Top Chef host Kristen Kish has long collected black tattoos on her arms to mark special occasions in her life.
So even if she doesn’t win, her 2024 Emmys nomination for best reality TV host, deserves some ink, she said. “100 percent. Even just the (Emmy) nomination as a first time host of Top Chef, my first nomination and the first in my entire life and my entire career, I will mark it regardless if I win or not. Because already this is one of those life moments for me. That is 1000 percent worth remembering forever,” an excited Kish told The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday.
The Emmy nomination is especially sweet for Kish as it comes after she replaced Padma Lakshmi as the first new Top Chef host in 19 seasons, with her first season as host of the Bravo cooking show also featuring a series of key format alterations. “I can’t take responsibility or credit for being the mastermind behind the (new) formatting of the show,” Kish insisted.
But her Emmy nomination may be proof that the changes worked. “Being a visible portion of the change of Top Chef and where it went from over 20 seasons to me, I was nervous. But what it’s taught me is change is embraced and change can be really exciting,” she told THR.
Of course, Kish is the first to say she had been a top restaurant chef long before she became host of Top Chef and earned her first Emmy nomination after her debut season. “For me, what’s the most shocking is I’m a chef that happened to go on TV, that just happened to be offered fantastic television opportunities. So I don’t know if I’ve fully caught up with this idea of television as a career,” she insisted.
Kish says her cellphone was buzzing Wednesday morning as she was deliberately exercising to distract herself.
“I’m getting texts and I thought, this is great. I hope it’s Top Chef as outstanding reality competition program. Then after a few more dings, I thought I should probably look at my phone now. And that’s when it was, Oh my God, yes to Top Chef, yes to me and a nomination for editing. So, it’s been a little bit of a whirlwind,” she recalled.
The first-time Emmy nomination also affirms that Kish has this TV thing down. “I’m certainly in a less self-doubtful position now because I’m, like, it’s fantastic,” she added after ringing her excited wife, Bianca Dusic, to let her know they’d be going to the Emmys together.
And as she gets set to sit in the Emmys audience to hear her fate alongside fellow nominees Jeff Probst of Survivor, Alan Cumming of The Traitors, RuPaul of RuPaul’s Drag Race and Shark Tank judges like Mark Cuban, Kish appears to have this competition thing down, too.
“I’ve always said about winning that you don’t go on the [Top Chef] show not to win as a competitor. That’s not the goal. The goal is always to push forward and to ultimately be Top Chef,” Kish said. That competitive spirit shined through in Top Chef’s 10 season where Kish had to pack her knives after being eliminated during the “Restaurant Wars” episode, but she returned to the competition and won the Top Chef title after winning the series’ Last Chance Kitchen online competition for eliminated chefs.
“After it was all said and done, being kicked off and going through the Last Chance Kitchen series and the weird stress level of am I going to make it back, when the cameras stopped rolling and I re-entered non-television real life, the biggest thing I took away was I was already good enough,” Kish recalled.
She’s taking that same confidence stance into the Emmys competition. “It’s similar roads and trajectory and a frame of mind of when I was a competitor and now as a host and all this stuff happening: I’m good enough. And I was good enough even before winning and even before being nominated,” Kish told THR.
As for the prospect of actually winning an Emmy as best reality series host in September, Kish, ever the veteran culinary chef in a hot kitchen, is keeping a hold on her emotions, for now. “I can confidently tell you right now I’m in a space of, holy shit, I am just thrilled to be nominated. And I hear people say it all the time,” she said.
And she’s trusting fate when it comes to the ultimate prize. “As much as I want to be excited and get excited about the prospect of winning, I am just deeply a person that thinks whatever is going to happen is going to happen. And I’m thrilled to be sitting in that room,” Kish said.
