by Kristen Wile

The judges and hosts of Bravo’s Top Chef were back in Charlotte recently to celebrate the premiere of the show’s 23rd season, filmed in the Carolinas with a home base in Charlotte. We spoke to host Kristen Kish about advice she’d give culinary students and the traits she looks for in the chefs she hires.

Unpretentious Palate: What are some things that you look at when you see a new group of Top Chef contestants come in that make them stand out?
Kristen Kish: There’s a difference between the chefs that come on Top Chef and the ones that I hire for my restaurant. Top Chef, I don’t care if you went to culinary school. I don’t care what your personality is. All I care about is if you can perform for the challenge and the food that you are able to execute. Top Chef is not a competition about personality or resume or pedigree. It’s a competition on if you can produce the food for the challenge, and that’s it. On Top Chef, I don’t look for anything. I look for good food that eventually ends up in front of me. 

UP: What do you look for when hiring in your restaurant?
KK: For my restaurant when I’m hiring, I rarely look at resumes. They come in, they do a stage. It’s more whether you want to be there. It’s a mutual decision. It’s just not me hiring them — it’s, ‘Do you want to be here?’ And that doesn’t matter if you went to culinary school or not. 

I think that culinary school is important for a lot of people, including myself. It was important because it laid a foundation of accountability. I needed to be accountable and have structure in my life, and that’s what culinary school gave to me. Is it necessary? No. And I’m the chef in residence for Escoffier, and I tell the students all the time, ‘Is it necessary? No, but if you are choosing to be here, you have to figure out why you want to be here and choose to show up every single day and make something of your time while you’re there.’

UP: If you’re a student or new culinary professional who’s looking to stage somewhere with a chef that’s got a great reputation, a really well-known and respected restaurant, how do you make that happen?
KK: I think a lot of times in culinary school and coming out of it, you have to be fearless just in life. You have to be fearless. You want to do something, you’ve got to put yourself out there. It might feel uncomfortable. I think one of the things that you can get from culinary school are resources. You have chef instructors that have probably made contacts many different places. Use the resources that the school can offer you. Sometimes it might just be a cold call, DM, or just showing up to the restaurant asking if they have a stage available. Fearless. You’ve got to be fearless.

UP: I imagine it’s intimidating.
KK: It is for some, but you’d be surprised, some people are not scared at all. They’ll walk right through your door and look you straight in the eye and be like, ‘You got a spot for me?’ And I’ll be like, ‘Sure.’ I mean, there’s always room. 

UP: You mentioned chefs wanting to be there. What does that look like in somebody day-to-day?
KK: One, you show up on time, you come prepared. You are receptive to learning and hearing what everyone is teaching you, like teaching the people around you. You can tell in two seconds if you show up to work and you’re like, do you want to be here. It is a feeling. It’s kind of hard to put in words. You can tell when someone walks in the room if they want to be there or not. 

UP: How much what you look for is someone’s skills coming in? How do you feel about malleability versus skill?
KK: I will 100% always take the more green, hungry, willing to learn and take everything like bull by the horns over a seasoned ego. 

UP: Why is that? 
KK: Well, because I need someone to learn how to operate within this team. No one in the kitchen knows more than anybody else at all. Everyone has got to mesh together and you can tell if someone or something is not jiving, it throws the whole system off, whether you’re cooking or not. Everything is harmonious. Everything has to gel. I think an ego is the worst thing you can have walking into a kitchen. Humble yourself and understand that you have a lot to learn still. I still do it. If I walked into a friend’s kitchen, if I even walked into Tom’s kitchen, I go in humble, ready to learn from whatever his team has to teach me. 

UP: People assume there’s a lot of ego in kitchens. Do you think that’s still the case, or is that shifting? 
KK: That’s hard for me to say because I haven’t been in every kitchen. My kitchen, yes, it shifted from the moment we opened to where we are now and over the course of 7-8 years. It has certainly shifted, probably because, as I told you, I’d rather hire a green egoless cook, someone who’s willing and who wants to be there. I haven’t spent enough time in enough kitchens to give you a full answer. 

UP: What is the difference between ego and confidence? 
KK: Ego thinks you’re better than everybody, thinks that you have all the right answers. Confidence is that you can humble yourself and say, ‘I don’t.’ There’s nothing more confident than someone saying, ‘I don’t know how to do that. Can you teach me?’ That took a lot of confidence for me to say that to somebody, asking for somebody to teach me. 

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