Good TV does not a chef make

Listening to Anthony Bourdain last night on Tom Ashbrook’s show, you would have thought that restaurant food had been in a steep decline until Top Chef, the Food Network, and of course, his road trip docudramas “No Reservations” came into being. All good, according to Bourdain, who seemed to have been defanged for the occasion. Isn’t nastiness his appeal? He sounded like he was chatting about new trends in Episcopalian religious services.

Now that regular folk have seen chefs vying to cook weird things in trumphed-up contests, everyone understands the finer points of cuisine, he seemed to believe.

This made me think of Patricia Yeo, chef of Ginger Park, telling me recently that she thinks food TV contests are ruining the work ethic of beginning chefs. They all think they do a short stint, get on TV, and make Bourdain’s bucks (he went on and on about the cushy, travel-filled life he leads). “Showing up for work,” Yeo says, isn’t on the agendas of this would-be stars.