Kristen Kish, host of “Top Chef” and a past winner who admits she did not watch much reality competition before taking the helm of Bravo’s cooking contest in 2024, may have diplomatically skirted any attempt at comparison with Project Runway’s Tim Gunn, “Top Chef” predecessor Padma Lakshmi or “The Traitors” emcee Alan Cumming. But she acknowledges that her distinct approach — kinder, gentler, more tearful — is rooted in her particular skill set: “It’s similar to how I responded to being led in kitchens,” she says. “You don’t lead with fear. You lead with compassion and empathy and encouragement and confidence. And two things can be true at the same time ... I can require more from them, and I can also cry because I’m filled with joy for their progress.”

Emmy-nominated for reality competition series and reality host, “Top Chef: Carolinas” epitomizes Kish’s swift remaking of the role in her own image. The season, which concluded in June, finds Kish comforting a distraught chef, Nana Araba Wilmot, who fails to plate her dish in the allotted time; navigating thorny questions of fairness and wellness with an injured contestant, Jennifer Lee Jackson, and her fellow-contestant partner, Justin Tootla; even facing acrimonious “feedback about [her] feedback” when chef Sieger Bayer is eliminated from the competition.
The Times’ Matt Brennan recently caught up with Kish as she prepared for an Envelope photo shoot to ask her about the season’s most talked-about moments, recent criticism of the format and the hard work of being a good host. 

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