"michelle bernstein" news and stories

This week marks the return of Slashfood's exclusive exit interviews with the latest Top Chef contestant to get the boot. In an effort to prevent spoilers, we've included the text after the jump.

We should've seen this one coming. Like Mephistopheles creeping up over your shoulder, like Javier Bardem asking you to toss a coin for your soul, there is on Top Chef a long, less-than-illustrious history of the politely grinning evil genius, just waiting to distribute the wrong advice at the right time to the weakest competitor in hopes of sabotaging their burgeoning careers in the kitchen.

In this season, that's been Angelo -- only the moniker of "evil genius" doesn't quite fit with him. He's more an over-gelled, presumably over-cologned version of Mike Meyers' Dr. Evil, flitting around the Top Chef D.C. brownstone, looking for anyone who'll listen to him. He's like the guy who sat over your shoulder in high school geometry, prattling on about how you were doing it wrong -- when really what you were doing was oh-so-right. You didn't listen, but the longer he went on, the more he wore down your resistance: "Maybe I should do it his way..."

Unfortunately, every evil douchebag needs an object of their bad advice, and this season, it's been Tamesha. The no-nonsense chef from Barbados has done everything but give Angelo a "talk to the hand" move -- whether out of politeness, or good humor, or -- shudder -- because she might be attracted to him. (We hope the latter is just a figment of the editor's imagination, for her sake.)