Interview With Ted Allen

When Bravo's hit series Top Chef returns for Season 3 on Wednesday, June 13, not only will viewers (and contestants) once again get the culinary opinions of staple judges Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons, but ex- "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" food-and-wine connoisseur Ted Allen will join the team — including host Padma Lakshmi — as well.

Allen recently talked with AfterElton.com about taking on this unique job, the sexy new Top Chef contestants, and the dark side of food.

AfterElton.com: Having you as a judge on Top Chef is pretty darn clever. Did Bravo approach you with the idea or was it yours?
Ted Allen: Well, I've been a fan of Top Chef since the beginning. I've been on three episodes prior to Season 3. I was on one episode on Season 1 and two episodes on Season 2. And Bravo called and asked me to do more. I'm in half the episodes this time along with Gail Simmons. Bravo approached me, which was nice. Do I want to go to Miami for three weeks and eat a bunch of great food? Yeah! Absolutely!

AE: We here at AfterElton.com are all about gay visibility. How much of a breakthrough is it to have a gay judge on Top Chef ? Have we finally arrived as a people?
TA: I didn't know Tom Colicchio was gay! You know, it's no secret that Bravo has been a big supporter of the LGBT community for a long time. I think they figured out that, first of all, we're a hell of a lot of fun!

Queer Eye was the breakout show for the Bravo network. It took a lot of guts for them to make Queer Eye in the first place. So for them to continue supporting us and giving me a role in Top Chef is just par for the course.

We've infiltrated the ranks fairly well at Bravo. My friend Andy Cohen is openly gay, and he plays a big part in deciding what gets on the network. So we've infiltrated them!

AE: Give us some scoop on the new season. What is going to be different? Any new sorts of challenges or twists you can talk about?
TA: The most exciting thing for me is that the level of culinary talent is at an all-time high with Season 3. We have people from amazing restaurants from all over the country like Chicago, Dallas, New York. … We've always had good cooks and really exciting personalities on the show, but it's a fever pitch this time.

There's just something about the competitive reality format. You take a bunch of strangers and make them live in the same luxury apartment together for a month and you take away their cell phones, internet and newspapers. And you make them compete to cook the most delicious stuff. And you give them sharp knives! I don't know what it is. It seems to bring out the competitive streak in people.

What I think is great about this show — and I know Tom and Padma are very serious food people in addition to being entertaining and gorgeous — we have all the drama and we have all the scheming and strategy that you have in a reality game, but you get some truly high-level culinary talent. And as judges, that makes our job a little more difficult but a lot more delicious. It's a good problem to have.

AE: So how do you spice it up this season?
TA: Let's see. Having the show set in Miami presents a lot of great opportunities. There's just so much culture. And it's so sexy. You get a lot of spicy ingredients. When we gays think of Miami, we think of night life and gorgeous people. There's one challenge where the chefs are actually cooking for people who are in the midst of a night out. And it rebelled a little bit. It's very, very late. It's a late-night town.

The Top Chef kitchen this season is really, really cool and bigger and better than ever. Unfortunately, it was located right next to a late-night dance club in the design district in Miami. And Top Chef tends to shoot very late into the night —3 or 4 or 5 a.m. is common. So you'd hear the thump thump of the club all night.

AE: You were there clubbing every night, right?
TA: Sadly, I had too much work to do. For my group of boys, Carson [Kressley] and Jai [Rodriguez] enjoy the night life more than myself. I'm more inclined to be found munching on a Cuban sandwich.