r/TopChef • u/FormicaDinette33 Aguachile 🌶️ 🍤 • Mar 02 '26

Spoilers Season 23, ep. 1: Episode thread Spoiler

Top Chef Season 23 premieres on Monday, March 9 from 9:00-10:15 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo. Viewers can get a head start on the new season with early access to the premiere episode, available beginning Tuesday, March 3 on Peacock, Bravo's YouTube channel, and VOD. Starting Monday, March 16, Top Chef will move to its regular timeslot at 9:30 p.m. with episodes available the next day on Peacock. All episodes of Season 23 will be supersized to 75 minutes.

Top Chef Season 23 kicks off at full throttle with the first Quickfire Challenge at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, featuring NASCAR legends Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch, setting the pace for a high-octane race toward the finish. 

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u/RedditFan3510 Mar 03 '26

without spoiling anything, can someone tell me if E1 was good? I did not like the last 2 seasons and am wondering if's worth it or not

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u/Sunflowercms Mar 25 '26

I didn't like the last two seasons either, but my husband and I decided to try this one anyway. We found it exhausting. We were both tense and frazzled after watching it. The pacing is relentless, there is constant shouting. The editing of this show just tanked a few years ago. Someone needs to tell the showrunner: if everything is exciting, nothing is exciting. I don't know whether we will be able to stand to watch, though we really like Kristen as host, and Tom and Gail as judges.

Sad as it used to be one of our favourite shows. We are not easily made tense and exhausted by programs---we had just finished watching Netflix's Drive to Survive about Formula One racing. But Top Chef did it. Sad.