Padma Lakshmi Reacts to One of the Season 20 Chefs Having a Michelin Star

All the cheftestants featured on Season 20 of Bravo’s Top Chef either won their respective original seasons or made it to the finals, but does one competitor in particular have a distinct advantage?

Begoña Rodrigo, who won the first season of Top Chef Spain, is the owner and executive chef of La Salita, a one Michelin-starred restaurant in Valencia. She is the only contestant on World All-Stars with a Michelin star, but Padma Lakshmi doesn’t believe that makes her an automatic shoo-in to win it all.

On the March 9 episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Andy Cohen asked if Begoña’s Michelin star gave her a “giant leg up” in the cutthroat culinary competition.

“No, it doesn’t mean anything,” Padma said about the seasoned chef. “It’s all equal.”

Padma thinks all the cheftestants had a shot at winning, but she doesn’t believe that all cooking skills were created equal.

Later in the WWHL episode, she revealed that the “most overrated cooking technique” she sees on the show is when chefs try to make dishes sous vide (“under vacuum”). She also shared the biggest mistake she sees the competitors make when they get to Restaurant Wars.

“To think about themselves and not the whole team,” she said about the blunders she sees on the make-or-break episode each season.

Padma Lakshmi Says This Cheftestant Made the “Best First Impression” on Season 20

It remains to be seen if any of the World All-Stars contestants will make that mistake during Restaurant Wars, or if they’ve learned their lessons from their first go-rounds on the show. Fans will also have to stay tuned to see how the rest of the season unfolds, but Padma did tease why World All-Stars will be a new viewing experience for seasoned fans.

“This season did feel a lot different,” Padma told Allure. “Not only because we were overseas, but we had All-Star contestants from all over the world that really internationalized the collective cooking across the season.” 

Watch Top Chef on Bravo Thursdays at 9/8c and the next day on Peacock. Catch up on the Bravo app.

Watch WWHL on Bravo Sundays through Thursdays and the next day on Peacock. Catch up on the Bravo app.