Las Vegas Weekly

August 5, 2009 · 8:49 AM

Fleur de Lys’ Hubert Keller excited about Top Chef competition

By Robin Leach

Top Chef Masters contestant Hubert Keller.

Photo: Bravo TV

ABC Radio News’ Las Vegas-based correspondent and my good friend and former producer Al Mancini recently sat down with chef Hubert Keller of Fleur de Lys in Mandalay Bay. Hubert once again faces the chopping block on tonight’s Top Chef Masters on Bravo. Here are a few highlights Al shared with me:

Al Mancini: They eliminate one a week?

Hubert Keller: The way that it works … there are 24 chefs at the start, each episode has four chefs, there is a winner, then after six weeks, the winners come together, the six chefs compete, and each week, one chef will be kicked out.

AM: I guess they had to change it so nobody got kicked off first, but the first week, you know three out of four are going home, so there is not quite as much pressure, but now…

HK: Pressure gets higher, yes.

Photo: Bravo TV

Top Chef Masters contestants Michael Chiarello, Cindy Pawlcyn, Hubert Keller and Elizabeth Falkner.

AM: Tell me how it is different.

HK: The pressure is different, now going back in and knowing one has to pack his knives and go, so it is really competing to stay in the run. I think the competition comes to another level so competing is harder.

AM: Making it through the first round, how did you feel when you emerged as the winner?

HK: I loved it … well all of us would have loved to win. We are all in for the win, we are all in to compete. Like I said, three are going, one is staying. It is a casual competition. It was an honor, I was very happy that I managed it. So now going back in, it is definitely tighter. It is not casual like four and four and four chefs … this time it is even more serious. I am totally excited for it.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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