Probably the most deliciously tense entry on the 2025 TV schedule is unfortunately near leaving once more, with Top Chef: Vacation spot Canada set to conclude Season 22’s two-part Milan-set finale. It’s been a wild cycle for each cheftestants and viewers, with sturdy rivals like Massimo Piedimonte and César Murillo going residence as Chi-City’s Bailey Sullivan survived and thrived by way of Final Likelihood Kitchen. Host Kristen Kish paid this group the last word praise, whereas additionally telling CinemaBlend whether or not or not she’d wish to compete once more.
When I talked to Kish about settling into her second 12 months as Top Chef’s high-fashion host, I talked about that this season, maybe greater than every other, had me switching my predictions for winner on a near-weekly foundation. She agreed with that evaluation, and shared that she mirrored greater than as soon as on how she would have felt to be cooking towards Vacation spot Canada’s hopefuls, saying:
All of them are on these highs and lows and journeys and it’s anybody’s sport. And it was like that from the very starting. Typically I take into consideration like, ‘Oh my God, if I needed to compete towards all of them, and this was my season?’ Terrified, completely terrified. [Laughs.] They’re all so good.
Contemplating Kristen Kish was the primary Top Chef contestant to take residence the highest honors after being eradicated and successful out on Final Likelihood Kitchen — which might be streamed with a Peacock subscription — one may suppose that she’d have an unwavering confidence within the realm of cooking. However such is the mixed expertise of Season 22’s chef pool that its proficient host can be so intimidated.
Would Kirsten Kish Compete On Top Chef Once more?
Given her voiced hesitance to probably go up towards the numerous cooks vying for the prize this season, I needed to ask if she ever considered competing once more and if that was a attainable purpose. To my shock, her reply was each resolute and towards the grain. As she put it:
No, Nope, nope, nope. [Laughs.] The great factor is that they in all probability would not let me. However no, I would not do it once more.
As stunned as I was to listen to the previous Iron Chef host sound so satisfied that she’d by no means enter the Top Chef gauntlet once more (presumably for a Masters season), I can absolutely perceive why that will be her stance. Even when it wasn’t a difficulty of being “terrified” to go up towards a very totally different batch of high-achieving cooks, leaping again into the competitors would not actually give Kish a leg up anyplace professionally, contemplating she’s already internet hosting.
As such, she can be placing not solely her pleasure and her regular blood strain in danger by participating in a future season, however she’d additionally probably put in danger her easy-to-qualify position as a “fomer Top Chef champion.” If she’d compete in Masters and lose — fairly a longshot, I’d suppose — then it’d dim the gloss of her Season 10 victory.
Leaping again into the aggressive frying pan was a superb transfer for chef Brooke Williamson, who got here in second place to Kish throughout Season 10. She joined different returning cooks inside Season 14’s newbs vs. vets lineup, prevented the dreaded early eliminations, and ended up taking the crown. However with no comparable want for vindication, Kish is completely comfortable not placing that type of strain on herself once more.
Solely time will inform if Kirsten Kish ever does resolve to don an apron once more for the sake of competitors, even when it isn’t on Top Chef, however I would not rely on it. Followers can positively discover her internet hosting the Season 22 finale, which is able to air on Bravo on Thursday, June 12, at 9:00 p.m. ET.