Pack Your Knives

Kevin and Tom get their hands dirty with the Gaggan Anand episode of Top Chef: World All-Stars and take stock of the competition as we near ever closer to the Restaurant Wars mark. Cheftestant Dale Mackay of Saskatchewan fame joins the show to talk about his rollercoaster ride on Top Chef, daily life as a triathlete in reality-television isolation and the difference of this particular season vs. Top Chef Canada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the most confusing Top Chef episode of the season, Kevin and Tom fight off whiplash and vertigo as they recap the Downton Abbey episode. Tom bids farewell to one of his top picks but discovers a budding crush on another and rants about sandwich toppings. Meanwhile, Kevin does a victory lap on one of his picks who continues to deliver and gets wistful about one of his other cheftestants heading to LCK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Top Chef heads to the Kent countryside, where a shocking ending sends a cheftestant home. Kevin takes issue with the cheftestant's fate while Tom defends his squad. Then, World All-Stars contestant and Season 16 finalist Sara Bradley of Freight House in Paducah, Kentucky joins the podcast! We discuss her stat-keeping, experiences on the show, favorite Jewish dishes, raw eggs and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Tom put their green velvet blazers on and recap Episode 4 of Top Chef World All-Stars. We get introduced to the glory that is Paul A. Young and deliberate on the value of an English biscuit. After a scouting report on the Tottenham Hotspurs stadium experience, Kevin and Tom hash out the Elimination Challenge and remark about the parity of this season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With three episodes in the books, Kevin and Tom put it on the Ritz for Top Chef's pub crawl. With a double elimination on tap, Kevin and Tom scout the pairings and give their take on the dishes. Has any cheftestant separated themselves from the pack? Kevin and Tom get into it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Tom welcome in Top Chef South Africa's Lorna Maseko to help recap the show and share her experience of being the guest judge in the All Star Season's second episode. If you were planning a culinary trip to Africa, Kevin and Lorna give you the scouting report. If you weren't planning one, you will now. Finally, Kevin and Tom take stock of their fantasy rosters and bid farewell to a familiar face. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's our favorite time of the year at PYK HQ: Draft Day! After watching the season premiere of Top Chef Season 20, Kevin and Tom partake in their annual PYK draft of cheftestants while recapping the episode. Who goes No. 1? Where will the elimination challenge winner go in the draft? Where will Buddha, Dawn, Amar and Sara land? Who has the best roster? It's all happening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Top Chef is back! And so are Tom Haberstroh and Kevin Arnovitz. To get you ready for Season 20: London All-Stars, Tom and Kevin span the globe and preview the 16 cheftestants on the board. Which cheftestants are back? How do we feel about London as a food city? Wait, is there really a Top Chef Finland? All that and more on the PYK season preview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Tom are giddy at the much-anticipated arrival of the Top Chef Season 19 champion, Buddha Lo! They discuss Top Chef reality vs. fiction, where his performance ranks all-time and how to properly cook halibut. Plus, his recent interaction with TMZ at LAX, his Jurassic alligator and how he studied Top Chef. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Another season of Top Chef is in the books! Tom and Kevin recap the season and the final episode with the help of beloved cheftestant Sara Welch. We discuss her Jamaican roots, her bff Buddha, her restaurant Marrow in Detroit and the basics of churning butter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the show hits the road to Tucson, Kevin and Tom marvel at the city’s culinary offerings and welcome PYK favorite Chef Maria Mazon back to the Top Chef stage. A strong chef goes home, but in Kevin’s eyes, the playing field is more level than it seems. Who will be crowned Top Chef next week? Kevin and Tom call their shots as we arrive at the finale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week's episode, Tom hops on a boat and guides Kevin on the joys of fishing. With the competition whittles itself down to the final four cheftestants, we bid farewell to a poor time-management victim. Tom and Kevin rearrange their power rankings as we head into the surprise domestic location of the finale. And lastly, we run through some VRBO submissions from listeners and Kevin recaps some of his favorite restaurants on his recent road trip. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With a thrilling Last Chance Kitchen finale in the books, Kevin and Tom dive headfirst into the Galveston episode and emerge with a boatful of praise. We welcome back a cheftestant and revisit our chef vs. the field prop with some new information. Finally, Tom, inspired by the show, lets Kevin indulge in the ultimate VRBO parlor game: if you could go on vacation anywhere in the world for $10,000, where would you go? We ask our listeners to send their scouting report to our socials @PackKnives on Twitter and @PackYourKnives on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The cheftestants go to space (in theory) and the Earth-y dishes raised lots of questions from Tom and Kevin. We discuss a shaky performance from an otherwise sturdy cheftestant and debate whether we'd take one chef over the field. Also: a deep-dive into crumby foods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of Pack Your Knives, Kevin and Tom recap a heartwarming episode where the judges taste the rainbow and do some soul searching. Kevin reveals a personal story of his classroom etiquette and his favorite restaurants on his recent travels while Tom struggles with the quirky scoring. Finally, Producer Mayes surfaces a Top Chef Reddit post that sparks serious domestic debate from the PYK panel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Restaurant Wars! Our friend and restaurant consultant Hershy Ash stops by for our annual Restaurant Wars viewing. Kevin, Tom and Hershy break down the Restaurant Wars experiences from Matriarc and No Nem while scratching our collective heads at a certain chef's performance. Hershy offers a lighthearted conspiracy theory and makes a prediction about the winner of Top Chef. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We dig into this week's episode with our PYK pal Joe Flamm, winner of Top Chef Colorado and guest judge of the Jurassic World challenge. Flamm shares some amazing behind the scenes details from his experience on Top Chef Houston and some old callbacks to Season 15. We also discuss best movie scenes involving food and get the goods on the actual winning individual of the challenge. We get Kevin's lowdown on Nigerian cuisine, tier-out the remaining cheftestants and get ready for Restaurant Wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After Top Chef welcomes back an eliminated contestant from Last Chance Kitchen, Kevin and Tom dive into Episode 6's drama -- or lack thereof. The competition show brings in trailblazing women to honor trailblazing women and the chefs deliver satisfactory meals, but hardly anything transcendent. With the help of producer Anthony Mayes, Tom and Kevin try to untangle their feelings about this season of their beloved Top Chef and wonder if its recent softness is a symptom of a broader cultural shift. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A tentpole challenge is presented on this week's episode, but Tom and Kevin are trying to figure out why this season doesn't seem to be hitting its mark. Tom mourns a surprising elimination, which prompts Kevin and Tom to do a mock redraft of contestants. Who goes No. 1? And can a Last Chance Kitchen juggernaut jolt the season into shape? Five episodes in, the PYK crew are hoping that's the case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Tom unpack what goes down as one of their favorite challenges of Top Chef in Pack Your Knives history: doppelgänger dishes! But first Kevin and Tom reveal their favorite biscuits in America and then praise a sense-deficient cheftestant’s rise. A terrific double-elimination challenge cripples one of the fantasy teams and Mayes’ squad provides hope to resolve Kevin’s lone complaint about this season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Tom recap the Asian night market episode and survey the landscape. Kevin unveils his night market power rankings, dominating Tom’s impromptu trivia. The two discuss Sam the Potato Man’s polarizing behavior. Meanwhile, trade discussions continue as producer Anthony Mayes picks up his very own cheftestant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tom and Kevin break down the second episode of Season 19. With Evelyn on the mind, Tom investigates hometown advantage. A trade is proposed and the two are officially engaged in negotiations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a season premiere chock full of surprises, Kevin and Tom take part in their fifth annual PYK draft of cheftestants. Who went No. 1 overall? And which pick created the most controversy? Kevin and Tom give their first impressions on the cast as another season of Pack Your Knives gets underway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And we’re back! With the season premiere of Top Chef Season 19 Houston around the corner, Kevin and Tom give a scouting report on Houston and the 15 cheftestants. Which cheftestants seem to have a leg up? Which Top Chef alumni are returning? And what’s the dirty little secret about bone marrow? Kevin and Tom dig in and get ready for another season of Top Chef. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After the penultimate episode of Season 18, Tom and Kevin debate the merits and joys of hunting for seafood. A Top Chef judge's table scandal has Kevin and Tom fuming. Did Gail, Padma and Tom fail in their duties as judges? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Tom break down the final four as we head into toward the coast. A discussion about Dawn's gougères veers into a love letter for cheesy bread at various establishments and other gluttonous exploits. Speaking of exploits, Tom and Kevin indict chefs for taking advantage of one of their own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Tom are blessed by the presence of Top Chef judge and culinary expert Gail Simmons, who makes her long-awaited debut on the podcast. Gail takes us through a most dramatic episode of the season and pulls back the curtain on her new Top Chef Amateurs show that launches July 1. Also, our mission to get Kevin on Top Chef Amateurs is one step closer to becoming reality, but he's still mentally two years away from being two years away. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Top Chef is coming down to the final five and Kevin and Tom are locked in. This week they discuss Kevin's horrific cooking injury, Tom's frustration with the scoring format, a double feature of Last Chance Kitchens and wish that the show would solve its only issue: not being able to taste the food. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recipe books take center stage as a Top Chef twist rattles the cheftestants and sends an overmatched chef home. While Kevin expresses disdain for complicated instructions, Tom proposes a theory on elimination tells on social media, and they unite to discuss various milks, hipster or not. Plus: which cheftestant is the Jen Carroll of this season? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time for the Restaurant Wars. Or is it Chef's Table Wars? Tom and Kevin gather themselves after a shocking elimination and compare the upset to a certain NBA Finals stunner. Kevin coaches up one of the teams on their concept and Tom blasts the hard taco movement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two-time Top Chef contestant Brian Malarkey joins the show to reveal his Top 10 power rankings and also gives his surprising prediction on who's going to win the competition. Kevin and Tom have their minds blown when chef Brian explains his rationale. Also, Brian offers some behind-the-scenes intel on his rally in Season 17 and sets the record straight on his much-debated net worth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tom and Kevin quarrel about the quality of the movie drive-in episode and marvel at how flattened the race has become. New contenders emerge while the juggernauts experience an absolute horror show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Top Chef superstar Richard Blais returns to the pod to help Kevin and Tom recap the fruit-filled episode. We discuss Richard's amazing hair and geek out over TopChefStats.com as Richard takes us behind the scenes in Portland. Plus, finally, Richard gets to be in the same sentence as LeBron James. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Tom recap Episode 3 of Top Chef Season 18: Portland while reminiscing about Friendly's peanut butter sauce and revisiting last week's big trade. One thing is clear: Kevin means business this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Tom recap the second episode of Season 18/Portland and debate the game theory of choosing teams in the Top Chef schoolyard. Also, after much deliberation, a four-chef trade is completed between the two PYK teams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tom and Kevin take part in their fourth annual PYK draft. A trade is made. The teams are selected. Top Chef Season 18 has begun. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part 2: Tom and Kevin are joined by Top Chef alum and Portland’s own Gregory Gourdet. The Season 18 host and judge talks about his new restaurant, Haitian food, the infamous back injury and whom he’d want as a White House chef. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the season premiere of Top Chef Season 18 Portland on the horizon, Kevin Arnovitz and Tom Haberstroh set the stage for another round of Top Chef and scout the new 15 cheftestants. What's new? What's staying the same? The new season of Top Chef is upon us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Tom bust out the scorecards and judge the final courses of the three finalists of Top Chef Season 6. Who deserved to win? Controversy ensues. Finally, a request from our Pack Your Knives audience as we look ahead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the cheftestants leaving Las Vegas for wine country, Kevin and Tom break down part 1 of the finale, discuss wine vs. beer and bid farewell to a stellar chef. Also, Kevin explains his new upcoming diet and asks Tom for some advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Kevin and Tom recap the Vegas hotel episode, write a love letter to Thousand Island Dressing and debate the virtues of breakfast in bed. When a certain chef goes home, Kevin and Tom cry foul. Also: chicken wings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tom and Kevin break down the Natalie Portman episode, reminisce about TV dinners and go deep on vegetable protein stats. A controversial chef goes home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Restaurant Wars! It's time for Kevin and Tom to bring in PYK's Senior Restaurant Wars Correspondent guest Hershy Ash to break it all down. Who should have gone home? Who was right in the Robin-vs.-Michael spat? Plus, halfway through the pod, a surprise guest appearance from one of the cheftestants on the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Tom are joined by Chef Ash Fulk from Season 6 Las Vegas. The Hillcountry Barbecue Market chef takes us behind the scenes on the season and reveals the secret breakouts from elimination island, the real story behind the amazing "Oh, I forgot flavorrr" line and takes us on a tour of Texas barbecue lore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tom and Kevin debate their favorite elevated snack food and break down Episode 8, which bids farewell to a chef that hurt our sides from laughing so hard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin and Tom recap Episode 7 with the help of Chef Jen Carroll who talks about her flu game, the surprising beef between Chef Kevin and Chef Bryan, and the lowdown on Chef Robin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices