“Hands up, utensils down!”
Nana Araba Wilmot looked at her unfinished plates on the set of “Top Chef” and her throat tightened.
Her mind flashed to what she had given up to compete this season — a steady paycheck and communicating with her loved ones. She had run out of time before plating her sweet potato dish. One portion was still in its ring mold. Wilmot yelled in frustration, clutched her knees and tried to inhale, but her lungs would not cooperate.
The host and judge Kristen Kish, witnessing the panic attack, immediately rose from the judge’s table. She gently asked Wilmot to do breathing exercises, reinforced that she was a phenomenal chef and that everyone has bad days. “I get it,” Kish said. “It’s overwhelming. What exactly is making you upset?”
This was not a recipe for another Pea purée-gate.
Reality cooking competition shows landed in earnest nearly two decades ago through offerings like Gordon Ramsay’s “Hell’s Kitchen,” a souped-up reflection of the intensity and stakes of the culinary world achieved through rants about overcooked beef Wellington and rubbery scallops. Even some of the shows’ names — “Cutthroat Kitchen,” “Kitchen Nightmares,” “Worst Chefs in America” — leaned hard into the conflict.
“Top Chef” embodied some of that argumentative pedigree when it premiered nearly 20 years ago as a high-stakes competition where elite chefs entertain unique challenges and discerning judges while migrating to a new city each season. But the show has turned more compassionate and collaborative as it has evolved into one of the most influential television cooking shows in molding the way people encounter restaurants and chefs.
“If you look back at the show in its early years, there was so much more drama out of the kitchen because that’s what we thought our audience wanted,” said the food authority Gail Simmons, a judge since the show’s 2006 debut. “We thought reality television wanted that as a genre, but we earned very quickly that our audience didn’t want it.”
As popular restaurants around the world, like Noma, continue reckoning with allegations of abusive behavior from kitchen leaders, this shift resonates even more.
“The whole environment has changed,” said Frances Berwick, the chairwoman of Bravo and Peacock Unscripted. “I think that’s without question. We have leaned into it a little bit, but I will say it has largely been driven by a mind-set shift in the chefs themselves.”
Berwick, as an example, brought up Season 7’s infamous pea purée incident as something that would probably not happen today.
In that incident, the contestant Ed Cotton’s sauce vanished before service. The suspicion fell on a fellow chef, who presented a purée for his own plate and went onto win the challenge. The producers searched through footage and found no indication a heist had taken place. But the implication was left that competitive chefs would do anything to win, including stealing a delicious sauce to put their dish over the top.
Today’s contestants, the chef and judge Tom Colicchio, agreed, are more amenable.
“I remember the first season, I literally had a guy come after me,” said Colicchio, who has been with the show since its inception, and who, as an established restaurateur, lent it legitimacy.
“The judging has become more supportive and less kind of bringing people down,” he said. “I think the chefs are realizing that they can stay true to themselves, put out really good food, and we’re judging, and it’s not personal.”
This season, filmed in the Carolinas, features the twin brothers, Jonathan and Brandon Dearden, and the real-life partners, Jennifer Lee Jackson and Justin Tootla.
“I’m going to be completely honest and transparent,” said Jonathan Dearden, a corporate chef in Virginia. “I was going after my brother’s neck.”
But more often, the show reflected the siblings and partners supporting one another.
Brandon Dearden, named a Beard Award semifinalist, asked his brother for help on a wine pairing challenge because he doesn’t drink.
“There were even some times where it didn’t really matter if he was missing something or if I was missing something, of course we’re going to help each other out or even conceptualize ideas,” Brandon Dearden said. “My mom would be so upset if we weren’t collaborative.”
Jackson and Tootla, who run Detroit’s Bunny Bunny, were surprised over how quickly the “cheftestants” bonded.
“We’ve known these people for a couple days and everybody’s crying and it’s like, Christ we just met these people,” Tootla said.
Part of the show’s compassionate turn can be traced to Kish’s elevation as a judge. In 2023, she took over for Padma Lakshmi, who had become synonymous with the show after hosting it for 17 years.
Kish won the show’s 10th season, forcing her way back in through “Last Chance Kitchen,” the digital companion competition where eliminated chefs compete to get back a spot on the show. She is keenly aware of how deeply it cuts to hear, “Please pack your knives and go.”
When Wilmot had her moment of anxiety during this year’s filming, Kish aided her without hesitating.
“Once I saw that, you just can’t ignore that,” Kish said. “TV or no TV, it does not matter. She had finished. I wasn’t helping her cook her dish. I wasn’t giving her advice on how to cook. It was just a very real moment where all I could think about was make sure she gets to the table.”
Wilmot trained under notable chefs like Jose Garces and Daniel Rose. She, like most of the other chefs on the show, has worked in demanding kitchens where aggression and loud words from superiors historically meant they were invested in a young chef. “That sounds more like an abusive parent,” Wilmot said. “That’s not the way that I need to learn and that’s worse for my development.”
“I don’t think it would have happened 10 years ago,” Wilmot said of Kish’s approach. “I think we’re breaking out the mold, and it’s really important to show that, like, you can get results without being a bad person.”
Wilmot said she had never experienced a panic attack before. Anthony Jones and Laurence Louie, fellow cheftestants, helped Wilmot add food to her plate as time ran out and tried calming her before Kish noticed her panicking.
Chefs, Wilmot said, are known for putting out fires and pivoting quickly. Her reaction was not a reflection of her wanting to be the best, she said, but of the crushing realization that she was unable to put her best forward.
Kish specifically asking her what was wrong helped Wilmot focus, she said. She presented her plates, ring mold and all, which Colicchio ended up praising.
Wilmot said she appreciated Kish for helping her pull through.
“Some of the best food we all think about is from our mother and grandmother’s kitchen,” Wilmot said. “How much love was put in that when she was thinking about you and who she was cooking for? I feel like that should be something that we think about as we continue to change what the industry looks like and feels like.”
The shared moment, Kish said, was what cooking should be about: support and teamwork. She can also, she added, remain impartial while being compassionate.
“I still voted for her as my least favorite dish,” she said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/24/arts/television/top-chef.html
