It's "Top Chef", not "Top SexPot"

On Wednesday Michael Voltaggio was crowned the winner of Top Chef: Las Vegas, season 6 of the popular Bravo series. Though Mike had a good showing throughout the competition, the winner of Top Chef has historically been decided almost solely by the dishes made in the final challenge and has not been cumulative by any means. Looking at the judges' comments shown during the finale, it certainly didn't seem like Michael's food was their favorite that night. I thought it looked like almost certainly they were going to choose Brian Voltaggio (brotherly rivalries are obvi great for ratings), especially since he banged out a great dessert and Michael pretty much blew it.

Speaking of banging and blowing, how hot is Michael Voltaggio? He's such a badass and can be a total douche bag, but it totally works. Michael is sexy and was one of the only standout personalities during this season, which to some extent may have accounted for his win in what was by far the closest matchup in Top Chef history between the brothers V and Kevin Gillespie. No randos snuck into the finale (Lisa in season 4, Carla in season 5), so the choice of a winner had to come down to tiny mistakes in the cooking...or who's win could make for the best story line. Sorry Kevin, but even if you didn't make some crucial mistakes I saw a plot with it coming down to the two brothers a mile away.

Top Chef is also probably the hardest reality show for a viewer to truly judge accurately through the televizzle, and thus the easiest for the producers to have say in the outcome. Compared to a purely visual art like fashion (Project Runway) or auditory art like music (American Idol), the culinary world is roughly only 20% visual and largely 80% taste, a sense which cannot be experienced by a viewer. We have the judges' comments to help us, but there is mucho editing which will never allow the viewer to receive the full story. We can follow Top Chef and know who we want to win, but it's pretty much impossible for anyone (even a culinary expert viewer) but Tom and Padma to really know who deserves to win.

Was Michael a strong contender for the title? Surely. Was his food the best during the finale? We'll never know. Would I hit it? Obvi.