Top Chef Television Program

As Padma Lakshmi enters Craft, the Century City outpost of Tom Colicchio's Manhattan-based restaurant, the waitstaff momentarily stop prepping for dinner service to stare. Her long black hair is in a ponytail and she's wearing an oversized navy blue fleece sweater, jeans and gray sneakers. The 37-year-old host of Bravo's celebrated cooking competition "Top Chef” doesn't notice the gawking as she settles into a booth and orders a pot of hot green tea.

For a second there, I thought "Top Chef" had devolved into the kind of exploitive reality TV I'd expect to see on say, Fox ("American Idol" withstanding). At the outset of Wednesday's premiere on Bravo, the producers of the best food competition on TV seemed to have raised the bar big time in its third season, casting a group of high-caliber contestants to duke, or rather, cook it out.

"TOP CHEF" is the jackhammer of the food world. Even with earplugs, it is impossible to tune out. The reality show in which cooks compete in various staged challenges is already in its third season on the Bravo channel. But even for someone who might be fortunate enough not to know a remote from a microwave, there is no escape: "Top Chef" is also covered relentlessly -- exhaustively, even -- on blogs and websites and online discussion boards.

PADMA LAKSHMI had a confession to make. "I hate reality TV, I have to tell you," said the new host of "Top Chef," Bravo's reality cooking competition, leaning over the table at a busy Manhattan restaurant on a recent afternoon. "I think a lot of it brings out the worst common denominator of the human spirit." But the Indian-born model and actress, perhaps best known for being married to Salman Rushdie, is satisfied that Season 2 of "Top Chef" won't contribute to the decline of modern culture.