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Illustration: Rob Kelly

The Hot Seat: Tom Colicchio

He's nice! So why doesn't anybody want to work with him?

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Tom Colicchio has good taste. At least, that's what we assume because, in addition to helming his Craft restaurants (and Gramercy Tavern before that), he's the head judge on Top Chef, which finally comes to New York this season. He's even, as he calls it, "returning to the stove" this fall to cook a series of intimate, reservation-only meals, dubbed Tom: Tuesday Dinner. But as we found out when we spoke to the culinary captain on the phone recently, dude likes beef jerky. WTF?

RECOMMENDED: Full list of Hot Seat interviews

Time Out New York: At last, Top Chef is in New York. How did being here affect the show?
Tom Colicchio: In a way, I don't think it helps. On the one hand, it was great to stay home and sleep in my bed, go to work every other day. But on the other hand, I think we lost some kind of continuity. When we're shooting on location, that's all we're doing. But here, when you leave the show you go about your life. It was like every time we went back to the set we were starting new.

TONY: I have to ask: If you could eat only one food for the rest of your life—
Tom Colicchio: Mushrooms. I love mushrooms.

TONY: Wow, I expected something fancier.
Tom Colicchio: Mushrooms can be very fancy. It's the closest you can get to eating dirt.

TONY: That's exactly why I don't like them, even though I'm a vegetarian.
Tom Colicchio: Really? You're the worst kind of vegetarian—picky, too. I was a vegetarian for a year.

TONY: What caused it and what ended it?
Tom Colicchio: Looking into a stockpot and seeing a bunch of bones after they were cooked, and it was like, This is gross. I was about 23. After a year, I just needed a steak.

TONY: Do you have any embarrassing guilty-pleasure foods?
Tom Colicchio: Not sure. Let me look in my fridge. I like licorice. Beef jerky? I love beef jerky.

TONY: Like the kind at the bodega?
Tom Colicchio: Not Slim Jim, that's spiced beef. It's different.

TONY: Other than the appreciation of dried beef, what's the most difficult thing for a good chef to learn?
Tom Colicchio: It's finding your own style, because so many chefs imitate other chefs.

TONY: And do you find that contestants try to impress you by using your style?
Tom Colicchio: No. But usually halfway through the season, they all start feeding off each other and all the food starts to look the same. It's kind of annoying.

TONY: They've just spent too much time together. All their tastes regulate?
Tom Colicchio: Exactly. It's like if you put 12 women in a house together...

TONY: Tell me about it. What's more important, skill or creativity?
Tom Colicchio: They're not mutually exclusive. Once you have your basics down, you can start breaking the rules. Too often, chefs just want to experiment—they want to use liquid nitrogen before they know how to use heat.

TONY: Or salt. Why is it so hard to season?
Tom Colicchio: When they're busy, they stop tasting their food. Every time we ask them if they tasted everything, they think that if they say yes, then we'll turn around and say, "You have no taste." If they say no, then we'll say, "How can you put food out that's not seasoned?" So they think it's some kind of catch-22 and never answer the question.

TONY: But they're happy to answer when it's someone else's fault.
Tom Colicchio: Of course.

TONY: Do you hate it when they throw each other under the bus?
Tom Colicchio: I don't mind it if it's true, and I'll tell you why. They are playing to win. If you're in the kitchen and some chef starts blaming you for something, I don't know how long you're going to take it before you turn around and say, "I didn't do it, that guy did it."

TONY: I'm always amazed at how many people cry. Have you ever teared up in the kitchen?
Tom Colicchio: No. [Laughs] There's no crying in the kitchen.

TONY: Speaking of being sad, we do an annual survey of NYC chefs—
Tom Colicchio: I remember last year, I was the chef nobody wanted to work with!

TONY: You seem nice on TV. What happens when you get into the kitchen?
Tom Colicchio: I don't know. I'm nice in the kitchen, too. I was actually quite surprised by that, because ten years ago Charles Dale put out a sort of Zagat's survey for chefs. And the chefs that chefs wanted to work for, number one was Thomas Keller, number two was me, and number three was Daniel [Boulud].

TONY: A lot changes in ten years.
Tom Colicchio: Yeah, but I don't think I'm that bad on the show. I'm no Gordon Ramsay.

Top Chef airs Wednesdays at 10pm on Bravo. For Tom: Tuesday Dinner, go to tomtuesdaydinner.com.

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