25 Things You Don’t Know About ‘Top Chef’: Weight Gain, Grocery Bills, BTS Secrets and More

It has been 20 years since Top Chef first graced our TV screens, and to celebrate the Bravo reality competition show’s milestone anniversary, we’re dishing out some fun facts.

In 2020, Padma Lakshmi — who hosted the show for seasons 2 through 20 — opened up about the unseen realities of eating so many dishes for a TV show, revealing the exact amount of calories she consumed and weight she gained each season.

“When filming Top Chef, I consume about 5,000 to 8,000 calories a day,” she wrote in a personal essay. “We start with anywhere from 15 to 18 contestants, and I have to take a bite or two from each of their plates to adequately judge each dish. Every day.”

Lakshmi, 55, continued: “It adds up. I typically gain anywhere from 10 to 17 pounds every season. Once I get home, what’s taken me six weeks to gain takes me 12 weeks to take off.”

For more interesting facts about Top Chef from the latest issue of Us Weekly, on newsstands now, keep scrolling:

1. Top Chef premiered on Bravo on March 8, 2006, with its inaugural season set in San Francisco.

2. There have been dozens of Top Chef spinoffs since its premiere, including versions in cities across the world and editions like Top Chef Junior and Top Chef Masters.

3. Contestants actually have to make two of each dish: one for the judges and one for photos.

4. In 2008, Top Chef was the third most product placement–packed show on TV, featuring over 9,000 product plugs in just six months.

5. Occasionally when the four judges couldn’t make a decision, camera operator T-Bone would be the deciding vote.

6. Cliff Crooks is the only chef to ever be disqualified after he pinned down a fellow contestant and attempted to forcibly shave his head in season 2.

7. Season 1 of Top Chef was hosted by Katie Lee Biegel, and Lakshmi took over as host for seasons 2 through 20.