Top Chef Chicago: Ahem, 3 Chicago Contestants?

I'll admit, I am looking forward to it. Until the NHL playoffs start it will be my guilty pleasure. So I am looking forward to seeing how the three Chicagoans do.  Yes, three.

Apparently the first contest will be to "spin" the Chicago-style pizza.
I don't know if having Chicago play host to Top Chef will be good or bad. It could be good. As is constantly mentioned the diversity of the local ethnic food is second only to the quality. We are home to not one or two but several of the nation's top destination restaurants. It's definitely a pissing-contest of sorts when you get into how cities stack up against each other food-wise.

But it could be bad. Pizza, hot dogs, italian beef... steak, steak, steak.
That doesn't reflect what really works here. What seems to be much less attitude than you typically get in a NYC or LA setting. Just as much experimentation with food – from Alinea/Moto/Schwa type sci-fi to Polish-Mexican fusion. (!)

Our contestants include: Stephanie Izard, who used to own Scylla, (link to an interesting article from a few years back) will be up against Valerie Bolon who is a Kendall grad and ex-employee at Spring and Hot Chocolate. But we also have another homer named Dale who while he works at Buddakan (couldn't get a table last time out there), was born here and helped open Vong (as mentioned in his bio).

I'm tempted to handicap this one but there's way too much resume material to discount. I'll see how they fuck-up the pizza.

Hey. It's fuckin' Chicago.

Comments

[Betty]

Our Chicago pride (and affinity for humble non-egocentric contestants) has us rooting for Stephanie :]! She's been doing quite well! They've been doing a good job with the diversity of the challenges. I watch this show religiously .. we'll have to compare notes!

[Greg]

Where are the guest judges from Chicago? By my count there has been one.