Scott Tobias nails exactly the thing I loved most about Top Chef Masters, and certainly about the season finale:
But with all due respect to those who shrugged off Top Chef Masters as a dull facsimile of the real thing, I think tonight’s hour was a great argument in the show’s favor. It was, simply, a pure example of the sensual wonders of food—the rich and evocative flavors, the feelings and memories a wonderful meal can coax out of those who cook it and those who eat it, and the sheer aesthetic artistry that the best of the best are capable of putting on display. For me, watching the finale of Top Chef Masters was like an extended version of the “big night†sequence in Big Night. At one point in the judging, Jay Rayner suggests they just stop using their words and criticize using guttural “mmmmm†sounds instead. It was that good.
If I’m ever back in Chicago, I think I may just have to make a point of eating at Rick Bayless‘ Topolobampo.