Padma Lakshmi was determined to never host a cooking competition ever again. But after taking a few days to relax by a beach, she was heading off to film America’s Culinary Cup, the new cooking competition show set to air on CBS next year.
Lakshmi, who spent nearly 17 years hosting and executive-producing Top Chef before stepping down in 2023, was, understandably, exhausted by the format. “I didn’t really want to come back to the genre,” she says. “I just felt like I was part of the legacy of a show that’s so beloved and so successful and really felt like the gold standard.” But CBS made an offer Lakshmi could not refuse: the chance to create and design the cooking competition show of her dreams.
Though she’ll serve as the onscreen host, Lakshmi is most excited about her off-camera role as the show’s creator. “I spent a lot of time talking about the cinematography and visual language of the show,” she explains. Her years of experience shaped the format of the project—though she’s mum on the details, it will be devoid of the things that bother her the most about cooking competitions. “It’s actually taking away all the bells and whistles, stripping the competition down to focus on the purity of cooking.”
Lakshmi is determined to create a new legacy competition show, one that is centered on expertise and leadership, not gameplay. “I want to create a new institution reflective of American cooking and different from the Frenchified traditions we have inherited and swallowed in this country — especially with fine dining,” she explains. “France has the Bocuse d’Or, there’s also the IKA Olympics in Germany, and I wanted to create an American institution that chefs would want to win in the way that every actor wants an Oscar or a singer wants to win a Grammy.” The munificent monetary prize of a million dollars will go a long way to help establish the show’s importance. “A million dollars is four times what any [other show] is giving out,” she says, becoming more animated as she speaks.
Since leaving Top Chef, Lakshmi has remained incredibly busy—possibly even more so. Once America’s Culinary Cup wraps filming, she will begin promoting her new cookbook, Padma’s All American. Available this November, it’s a book seven years in the making—her producing partner took a look at her initial book proposal and suggested it as the foundation for her popular food-and-travel show Taste the Nation.
Featuring recipes, photographs, and stories from the show, Lakshmi says there is so much more than that. “Some of it’s personal, some of it’s from Top Chef, but all the photographs that you see in the book—other than the beauties of the recipes—were all shot on the road,” she says. In addition to curating rigorously tested recipes, she leans into storytelling, too, with essays and profiles of people she meets along the way. “It’s the last five years of my life on the road.”
