamm?

  Like, you know, it's like, it'll be interesting, like, is anybody gonna say anything about it? Like, is she gonna say anything? Like, is she going to address that? Is Tom gonna address that? Like, who, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. I don't know.

• 23:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah. Are Gail, Kristen, and Tom gonna say anything? Like, are they excited for each other? Does the production studio behind Top Chef and the production behind America's Culinary Cup, are they mad? Is there bad blood? Like, should we start singing Taylor Swift? Like, is there bad blood? Or is it all love?

• 24:16Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? That's what I'm saying. Like, this is Belichick and Brady. It's like, what I feel like. This is Belichick and Brady, where it's like, when it's all said and done, at the end of the day, if everybody's successful, it might be all good, it might be all right. But I think this is, it's just like massive, and it's wild, and something, you know, we couldn't have imagined 10 years ago.

• 24:34Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, absolutely not.

• 24:36Joe Flamm?

  So I am excited to see where this goes. And I think it is really, really hard to make a good cooking show, and you never know what's gonna hit with people. So even if it's something that you and I like,

• 24:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 24:47Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? It may not.

• 24:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  Does that translate to the broader market?

• 24:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  So this is one side of cooking competition shows, but there's another side of cooking competition shows that you and I have both been on too. Besides competing in front of the camera, we've also judged and that is a completely different process than what people see when they watch these shows. So should we pull back the curtain a little bit so people can get to know what it's like to judge these shows?

• 25:18Joe Flamm?

  Without that.

• 25:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Should we do a little? Should we do a little line check on that?

• 25:21Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. And I think it's like, you know, one of the funniest questions I always get about that is people will ask me, and I don't know if you get this, where they're like, they're like, well, you know, like, oh, we saw you went back and judged. Like, would you rather be judging or competing? It's like judging.

• 25:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  All day.

• 25:40Joe Flamm?

  What?

• 25:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  All day.

• 25:42Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? Like crazy? Like.

• 25:45Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right.

• 25:45Joe Flamm?

  Judging is, one, I will say it's really fun. It's a, you know, whenever I've gotten the opportunity to do it, and I've only ever done it on Top Chef related things. I did, you know, Top Chef, I think Top Chef Juniors was the first thing I ever judged with, with Curtis Stone. And the other co-host was Vanessa Lachey, who is Nick Lachey's wife.

• 26:05Adrienne Cheatham?

  Nick Lachey's wife?

• 26:06Joe Flamm?

  Which was funny because I didn't know that at the time. I just, she was like, oh, I'm Vanessa. And I was like, oh, I'm Joe. And I remember Hillary texted me at one point during the filming. She was like, how's it going? I'm like, it's good. I go, you're not gonna believe this. I'm like, this lady next to me, this co-host Vanessa, I go, she is, her background on her phone is like Nick Lachey from like 98 Degrees. I was like, so weird and random, isn't it? And she's like, that's her husband. I was like, oh, oh, I thought she was just like a big boy band fan. I was like, oh, that's weird. Somebody really never let that go.

• 26:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, Joe, you crack me up.

• 26:42Joe Flamm?

  That was the first time I had ever, I'd ever done it. And I've only ever done Top Chef once. And like going back and getting to sit there on that side of it is mind blowing, right?

• 26:52Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, it is. I've only done Top Chef once, but I've done a lot of shows on Food Network. Like I've judged on Beat Bobby Flay. I want to say I'm at like 14 or 15 times judging on that show. It's, and it's, it's my favorite, to be honest.

• 27:07Joe Flamm?

  You're like, you're like, you're like famous, famous, huh?

• 27:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, the judges on Beat Bobby Flay, the judges are on for maybe two minutes of the show. So it's 15 times, maybe a total of 30 minutes across, across all those times of screen time. But I love doing it. I've judged on a bunch of Food Network shows, but only on Top Chef one time. And every show is so different in how they do the judging. It's crazy. It's like you're on set for, depending on the show, you can be on set for six hours, eight hours for judging a quick segment. On Beat Bobby Flay, they trim it down. So you're only on set for maybe three hours. And it's efficient. They get

• 27:53Adrienne Cheatham?

  you in just in enough time before the cook ends. And the thing, so the reason I love that show so much. So I don't know if, if I can talk about this, but I'm about to. The thing that makes Bobby's show so different is how the judges taste the food. So Beat Bobby Flay is one of the few, or all the Bobby shows actually, are the few shows where the judges eat it twice. You get the dish two times. One time, as soon as that clock stops, the food is whisked to the judges off camera. And you eat it while it's hot, while it's fresh, still crunchy, still steaming, because they want you to judge them at, at

• 28:36Adrienne Cheatham?

  the dishes peak. They want all the judges to say Bobby's best, this chef's best, toe to toe, hot, fresh. They're not giving you one. And then 30 minutes later, you get the other.

• 28:47Joe Flamm?

  Do you know whose dish is who's on that show?

• 28:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  No, you don't know. You're in a blackout tent.

• 28:53Joe Flamm?

  That's true blind, right?

• 28:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  Truly blind. You're in a blackout tent. You don't hear. It's, it's

• 28:58Joe Flamm?

  Do you know who he's going against?

• 29:00Adrienne Cheatham?

  Nope.

• 29:02Joe Flamm?

  Oh, wow.

• 29:03Adrienne Cheatham?

  You only get the description of the dish and what their like line is. So it's it's told to the judges like it's a menu description. So it could be teriyaki chicken wings with red cabbage coleslaw. Or it could be fisherman's pie with whipped mashed potato brulee topping. It could be anything, but that's all that you get. And you eat the dish right away while it's hot. You take notes. So all the judges were not influencing each other's thoughts. We're taking notes on the dishes ourselves. Then we taste the second one, get the description, take notes on that. And then you talk it through with the producers about what you liked and what you didn't like.

• 29:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  And then you get on camera, maybe 15 minutes later. And they bring a complete dish that hasn't been touched, but has been sitting there. That has been photographed, it's gotten the beauty shots done. And you just are playing with it on camera. Like, you know, you take a bite or two, but that's not the actual tasting.

• 30:06Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 30:07Adrienne Cheatham?

  But you're, I love that because you're eating it hot and fresh. Whereas some shows, the dishes are going to be photographed for 30 minutes. So by the time the judges get them, they're cold, they're not like the chef intended it. If you've got a sauce or something, you know, creamy or it could seize up. It could completely change the eating experience.

• 30:25Joe Flamm?

  Right. And, you know, like, that's, see, that's, you know, interesting to me because I've only experienced it on Top Chef. And I've been on it three or four times, maybe. And and I've done like elimination challenges and quick fires. And the quick fires is interesting because as you know, like we both did them. And like they told us going into them, they're like, we're going to judge the dishes as quick as we can. We start at random which side we're going on. And so like, if you're, especially in those early on quick fires, right?

• 30:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, there's like 16.

• 30:53Joe Flamm?

  If you're last person, it's like.

• 30:56Joe Flamm?

  You know, I mean, you hope is, you know, your best ally. Uh, but like, you know, I did a quick fire. I think it was the Wisconsin season and it was like either second or third episode. So there were like 14 chefs there.

• 31:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow.

• 31:10Joe Flamm?

  And so we were doing the quick fire and we're like working through it and it was a hops challenge.

• 31:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, gosh.

• 31:15Joe Flamm?

  They had to cook everything with hops and it was like, so eat 14 dishes. It was me and Kish. I'm like, oh my God, we're like going and going and going. And that was like my first time doing a quick fire. I'm having to rip through 14 dishes like, and you're trying to do it at a pace. So that like you can get to everybody's dish while it's still in good shape.

• 31:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. Cause you want to be fair as a judge.

• 31:35Joe Flamm?

  Right. And so it's like, we probably went through, I would bet we tasted 14 dishes in less than 20 minutes.

• 31:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  Whoa, holy moly.

• 31:44Joe Flamm?

  But it's hard in that one because like in a quick fire, you can't go back really.

• 31:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 31:48Joe Flamm?

  Like you taste the dish, you kind of have to put it in your head and you kind of have to catalog it. And like in my mind, at least I was like, okay, like A level dish, B level dish, C level dish.

• 31:56Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 31:57Joe Flamm?

  And like, just tried to categorize them all real quick, put them in my head and then be like, okay, out of those three As, what was the A, the best one? And you know, out of those three Cs, what was the worst one?

• 32:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 32:09Joe Flamm?

  So like that was like.

• 32:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Did anybody get Bs or Fs?

• 32:12Joe Flamm?

  I think I just left in three, in three in my head, but it was easier to find the worst one than the best one.

• 32:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 32:18Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? Cause I feel like on the best one, you're like, ah, tweak here, tweak there. But like the worst one, you were like, man, this didn't go your way, huh bud?

• 32:25Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 32:25Joe Flamm?

  Uh, it's so, but then like when I've had to do the elimination challenges, I think the, the interesting thing about Top Chef, and I don't, again, not having been on a lot of other shows is like, the, the judges table and deliberation is there's no time set on that.

• 32:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, so it can continue.

• 32:46Joe Flamm?

  After we taste, when we go to, to table. It's it's like a jury. You sit in that room till you have a verdict.

• 32:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 32:55Joe Flamm?

  And everybody sits there and you go back and forth and you say, you know, because I have in my mind, you know, and I've been on ones where it's like, you know, other people at the table were like, this is the best dish. I was like, I thought that was the worst dish.

• 33:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right, right. That's so crazy.

• 33:10Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean?

• 33:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  When I judged Top Chef two, I was like, are we talking about the same thing?

• 33:15Joe Flamm?

  And so it was interesting of like, you know, either like, maybe like me and Tom agreed on a dish, or, you know, Kristen and Gal agreed on a dish, or me and Kristen agreed, or me and Gal agreed. And like, there were some things that we were all universal on right away. So that was interesting. It's like ones I've sat in where everybody was like, yeah, this is, you know, and Top Chef, it's like the other part of it. Like, the worst dish really, really matters, right?

• 33:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Mm hmm.

• 33:38Joe Flamm?

  So it's like, you know, sometimes I felt like I've sat in ones where it's like, this was the best dish. It's not close. You know what I mean? Who are the other top three? But then like, when you got the worst dish, that's where you were really hashing it out. Or vice versa, you know, because then you get into, there's all the like little parts of it of like, okay, well, you have the challenge. And how much of this was just like, yo, this is a bad dish, just straight up. This was bad cooking, bad food. But I will say like, as as somebody, you know, you know, as we both competed on that show, what I did appreciate about going back and judging was like, how serious they took it. Like, how thorough it was, how like, nothing was taken lightly.

• 34:19Joe Flamm?

  Every part of it, like, we talked about it for like, and it wasn't like, hey, guys, you got 10 minutes. You have to make a decision. It was like, the producers left you alone.

• 34:28Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 34:29Joe Flamm?

  And they would let you talk for, you know, I was on ones that took 30 minutes. They were easy. It was quick. And ones where it's like, hour and a half, two hours.

• 34:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Do you remember how long we were out there while they were deliberating the finale?

• 34:42Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 34:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  I was, it was like, it was literal hours.

• 34:46Joe Flamm?

  Right. And I think part of that is like, you know, for us on our season, it's like, you know, I remember somebody told me later, they go, the biggest problem with ours was like, cause where they filmed it, they had to like, where they were gonna shoot, they had to move everything for judges table, right? They had to break everything down. They had to build the judges table there. And then they couldn't build the judges table there while the sun was still up.

• 35:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 35:09Joe Flamm?

  Cause they wouldn't have been able to shoot it. They couldn't have blacked out the whole back of it. So we, part of our wait was that they had to wait for the sun to go down.

• 35:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  And here, I thought it was because the food was.

• 35:20Joe Flamm?

  On top of a mountain in Colorado.

• 35:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  The food was just so good that it was really hard to decide. Thanks, Joe, for crushing my.

• 35:26Joe Flamm?

  No, but I think that's, that's part of, you know what I mean? That's a really big part of it. But I think like the finales are a little bit easier to judge because it's, it's less people.

• 35:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, yeah, you're down to two at that point.

• 35:42Joe Flamm?

  It's like one to one, one to one, one to one. So you can line them up and be like, you know what I mean?

• 35:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  When I judged Top Chef, there were eight people. I forget the season that it was. It was, oh, it was the first season that Buddha won. The first time he won.

• 35:57Joe Flamm?

  Oh, in Houston.

• 35:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 35:59Joe Flamm?

  I judged that season too. That's funny.

• 36:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep. And we were out on, what was that island off of Houston?

• 36:05Joe Flamm?

  Galveston?

• 36:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep, we were, we were in Galveston. And as we're sitting, they had just set up the judges table. Like you said, it wasn't built before because that's where the food was being set out and we were doing the tasting. So they had to clear that after. We waited an hour, maybe two, and then we can come back out to do the judges verdict and, and that. When I tell you a storm rolled in and it blew Tom's hat off his head. My hair was flying everywhere. The rain just started coming at us sideways. It was like me, Sheldon, Padma, Tom and Gail, and the rain just came in from the left side and like blew everything over.

• 36:46Adrienne Cheatham?

  So they had to, they had to rush and get, collect the set that was blowing around and rebuild it inside of the building.

• 36:54Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 36:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  And then we had to redo the judges table.

• 36:57Joe Flamm?

  Like, cause those Top Chef days where it's like, if you're, you know, if you're at like the final judges table where they're like making those announcements, it's like you're on set for a dozen hours.

• 37:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 37:10Joe Flamm?

  Because you have to do the walkthrough in the morning and like, you know, whatever it is like, you're there for a long time.

• 37:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, those are long days.

• 37:18Joe Flamm?

  And it's like, you know, it's nice to be on the other side of it where you get to sit behind the desk and you get to have your phone and you get to hang out, like chop it up.

• 37:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  So for you, cook or judge, it's judge. What about if you were invited to go on a show? Would it be to cook and demo a dish? Or would it be to compete like a quick fire 30 minute challenge?

• 37:39Joe Flamm?

  Oh, I think like I've always wanted to be on one of those shows where it's like, get to like demo a dish. You know what I mean? Like me, me and Ina Garten and she'd be like, oh, I think Jeffrey's gonna love this pasta you made, Joe. You know, or like me and Selena Gomez hanging out, like whatever.

• 37:56Joe Flamm?

  She hasn't mentioned it bringing me on the show yet.

• 37:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  She hasn't? She asked me about you.

• 38:01Joe Flamm?

  Yeah.

• 38:02Adrienne Cheatham?

  When I did the show, she asked me, she was like, who's that guy that beat you on Top Chef? Uh.

• 38:08Joe Flamm?

  That's why I haven't been invited because, um, but, uh, but like I've, I've always wanted to do that. I, and I think it's part of it. Like we said earlier, it's like, we grew up watching those shows, right?

• 38:18Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 38:19Joe Flamm?

  And I think that's like, when we were coming up, like if you were a celebrity chef, right? You know, I mean, if you were a TV chef, like that's what they were referring to.

• 38:27Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right.

• 38:28Joe Flamm?

  You know what I mean? You had the, you had the towel on your shoulder and you're, you know, you had a studio audience and you know, the, hey, welcome everybody, you know, like doing that. Like it was like, you know.

• 38:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  I miss those shows. I miss them so much. I used to, it's like, it's yes, you're learning something because they would drop some food knowledge in there. They would really like deep dive into one technique that's being done on that show. And the dish that's being done, the ingredients that are being done on that show. And it's also just like, it's kind of relaxing. Like it's just kind of like, ah, you're in somebody's kitchen and they're talking to you while they cook. I really miss those shows. I really wish that.

• 39:08Joe Flamm?

  I would watch like hours of those shows.

• 39:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  I like the competition shows, but I miss those.

• 39:12Joe Flamm?

  And you'd watch, you know, nine hours of Emerald.

• 39:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right, right.

• 39:16Joe Flamm?

  And you're like, um, and so it's like, for me, it would be that, you know what I mean? Like I, I think I like romanticized those shows a lot in my head and like, you know, and they also feel like, like a bygone era. Like you, you couldn't do it if you wanted to. You know what I mean? Like if we were like, oh, we're just gonna do Adrian and Joe and we're gonna have a live studio audience.

• 39:37Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, that would be so much fun. Are you kidding me?

• 39:39Joe Flamm?

  No, it would be so much fun.

• 39:40Adrienne Cheatham?

  We would have a blast. You cook the app, I cook the entree, or vice versa, or I'll do a dessert today. Oh, my God, Joe, we need to pitch that.

• 39:49Joe Flamm?

  Like, I like, that's like, I miss that era of cooking shows. It's like, and I like, like, listen, going to compete on these shows, like, I think you said it, though. And I think you said a part that people don't talk about enough. Like, it is really scary to put yourself out there like that. It is a super high level of vulnerability to be like, oh, I'm gonna go and I'm just gonna like, cook on a TV show in front of the world and see how it goes and get judged by my peers and people I don't know. And, you know, people on the internet. But I think like, it is a great privilege to get to go and do those things, right? That's not what we got in this industry. We didn't start cooking because we were like, oh, we're gonna, like, I really got to figure out a way to get on the Bravo network. And I don't think I have the, the, the money to be a real housewife.

• 40:32Joe Flamm?

  So, you know, it's like-

• 40:35Adrienne Cheatham?

  So my next thing is cooking.

• 40:37Joe Flamm?

  Right. So it's like, the cooking shows are really cool and they're really fun. And I think it's like always, you know, like even, you know, the last one I did, Tournament of Champions, where it's like, got to meet a bunch of new people from different places. And that's always really fun and cool. And the just, you know, Dan and I were talking like, you, you got a bunch of, you know, the people you know, who you see on it, it's like, that one was fun because it's like, in the downtime, it's like, a bunch of people who I knew, who like, I never get a chance to just like, sit around and chop it up.

• 41:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. That's the real, to me, that is the best part of both competing and judging is the people that you meet, the camaraderie. Some of my closest friends in like, the New York cooking world are not just coworkers that I've had working in restaurants on the line, but people that I like, met judging a show with. Because you're sitting there for a few hours together, you get to know each other, you talk, you have a good time. And then you keep, if they're cool and like, you keep in touch with these people. And it's like, I love what you're doing, I'm gonna come check out your new restaurant. Congratulations on that new review or that new write-up. Like, you know, it's encouraging, it's that camaraderie. And the same thing with competing, it's like, when are you ever around such a high number of people

• 41:49Adrienne Cheatham?

  that you have so much in common with? That are all like at the same place at the same time. It's just such an amazing thing.

• 41:57Joe Flamm?

  Well, and like the funny thing. So, uh, uh, turned into champions for the qualifier. It's like the way they did it was, you know, there were 16 of us and they put all our names in a bingo ball thing and they rolled the thing and then so you got picked at random. And so I'm sitting there in a room with 16 people and one of those people is my old boss and mentor, Stephanie Izzard.

• 42:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Joe Flamm?

  Another one is Giuseppe Tantori, who's a friend, a chef, uh, someone who I've looked up to my whole career, who I almost worked for early in my career. Dan Jacobson is there, somebody I've been friends with for 15 years, you know, who I've cooked together with many times. And then there was like a bunch, you know, a couple of other names in the room who it's like, I knew who they were or like we had met.

• 42:38Joe Flamm?

  And so like, as the ball started going out of the thing and there are less people in the room, I'm like, we're down to like, the chances of me going up against like Steph, Giuseppe or Dan are raising by the moment. Where it's like, this is, this is a very different challenge for us, one of them versus, you know, some, you know, random person. This is my first time meeting, right? But I will say like having to go against Dan, it was like, very much made me like, okay, I need to be like, uh, like I have to have my A game. Like I know he like, I know the way he cooks. We've cooked together. I know he's not gonna like make a mistake. So I can't, you know, I like, I have to be technically perfect.

• 43:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right.

• 43:17Joe Flamm?

  Because I know he will be. So it's like, I'm not gonna win on any technical thing. So this is just gonna be like, who has the better dish today? It's like, you know, the same as like going up against you in the final. It's like, you're not gonna forget to season something. You're not gonna not taste your food. You're not gonna do a dish that doesn't make sense. You know what I mean? Like it's going to be like that percent in between 99 and 100.

• 43:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 43:41Joe Flamm?

  Where it's like, I'm gonna have to beat you. And like the same with him. And it's like, that day, it's like, he had that one percent.

• 43:48Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 43:48Joe Flamm?

  And you know, it got that one point, but it's like, that was kind of like the crazy thing about that one. Where it's like Top Chef, you know, it's like, we didn't know each other. We got to know each other along the way.

• 43:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right. And then by the end, we're like, wow, like, I just, you know, yeah, being in the room with everybody, once you get over the initial nerves of like, wow, we're being, we're really being filmed while we're cooking and doing this, that's a whole new thing. But once you get over those initial nerves, it was just like, you feel like you're in a room of people who get you.

• 44:18Joe Flamm?

  Right.

• 44:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  Everybody gets you. They really get you. You all are pushed and driven by the same things. You've had some of the same experiences, a lot of mutual friends in the room. You know, it's like just two or three degrees of separation sometimes.

• 44:32Joe Flamm?

  Right.

• 44:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  And that is.

• 44:34Joe Flamm?

  It's such a different push to yourself of like, the combo of pushing yourself like creatively, with speed, on the fly, at a pace.

• 44:44Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yep.

• 44:44Joe Flamm?

  And it's intoxicating, like the feeling of it. You know what I mean? It's like, it's one of those things where you're like, you know, when you're like, oh, which one of those shows would you want to do? It's like, I don't know that I necessarily want to do a cooking again, but the feeling when you're in it, you're like.

• 44:58Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay, well, that's a good question. So if you were, knowing how Top Chef is and knowing that it's a lot influenced by the location and knowing the Top Chef format versus what we've seen from the preview so far of America's Culinary Cup, Padma's new show, which would you do? If you were to go back and do a cooking competition show, which would it be? Padma's or Top Chef?

• 45:22Joe Flamm?

  I think it'd probably be for me and like the way I cook. I think Top Chef is more advantageous for me because I feel like I cook a lot of live fire. I cook a lot of rustic style. I think I'm, my strength is making it work. It's like, you know what I mean? Whereas like, that show looks very like controlled fine dining, where I think like that to me, from a cooking perspective is like, the idea of being in like, oh, we're gonna go cook on this beach, or we're gonna cook in this mountain. Like, that part of it is really exciting to me. I like that, you know what I mean?

• 45:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, you thrive in the chaos of it.

• 46:01Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, that's, that's my shit.

• 46:05Joe Flamm?

  So I think I probably still.

• 46:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  I thrive in the controlled environment where I know what level of variables can happen versus the wind blowing my fire out while I'm cooking. Like, I don't want that.

• 46:14Joe Flamm?

  Right, right. Yeah. So, so you saying you would go culinary cup?

• 46:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  I think so. I mean, I, part of me still feels like I have something to prove on Top Chef. I still want to go back and do that. But the environment and the controlled environment of Padma's new show, to me, that looks like the kind of thing that's more my jam. Where you thrive in the chaos of Top Chef, I can, I can do the chaos, but I'm not gonna lie, it's, I'm, I'm a little bit like, I freeze up a little bit.

• 46:43Joe Flamm?

  Right. And I think it's, yeah, that's the interesting part of it, where I'm just like.

• 46:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  I have a 30 second freeze and then I'm like, okay, let's go. But in that other one, I would just be go from the beginning.

• 46:53Joe Flamm?

  Right. Where it's like, yeah, I like the little bit of the thrill of the unknown.

• 47:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Well, Joe, I think it's a, I think after our last episode, I think you're up for walking confession this week.

• 47:09Joe Flamm?

  I think you're right. And so, you know, we were talking about all these competition shows today. And so I wanted to take it back to the first time I ever did one, which, uh, years and years.

• 47:24Adrienne Cheatham?

  It wasn't Top Chef?

• 47:26Joe Flamm?

  I did one before that.

• 47:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, my gosh. Okay. Okay.

• 47:31Joe Flamm?

  So when I worked for Steph, I, and this is how it went out. She had a competition, we call it the Iron Goat competition. And I won the first Iron Goat to be one of her sous chefs to go on Iron Chef.

• 47:50Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, my God. So you guys competed in the restaurant first to see who would go with her?

• 47:53Joe Flamm?

  Yes.

• 47:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow.

• 47:55Joe Flamm?

  So I won that and I got to go with Steph too. And this was like, this was the Iron Chef era of like, uh, Michael Simon, Morimoto, I think Jose Garces was one, uh, I think Cat Cora was one of the Iron Chefs.

• 48:09Adrienne Cheatham?

  Mississippi's own.

• 48:10Joe Flamm?

  Uh, so.

• 48:13Joe Flamm?

  We get set up and then how the old school that Iron Chef used to work is, you know, and I never signed anything, so I don't care. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna fucking blow this up.

• 48:24Joe Flamm?

  Was as the challenging chef, they gave you three ingredients that it could possibly be.

• 48:32Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 48:32Joe Flamm?

  So they said before we came, they're like, it's either gonna be battle bread, battle octopus, or whole bone in New York strip. Those were the three.

• 48:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  Three wildly different options.

• 48:45Joe Flamm?

  So.

• 48:48Joe Flamm?

  Like, this is like the week before we go. So Steph writes a menu for bread. She writes a menu for octopus. For her whole bone in New York strip, she just goes, hey, if it's this one, just figure it out.

• 49:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 49:01Joe Flamm?

  To me, me and the other chef. She's like, she's like, just make like super tasty shit. Like, you know what to do. So we're like, all right, we got it. We fly to New York, go the next day to, it used to film at Chelsea Market. So we go to Chelsea Market. What they do is then they take you upstairs and they show you your pantry, because you got to request a pantry.

• 49:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 49:20Joe Flamm?

  So based on your pantry, you would know what menu you had, because your different pantries had different things. So like, what we keyed in on was like, for battle bread, there would be lobsters. Because we had requested lobster for battle bread, and I forget what we requested for the other things. So we got upstairs, we looked at the pantry, we saw the lobster. We're like, all right.

• 49:42Adrienne Cheatham?

  It's bread.

• 49:43Joe Flamm?

  It's bread. We're on.

• 49:46Joe Flamm?

  So I'm like, all right, they saw the pantry and like, you know, I'd never done TV before. I didn't know how anything worked. So I'm like, all right, we're like, you know, my adrenaline starts like flowing. I'm like, we're going, we're going, we're going. You know, the next time we see Steph, they walk us out onto the Iron Chef like floor.

• 50:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 50:01Joe Flamm?

  So now we're like standing in the floor on Iron Chef, like, we're there. It's like me and Dave and Steph, and then we look over and there's Michael. Michael Simon and his team, the chairman's standing up there. There's people all around us. And we're like, we thought we were gonna get to talk to Steph again before it started. And, you know, they're like, all right, you know, you guys are gonna get, like, we're gonna announce it. You guys are gonna huddle real quick and then we're gonna go. So you're like.

• 50:26Joe Flamm?

  All right, all right, all right. So I'm like, like, sitting there like, you know, like, like, jumping up and down like it's like about to be kickoff. I'm just like, so. You know, as you know, and I know, have doing, doing cooking shows now. How it works is they always do a false start first, right?

• 50:43Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right, right.

• 50:43Joe Flamm?

  So they do the, they're like, and you know, the chairman comes out and he's like, battle bread. And you know, they lift up the thing and you know, me and Dave, you know, start running and they're like, oh, stop, stop, stop. We're like, wait, what, what, what? And I'm like, I'm shaking.

• 50:59Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:00Joe Flamm?

  And they're like, hold on, we gotta like, reset. And it's like, you know, it's only, you know, 30 seconds, right? It's not like any real amount of time. But then, you know, they kind of reset and then like very nonchalantly, they're like, all right, now we're going. You're like, wait, what?

• 51:16Adrienne Cheatham?

  Right. That's so anticlimactic.

• 51:18Joe Flamm?

  You're like, fuck. So we're like, running around. We get into it. We're like, going. We all have our tasks. Like, I'm making this thing. I have to cut this bread. I have to make this bread sauce. I have to do whatever. First thing I do is go grab the bread, big thing of brioche, take the knife. Knife through the bread, knife tip right into my hand.

• 51:41Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, that was me on our first challenge of Top Chef.

• 51:47Joe Flamm?

  And I was just, and I was just like, no, no.

• 51:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 51:52Joe Flamm?

  I'm like, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't got time for this. So I just like.

• 51:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  Did you just put a glove on and?

• 51:57Joe Flamm?

  I just put a glove on and I'm like, I'm just like, and I like, like, put it on like, I'm like, they're all looking at Steph. No one's looking at me. It doesn't matter. So I just like slid a glove on. I'm like, this is, this is, this is fine. So you know what I mean? I just keep going. I'm still cooking. And it's like, at one point I go to take my blood, my, my glove off. And it's like, you know, you just got like the glove filled with blood.

• 52:15Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 52:17Joe Flamm?

  Just like, ooh. So then I'm like trying to like rinse it off low and like scrub my hand. And then I just like, I just literally like tied a towel around my hand.

• 52:26Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah.

• 52:27Joe Flamm?

  And I'm like, we're just gonna have to make this work. And then it was like, two minutes later, I like grab a pan. I forgot it's hot, like burn the shit out of that same hand. I was like, oh my God, this is, this is going terrible. Then I finally like, we're running, get the fucking sauce made. You know, I bring like the sauce over to Steph. I remember I handed, I take the spoon. I'm like chef, taste this, you know, I give her it. She just, she goes, oh, that's fucking terrible.

• 53:01Joe Flamm?

  They go, you know what? She goes, this fucking terrible. Fix it. So I go back, add a little more salt. I think I put a pinch of lemon in, you know, rip the blender again, bring it back over to her. She's like, oh yeah, that's great. Thanks. And I was just like, what the fuck?

• 53:16Joe Flamm?

  So.

• 53:17Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, gosh.

• 53:19Joe Flamm?

  We finally get done. And like the weird one, I was that of like talking about judging is they do a coin flip of who gets the plate first. So you have to finish in the time and you have to plate one of each of your dishes. Cause I think it was four dishes they used to do on Iron Chef.

• 53:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 53:33Joe Flamm?

  So you plate one of each four and then they flip a coin and somebody gets a present first. And then what they used to do is they'd give you 15 minutes for each course to plate the judges one. So then you'd go back and like.

• 53:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  So you can heat things up.

• 53:49Joe Flamm?

  Yeah, like they worded it like you couldn't cook anything, but you could like get things hot again.

• 53:54Adrienne Cheatham?

  Okay.

• 53:55Joe Flamm?

  And like plate. So you have like 15 minutes to like replate each course, which they make it sound like you can do almost nothing. But the biggest rub of that one was, was like one, the iron chefs knew what the ingredient was. They knew ahead of time what the ingredient was gonna be. The other thing is like, since they knew how it worked, like what somebody told me later, I met somebody who was on one of the teams. Like, cause they all had their teams, right? Those people that were on their Iron Chef team.

• 54:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  Yeah, every episode if they're competing.

• 54:25Joe Flamm?

  And he goes, he goes, bro, one of the biggest things we did, he goes, we never seasoned anything until we got into the 15 minute window. He goes, cause the first plate you do put up, he's like, it's beauty. He goes, so all the sauces, everything. He's like, you don't season them. He goes till you're in the 15 minute window. So you're not like wasting time like going back and forth tasting.

• 54:47Adrienne Cheatham?

  And tasting and re seasoning.

• 54:48Joe Flamm?

  You just make the puree. Oh, it looks right. And then you put it on the plate.

• 54:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  My gosh.

• 54:56Joe Flamm?

  And you're like. So we go up, we ended up, you know, we ended up.

• 55:01Adrienne Cheatham?

  The tricks that the competitors don't know.

• 55:03Joe Flamm?

  Michael Simon, I think, got like. It was one of the highest scores ever scored on Iron Chef that bad.

• 55:10Adrienne Cheatham?

  Whoa.

• 55:10Joe Flamm?

  Like he scared, he scored like a damn near perfect. Like we had a great showing, but it was like, I forget what amount of points you could score. It was like 95 or something random like that. He scored like a 94.

• 55:19Adrienne Cheatham?

  Wow.

• 55:20Joe Flamm?

  And you had to sit through the judging. We're watching it and every dish he put up, they were just like, oh, this is the best dish I've ever had. This is the best dish I've ever had. You're just like, fuck.

• 55:29Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 55:30Joe Flamm?

  So we lose by like a point and it was just like, oh, Steph was so mad. I remember and like she was like, she's like, fuck this, you know, we went out, we went out that night. We went, we actually went to the Breslin. Uh, we sat there, aggressively drank whiskey for like six hours.

• 55:47Joe Flamm?

  And went to bed. And then I remember when it aired, uh, Steph didn't want to watch it. You know what I mean? And like at the time, you know, for me, I was like, I'm on TV. I'm probably never going to be on TV again. So like, I'm like, this is.

• 56:04Adrienne Cheatham?

  I'm getting everybody together to watch this.

• 56:06Joe Flamm?

  Dude, we had a hundred people upstairs at Fidow in River North. Cause one of Hill's friends, uh, my buddy Valerie, she was the, uh, like the events person there. So we had the whole top floor. You know what I mean? And like the south side and drones up there.

• 56:22Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh.

• 56:23Joe Flamm?

  And you had this massive party and it was so fun. I remember we had hats and you know, like it was, it was just wild. Like we were having a great time in life.

• 56:33Adrienne Cheatham?

  That is awesome.

• 56:34Joe Flamm?

  And then it's like, you know, we lost at the end and everybody's like, oh, yeah.

• 56:38Adrienne Cheatham?

  Who cares?

• 56:40Joe Flamm?

  And I will say like that set me up for it's like, nobody cared. Nobody cared that I lost. We partied way late that night. We had the funnest night. It was an absolute riot. And it was, you know, a good realization for me. It was like, it wasn't about, you know, me winning or losing. It was like, all the people who supported me and got me there, like just got to have a moment where it was like. Hey, this is really cool.

• 57:06Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's so awesome. They get to see you on TV, doing your thing, and you get to see their support and love for you.

• 57:13Joe Flamm?

  Yeah. So it's really funny. So every once in a while, like it'll be like, I'll have like a new cook or something, or somebody will be like, dude, I was watching, I saw an old Iron Chef the other night and like, were you on it? Cause I'm like, like, I think I'm 25 in the episode.

• 57:31Adrienne Cheatham?

  Oh, baby Joe.

• 57:34Joe Flamm?

  And you know what I mean? I got the bandana on and you know, like, it's like, it's, it's, uh, so it's a funny like time capsule, but that was, that was my first one. But after I did that one, I was like, oh, I don't, you know, like, who knows if I'll ever get to do anything like that again.

• 57:51Adrienne Cheatham?

  And here you are now.

• 57:53Joe Flamm?

  And like, let alone, you know, that you and I were going to go on this Top Chef adventure together.

• 57:57Adrienne Cheatham?

  You've competed, you've judged, and it all started with Joe on Iron Chef as a Sue. I did not know that. That is so awesome.

• 58:04Joe Flamm?

  I will say, if they ever bring back Iron Chef, though.

• 58:08Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's going down.

• 58:09Joe Flamm?

  That, that's the smoke I want.

• 58:11Adrienne Cheatham?

  I want that. I want all that smoke.

• 58:13Joe Flamm?

  Like, that's, that's the one where it's like, I am like, you know, it's like, as much as like, I try to say like, you know, oh, like, you know, losing whatever and dealing with it. It's like, I would say the biggest one in my craw is still that one from being 25 with Steph, where it's like, I'm like, I still feel like we got unfinished Iron Chef business, where it's like, I would go back on Iron Chef tonight, if they called. I'd be like.

• 58:39Adrienne Cheatham?

  Form that team like Voltron. Let's go.

• 58:41Joe Flamm?

  I would be like, yo, we're going, I don't care what we gotta do. I don't care if we gotta shut the restaurants down. I don't care if we gotta drive to New York. I'd be like, get in the truck, boys. We're going.

• 58:55Adrienne Cheatham?

  That's it for this episode of The Chef's Cut. Be sure to subscribe wherever you're listening, especially if you're watching us on YouTube, where you can find full-length videos of every episode, and be sure to rate and review. For Joe Flamm, I'm Adrian Cheatham, and this has been The Chef's Cut, life beyond the past.