First Chef Down

Published on Thursday, June 14, 2007, by The CHOW Editorial Team / Edit Post

Clay Bowen talks to Meredith Arthur from his job at the University Club of Santa Barbara, where he returned after his defeat on the opening of Top Chef’s third season. His amuse-bouche is what brought him down: an apple-bowl fruit-soup concoction that was deemed more of a first course than an amuse. With a little help from a Bravo publicist (that’s the Emily whom Clay confers with), also on the phone, Bowen discusses his day in the Miami sun.

Bowen doesn’t want to guess who might be this season’s top chef, but judging from this taste test showdown, Hung is the favorite so far. Check back next week—and throughout season three—for updated predictions.

Listen to all of this season’s Top Chef podcasts:
Season 3 Round Table
Hung Huynh
Dale Levitski
Casey Thompson
Brian Malarkey
Sara Mair
CJ Jacobsen
Howie Kleinberg
Tre Wilcox
Sara Nguyen
Joey Paulino
Lia Bardeen
Camille Becerra
Micah Edelstein
Sandee Birdsong

Need a little refresher course? Listen to last season’s Top Chef podcasts on CHOW.

Note to top chefs: Don’t overcook your boar chops

ALLTop Chef
POST A COMMENT |6 Comments

COMMENT

  • oh, so now bravo realizes that the contestants are talking? great. i loved mikey's honesty and bluntness and sadly this doesn't give me much hope for forthcoming interviews in the future.

  • Very humble, Clay! I am so proud of you for continuing to represent MS so well! Keep your aspirations high, and I know you will achieve your goals.

  • I admit that Clay wasn't long for the show, but I feel like getting kicked out over a contestant that was unable to finish the challenge was a little unfair. Outside of that, this batch of chefs seems quite a bit better than last season. I'm assuming Clay was our Mikey this year and I'm glad to see that we're not going to hang onto someone who clearly should not be in the competition for 7 shows.

  • hmm is that why he didn't sound so forthcoming?

  • she's the Bravo publicist who was on the call with Clay.

  • Who's Emily?