Is Alex's Appearance on Top Chef Good or Bad for Cafe Was?

Photo: Bravo.com

They pound it into our scrawny little heads in college communication classes: any publicity is good publicity. But does that extend to the reality competition series format? Cheftestant Alex Reznik sure seems to be testing the theory on this season's "Top Chef." Reznik is the executive chef of Hollywood's much-heralded Cafe Was (examples here and here) and has made it to the final seven cheftestants of the Bravo show's seventh season. This is no small feat -- this season stands as one of the most competitive in the culinary tug-of-knife's history.

But... Alex has not looked good. In fact, he's appeared downright silly at times. This past episode his Restaurant Wars teammates pretty much kicked him out of the kitchen in the name of winning. He also proved unable to either properly butcher meat or debone fish. Serving as his team's restaurant maitre d' he misidentified dishes and exerted an off-putting creepiness as front of house. Sure-footed he's not either... a few episodes back he tripped and went head first into a stove handle bar. This came after he was accused of stealing someone else's pea puree.

So... if Alex lacks major culinary skills, charisma and command of his own body... what does that say about Cafe Was? To be clear, I have never been to Cafe Was, a restaurant known city-wide for its rotating piano at its center. But, I can honestly tell you I've always wanted to try it (hint, hint Cafe Was...), but had forgotten about the space recently. When this season of "TC" commenced I was quickly reminded and I put the restaurant back on my radar. Now with Alex's antics, I'm not so sure.

In his defense, I watch enough reality programming to know how doctored it is. The producers and editors of reality shows are paid to create heroes and villians. Alex's fellow cheftestants may praise him from time to time without us hearing a word of it. Instead the show prefers to air their distaste toward him. Chances are very low Alex actually stole a competitor's pea puree. Kitchens are too small and Bravo has way too many cameras to pull something like that off. Maybe he can even debone fish like Morimoto most of the time. Even if he can't do this prep work, an executive chef (from what I know) does not do the day-to-day butchering and deboning at their restaurants. Those tasks are usually left for his many minions. So who knows the last time Alex actually had to excel at those tasks. Every season cheftestants complain about how hard it is to make dessert because they haven't made dessert since culinary school. The same could be so in this case for Alex.

Then again, he may be the idiot most of the internets strongly attests. However, let's not forget Water Grill's Amanda hasn't fared much better, so maybe it's LA that should be worried...