Another excellent season of Top Chef is in the books. Season 21 took the chefs to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where they were greeted by the show’s new judge, chef Kristen Kish. Kish won season 10 of Top Chef, and in a sweet full-circle moment, she’s now nominated at The Emmys for Outstanding Host For A Reality Or Reality Competition Program.
The author, owner and executive chef of Arlo Grey, and host of Restaurants at the End of the World, quickly established herself as a compelling host and judge on Top Chef. With thoughtful criticisms, sincere encouragement, and a knack for quality F-bombs, Kish’s return to Top Chef didn’t disappoint. Recently, the Emmy-nominated host spoke with Immersive about judging, encouraging, and her curiosity in and beyond the culinary world.
As someone who grew up in Michigan, going to Milwaukee and enjoying the Midwest food there, did the location feel personal?
Yeah. Obviously it wasn’t planned. I have no say in what cities we go to. And so, when I heard we were going to Milwaukee for my first season, there was already a little bit of… I was going in with a lot of nerves and expectations that I put on myself and that the outside world and the fans also kind of put on you.
And so, going to Wisconsin felt comfortable. If I could diffuse one area of nervousness, which was feeling overwhelmed by the city that we are in or the state that we’re in, going to Milwaukee brought the calm. It worked out perfectly for me.
It was also knowing and very, very close proximity that my brother was on the other side of the lake and my family. My parents no longer live in Michigan, but family, high school friends, everything felt familiar. In such an unfamiliar new circumstance and environment, familiarity was key to helping to tame my nerves.
Having been in their shoes, how did you want to help calm any of the competing chefs’ nerves?
I think the biggest thing for me was being myself. Because if I’m myself, as opposed to feeling like I am this untouchable, unrelatable person, to me, being on the other side, you kind of feel a little out of sorts. You’re already going in as a competitor. You’re already going in perhaps a new environment, a new experience. Maybe you’ve never cooked on television before, and certainly not in this way where you’re away from your home and your friends and your family and your restaurants for six to eight weeks.
And so, as long as I was completely myself, that hopefully could bring comfort. From there, each individual chef is going to have to deal with their own nerves and their own things that they’re dealing with. But I feel like the more that we are ourselves on the side of presenting, judging, and conversation, the more real it all feels, which then brings some calm to the whole thing.
It takes a lot of bravery to go on one of these shows, cook, and make mistakes and learn from them so publicly.
And I think one of the really most important things that I take away from being a competitor is how Tom [Colicchio], Gail [Simmons], and Padma [Lakshmi] talked to us. It never felt better than, or a great deal of judgment. It was a conversation around food. I feel like that’s largely why Top Chef is incredibly successful and well-respected, because it is a very honest, true representation of how chefs and how food people and hospitality professionals talk to one another. You can provide and give judgment and criticism, but it all comes from wanting someone to be better.
The most unexplainable things in words sometimes are honestly the things with the most authentic, genuine point of view, because it’s a feeling. If you ask someone to describe how they love the love of their life, there’s only so many words that can do it, and sometimes it’s just a feeling.
Matty Matheson’s chaos theory could probably inspire college essays. What’s your take on Matty’s chaos theory?
I’ll be honest with you, when I heard that challenge, I was like, “What is chaos cuisine?” People were trying to explain it, and the way that I kept hearing it was, well, it’s the chef cooking their food. It doesn’t register as something different to me. Your whole thing is putting together techniques and flavors and cultures that maybe normally don’t go together, that’s cooking your own food, if you ask me. God, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, maybe I’m from an older generation where I just don’t understand why we have to label it something, but whatever.
Matty Matheson was the most perfect person to be part of that challenge. I can’t remember exactly what he said during the episode, but while we were sitting and dining, it was… I don’t know. He said something, clearly it stuck with me, but not exactly. He said something that was really thoughtful, because in the delivery of the challenge, I was so confused. I think he was maybe a little confused, I’m not entirely sure. But while we were sitting, eating and discussing the chefs and their food, it was really just a story about their own point of view. That’s it. And if that’s what chaos cuisine is, then I’m fully, fully on board with it.
I don’t know if I know exactly what this theory is saying, but I think I know the feeling behind what he’s saying?
Sometimes that’s the most important part. You feel it and you’re like, yes. The most unexplainable things in words sometimes are honestly the things with the most authentic, genuine point of view, because it’s a feeling. If you ask someone to describe how they love the love of their life, there’s only so many words that can do it, and sometimes it’s just a feeling.
Even just watching the show sometimes, you and the judges, sometimes it’s hard to quite put into words the feelings a meal brings, right?
There’s only so many ways you can say something’s perfectly seasoned [Laughs]. So it’s just like, “It’s perfectly seasoned.” That’s a really great exercise in being able to convey yourself not only just in words, but sometimes at a loss for words. I tried to explain this to my mother. I was like, “Mom, that’s why I say ‘fuck’ so much, because sometimes it’s the only way to really hammer it in. It is so perfect that it’s fucking perfect.”
[Laughs] And who doesn’t say fuck after a great meal sometimes?
My mother doesn’t, so I can explain it to her, but it’s, again, trying to find all the ways to convey how something tastes and how something makes you feel through a television screen.
With Restaurants at the End of the World and Top Chef, as experienced as you are, there is still an intense curiosity about how you approach your work. Even as you gain more experience and success, does your curiosity only deepen?
A hundred percent. When I was younger and I was just fresh out of culinary school, I thought I knew everything, like I knew everything about everything. I recognized that there were different skillsets to learn. As you get older, every single time I try, it might not necessarily be completely new, but it’s a different point of view. It might not be a flavor that I’ve ever had before, but it’s a flavor that I’ve never had before from a particular chef. And so, those are the things that you’re like, wow. It just sparks and ignites this desire to want to know more.
I kind of said it during Restaurants at the End of the World why I wanted to do that project, which has certainly carried over into Top Chef into this era of my life, but the curiosity really comes from this idea that being a transracial adoptee, figuring out who I am culturally and what that means to me. There is no one way for me to be Korean or Korean American.
I’ve had to really come to terms with this idea of what it means to me and how do I want to represent that in food. How I operate in my culinary career? And the fact that I could have ended up anywhere with anybody, with any family, having any jobs, but my life has led me to this point, it would be a disservice to me to not drive my life through curiosity, because I could have ended up anywhere.
For Top Chef, what were some moments where you really felt your curiosity sparked? What was very new for you?
Well, the job alone. Being offered the job was a big moment. But during filming, I was taken aback by so many of the dishes. Perhaps not because they were the greatest dish I’ve ever had, but it’s the thought process. It became fully known to me when I would watch the show air, just like everyone else did.
You get to see a bit more of their personality infused. We don’t get to see all of that. And so, to watch it as a whole picture of knowing what I experienced and then watching and getting to see what they are experiencing, it created a full picture for me. Those are the ones I was like, “Wow, I never really thought of that.”
It happens when I’m eating something and something is a new technique. I think I said a couple times, “God, I’d like to know how to do this.” I have zero ego about me, saying, “Well, I’ve never done that before,” or, “I’ve never done it as perfectly as this, and I want to know how you did it.” And those are just those moments this industry continues to give. There are so many chefs with great things to say through the plates of their food.
I think, from doing this job and interviewing people, the most brilliant people aren’t afraid of saying, “I don’t know.”
Yes, a hundred percent. It is the same way. That is the same sentiment and kind of runs parallel with this idea that I live a lot of my life by. I might not know what I’m good at, but I certainly know what I’m not good at. One of the greatest strengths is knowing your own weaknesses. Well, if you don’t know, you don’t know, but try to find out more.
What have you been working on lately?
Gosh. Well, life is one of those things that just is a revolving door of things. I just got back from Austin and my restaurant. There’s the evolution of the diner and a fast growing city like Austin. I was looking around and we were having conversations about what it means to go to the next space. What is the next space? We need to step back and say, “Well, what’s working? What’s not working now? What do people want more of, or what they don’t want anymore?” It’s this constant evolution. And so, those are the curious questions that I was just asking myself three days ago.
Also, I imagine knowing what people want, but also, what you want as a chef too, right?
There’s a fine line, right? You have some chefs that live in a market and have certainly created such an incredible career that they can cook whatever they want and people will come. There’s also a fine line of knowing your market and knowing where you’re at and knowing what people want in order to feed them, but also not giving up part of yourself. The beauty about chefs is, I believe all the great chefs don’t just cook one kind of way.
We have a skillset that allows us to cook at home for our families and then cook some of the most fine dining, exquisite tasting menus ever. On Top Chef, you see that a lot. I love when you see a style kind of ebb and flow, but still remain the heart of the chef. I think that’s what Top Chef also challenges. You have 20 minutes. You cook differently in 20 minutes than you do when you have five hours. So, being able to tap into all those different skillsets is the beauty of a well-rounded chef.
In that regard, Top Chef is a great show about creativity and process. I write for a movie and TV blog, so I did want to ask, any shows or movies about process that really speak to you?
First of all, I will preface, I don’t watch a ton of television. Just time is one of those things. Also, I specifically watch television to calm myself in ways. So a lot of the high intensity stuff, I’m already high intensity and my brain’s already going a million miles an hour. Sometimes I just want something to escape.
But first of all, I do love The Bear. I think it’s great. Someone just asked me, “Does The Bear trigger you?” And I said, “No, because The Bear is very realistic in a lot of ways, but I also live in a world where I can separate myself from a television show.” I appreciate the reality of it. I’m not triggered by it, so it’s great.
But my wife and I, we just started watching This Is Us. I know, we’re really late. We are real, real late on that. We’re on season two. Man, that gets you in your feelings. You put a lot of your own life into perspective when you watch shows like that. It’s just really well done, which obviously, no one needs to hear from me. Look at all the awards it won.
There’s a fun Top Chef episode in which Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture serves as inspiration for dishes. Even when you watch This Is Us, or when you’re out and about, do you find the most random things inspire dishes for you as well?
Oh my gosh. Anything and everything. I think it’s two things coming together. It’s whatever it is that you watch or see, whether that’s a tree or a gust of wind that reminds you of spring break. I get that a lot. As a kid when we would go from Michigan to Florida, and you know that first breeze of not freezing cold winter air, but it’s just a hint of like, oh, this is spring break, those feelings. Or it could be a dish that is a little bit more literal, but it’s that coming together with the moment that you’re not expecting.
For me, when I’m seeking inspiration and I’m sitting there with a pen and paper being like, “I got to write a menu,” it doesn’t happen. You have to let it go and continue on living whatever life you’re living at the time, and it will come. But I think those are the moments. It’s our job, whether you’re in the culinary career or journalist or whatever, to just pay attention to when that inspiration strikes and take note.
Yeah, be present.
Be present. Isn’t that something?
[Laughs] Easy, right? Speaking as someone who spent a lot of their childhood in Michigan, any comfort food you really appreciated there? Were you a Leto’s Coney Island or Olga’s fan?
Olga’s, I used to work in Woodland Mall where there was an Olga’s. I used to work at two places in the mall, one when I was 16, and then one when I was 18. First job was twisting pretzels at a place called Twist and Shout, and then I worked at Surf City Squeeze making smoothies.
During my lunch breaks, if I was real lucky and I made a little extra tips that day, I would go to Olga’s. I remember the seasoned chicken tenders and the seasoned french fries and, I don’t know what they called it, but they were famous for this chicken tender pita wrap thing. It was tucked in fried bread or something, and then there was an orange smoothie drink… Oh my God, yes. I loved it so much.
I’m smiling because I have been to that Olga’s at the Woodland Mall.
Have you really? Oh my God. If you ever go back, Twist and Shout, unfortunately, is not there. However, Surf City Squeeze is, and it’s the exact same location as when I used to work there. I was there for two and a half years, on and off and through college, as a basically non-alcoholic bartender. I loved it so much.
I’ll check it out one day. There’s always the balance between complexity and simplicity with the dish on Top Chef. As a chef, what’s your relationship with that fine line these days?
Oh man. Well, when I was younger, it was a lot about, I don’t know, cooking with ego in my head too much. You throw all the fancy things at the plate. For me, I learned throughout my career and I grew, just maturity-wise, that everything has to have a purpose and a reason. If it doesn’t, then it gets taken off and it gets edited out. It certainly has evolved from being less in my head and more about actually what people want to eat.
Does your approach there often evolve? Is it a daily or monthly change?
Absolutely. Maybe not daily, but definitely a monthly, very frequent thing. Anytime I go to create a menu or dish, you write it down, you sit with it, you test it out. There’s oftentimes where something needs more of something. Or I just cooked a dinner, like a private dinner for 30 guests on Saturday, and we went through many variations of the desert where it was too much and then we had to scale it back. And also, that’s where the team comes into place where the more, the merrier on input.
Do you think we’ll we see more of Restaurants at the End of the World?
Sadly, no. It was a really, really great time, really great experience, and I am so grateful that those four episodes live on. I still get messages about it, people watching it on the airplane or whatever, but big corporate decisions. I wish I had a very honest answer, but I’m pretty sure it comes down to budget, if I’m being honest.
I’m sorry to hear that. I found that show really inspiring.
Same, same. So many people did. And there are a great deal of people, my Nat Geo Partners, who are absolutely phenomenal that also want to see more of it, but life goes on. And here we are with Top Chef, so we’re all right.
Top Chef season 21 is available to stream on Peacock.
