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'Top Chef' is always entertaining - it's hard to stop watching, like a good hockey fight, but no one gets hurt. It's great that the format is so inherently dramatic and can make cooking so entertaining to people who might not ordinarily be interested in a cooking show. Good for the industry all round.

I love 'Top Chef.'

Many of them have accomplished a lot before they ever get to 'Top Chef' although they're not well known. The show just provides them with a platform. There's just one winner and on some seasons you can get numerous chefs that are really good. Even if they don't win, they're all talented.

Shows like 'Top Chef,' 'Hell's Kitchen' have helped bring attention to the culinary world on a whole, but you have to be cautious it doesn't get out of hand.

When you have a chef that wants to be in the spotlight, maybe after one or two appearances on a show, they think they're at a certain level that they haven't reached yet in the kitchen. Shows like 'Top Chef', 'Hell's Kitchen' have helped bring attention to the culinary world.

It is great to add some glamour to the food industry, like television shows have done for the food world and inspiring people to work in the industry. The flip side of that is unfortunately people think that after they get their qualifications, they get their invitation to compete on 'Top Chef.'

'Top Chef' is a very smooth-running machine. All the people working there are incredibly professional and absolutely at the top of their game.

I'm a good cook, and I look at something like 'Iron Chef' and think, 'It's a good thing I already know how to cook' - because I would never think I could do it if I watched these shows.

I think 'Chef' is about somebody who's in the middle of his life, and he's kind of lost his passion and his voice, so he seeks out some refinement and redemption.

I'm not a celebrity chef. I'm a chef that happens to have television shows and a chef that happens to do media.