"top chef las vegas" news and stories

Some relationships -- even the ones that only last a few months -- are so intense you can't stop reliving them. You obsess over them, replay them back in your mind, wondering if somehow, some way, things could've have turned out differently.

The same could be said of "Top Chef." What if everyone had been nice to the long-surviving, "flying under the radar" Robin? What if sentimental fave Kevin had quit the show after his rare-lamb Restaurant Wars fiasco? Would he have given up cooking to do the voice of Yukon Cornelius in those claymation "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" TV specials? What if Michael V. hadn't told the show's producers how to find his big brother Bryan? Would we have been spared 14 hours of brotherly hate?

These questions -- er, most of them -- were addressed on Wednesday night's "Top Chef Reunion," or, more accurately, "Bravo's Evening of Men Revealing Their Chests in Unbuttoned Dress Shirts." As if to underscore the classy/crude vibe set by Tom and the supremely self-satisfied emcee Andy Cohen, the mood of the evening was polite and jovial, albeit punctuated by weird and/or inappropriate references to Mattin's drunken nudity, sexual tension among the chefs and Padma's means of conception (did she really say "eating huevos" or were we just hallucinating?).

By now, we know "Top Chef" is all about tough questions: "Are you proud of what you cooked?" "Who was really responsible for the disgusting part of your dish?" "Why in God's name did you serve me raw lamb?"

But last night, we got the toughest one yet: "Which son do you like better?... C'mon, you can tell us -- we're just 10 people who are about to critique both of them into oblivion!"

OK, so this exchange didn't really transpire during the finale-of-the-finale of the yearly endurance test that is "Top Chef." But it might as well have. After narrowing the field to no more than three young men, two of whom share a last name and some DNA -- if not, shall we say, similar outlooks on life -- the show's producers decided upon one last master plan to mess with their cheftestants' minds: Bring Your Mom to Final Elimination Challenge Day.

"This meal can make your career," Tom helpfully told us at the beginning of the show. So why on earth would you try to throw these three talented chefs off of their game by stirring up such desperate, maternal feelings? Why would you ask them to make an extra course inspired by a dish mom used to make, and then ask said parent to judge the results?

May the best man win on the finale of Bravo's "Top Chef: Las Vegas" tonight at 10 p.m.

Will the judges choose Kevin Gillespie, the bearded soul with a love of all things porcine and comfort food? Or one of the brothers Voltaggio? -- Michael and his Picasso-like creations, or the "why so serious?" Bryan on the other end of the Voltaggio spectrum with his classic flavors and pristine entrees?

Only time, and Padma's bangs, will tell.

It's only been two weeks since the last episode of "Top Chef," but thanks to the wonder of Bravo editing, it seems like it's been a lifetime. It's not just that the dry grime of the Vegas strip has been traded for the misty lushness of California wine country -- it's everything. The seasons have changed. Hairstyles have been altered -- or in Kevin's case, have gone completely untended. Padma is now buxom with child. For all we know, Michael has run out and gotten even more lame tattoos.

This can only mean one thing: We have entered the first part of the "Top Chef" finale -- now with 80 percent more pregnant pauses, concerned looks and furrowed brows! Certainly, the stakes are high enough without Padma, Tom and Gail being overly reverent and ominous, but still, they do the best they can to help ratchet up the tension.

The occasion this time was a Napa Valley "Crush Party," which, contrary to the moniker, was not a celebration of the complex flavor profile of Orange Crush. Rather, it was an opportunity for affluent wine-country moguls to let down their hair and ostentatiously stomp on some grapes with their bare, pedicured feet, thus celebrating the harvest season while their underpaid grape-pickers toiled in a faraway field.

Come back, Natalie! O, Nigella, where art thou? After a couple of heavy-hitting, sweeps-month episodes, last night's "Top Chef" was, well, a little subdued.

With the albatross that was Robin finally gone, and five not-quite-equal cheftestants left, the mysteries left in the season are few. Will Jen get her mojo back? Will the brothers Voltaggio go at each other's throats, like we've been hoping they would all season? Will snarky Toby Young disappear for good, already?

Instead of high tension, we got slow-burn dread and buttoned-down critiques, not to mention portentous montages of the chefs getting dressed, sleeping, or, in the case of Kevin, hanging rosary beads around his neck.