If it wasn’t already, the secret is officially out about Wisconsin’s booming culinary scene, thanks in part to Bravo’s “Top Chef.”
The hit cooking competition show takes viewers to America’s Dairyland for its 21st season, which debuted Wednesday to much acclaim — at least from the crowd of local chefs, restaurant owners, community leaders and other VIPs at the Top Chef Wisconsin Premiere Party held at Discovery World in downtown Milwaukee. Also in attendance were the beloved “Top Chef” celebrities: Kristen Kish, the show’s new host and season 10 winner; head judge Tom Colicchio and perennial judge Gail Simmons, along with executive producer and showrunner Doneen Arquines and several of this season’s “cheftestants,” including Milwaukee’s own Dan Jacobs, co-owner of Dan Dan and EsterEv.
Attendees walked the red carpet — where local media had the chance to interview the show’s talent — and then were ushered upstairs to Discovery World’s rooftop event space for networking, photo opps and catered hors d’oeuvres by The Bartolotta Restaurants. See photos of the premiere event below.
Later, ahead of the viewing premiere of episode one, chef Paul Bartolotta, who served as a guest judge this season and was instrumental in the years-long effort to bring “Top Chef” to Wisconsin, moderated a panel discussion with Colicchio, Kish, Simmons and Arquines, who shared behind-the-scenes details about filming and production and talked about the show’s long-running tradition, the impact of cutthroat competition on contestants’ careers and the level of exposure the show brings to its featured locations.
Tourism impact
Among the topics of discussion, Bartolotta asked the celebrities to explain how “Top Chef” will impact Milwaukee and Wisconsin’s reputation for top-tier dining.
“I think it will be more on the radar,” said Arquines. “People who are thinking about taking a trip somewhere, I know for a fact that the show does impact tourism, and we’ve heard from the tourism boards after the fact of that people (looking for somewhere to spend their weekend) will be like, ‘Let’s go and check out these restaurants that were on ‘Top Chef,’ so I do think that you’ll see an uptick for sure.'”
Simmons commented that a city featured on “Top Chef” usually becomes part of “the zeitgeist in a way, I think, we are even surprised at it sometimes.” She mentioned Milwaukee’s recent recognition by Eater as one of this year’s top U.S. dining destinations as a key example.
“I mean, we were joking that, two weeks ago, Eater named Milwaukee one of the hottest dining cities in the U.S. in 2024. And it was like, coincidence? No way,” Simmons said. “We were blown away. … We all did it together. I think it just starts conversations, and that makes us happy because we want people to get to see what we saw.”
Colicchio talked about the viability of making it as a chef or restaurateur in a smaller-sized city like Milwaukee as compared to large-market food meccas like New York or San Francisco and how that’s contributed to the emergence of culinary prestige in lesser known areas of the U.S.
“Everywhere there’s great food and it’s because so many young chefs, they come to maybe the larger cities to learn, but they want to go back home, they ought to go back home because they want to raise a family and they want to be close to their family,” he said. “Also, how can you open a restaurant in New York? It’s impossible these days because it’s too expensive. And so you can come to smaller cities and do really, really well. And this is why we have great food across this country. So I wasn’t surprised at all to see the amount of restaurants that were here that were all very good.”
A major focus of the season — and point of attraction for Top Chef in selecting Wisconsin as a filming site — was the state’s rich history of dairy farming and agricultural production. This season’s group of 15 cheftestants will participate in various cooking challenges featuring local staples such as artisan cheeses, Wisconsin-grown cranberries and Door County cherries. They’ll even be tasked with cooking and elevating five different types of sausages as part of a challenge filmed at American Family Field, the home of the Milwaukee Brewers.
Colicchio was especially vocal about the crucial relationship — and direct correlation — between a state’s farming and agricultural landscape and the success of its food and beverage industry.
“Wherever you show me a farming culture, there’s a food culture. That’s where it starts,” he said, thanking the farmers in the room. “Without your work, we have nothing to look for. But really, if there’s a farming culture, there’s a food culture, if there’s a food culture, there’s a restaurant culture.”
The journey begins
After the panel discussion, it was time to watch the first episode of “Top Chef” Wisconsin.
The season was filmed last summer over a span of six weeks in multiple locations, mainly in Milwaukee and Madison, and briefly in Door County. Its premiere episode took place in Milwaukee and provided a national television audience with numerous shots of the city including the downtown skyline, the Milwaukee River, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Hoan Bridge (during the day and lit up at night) and St. Stanislaus Church.
The cheftestants shopped at Whole Foods Market on Milwaukee’s East Side, spent the night at the Residence Inn by Marriott Milwaukee Downtown hotel, and had drinks at Blu, a bar on the top floor of The Pfister Hotel. The scene at Blu opened with Dan Jacobs, the only chef from Wisconsin this season, raising a toast to welcome the group to his home city.
The episode’s cooking competition took place at Lupi & Iris restaurant in downtown Milwaukee. Lupi & Iris chef Adam Siegel, a James Beard Award winner, served as a guest judge for the episode, along with Paul Bartolotta, also a James Beard Award winner.
A years-long endeavor
Bringing “Top Chef” to Wisconsin was an effort several years in the making — one that was initiated by Bravo, which reached out to state and local tourism officials in 2019. The network’s interest was stoked by an informal pitch by Paul Bartolotta, who had been a guest judge in 2009 when the show filmed in Las Vegas.
“Top Chef came to us and was like, ‘We’re really interested in this. And we were like, ‘How can we make it happen?,'” recalled Missy Hughes, secretary and chief executive officer of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., speaking to BizTimes at the premiere event Wednesday.
WEDC was one of several industry groups, along with VISIT Milwaukee, Travel Wisconsin, Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin, Destination Madison and Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association, that formed a coalition to lay the initial groundwork to make the show possible.
“We immediately saw the value of it and the opportunity, especially for Travel Wisconsin and WEDC to work together. We already work together a lot, but we were like, ‘OK we got this. Let’s make it happen,'” Hughes said.
VISIT Milwaukee president and CEO Peggy Williams-Smith remembers receiving the phone call about Top Chef’s interest back in 2019.
“I was brand new at my job. I had no idea how we would get money to help bring them here,” she said during her remarks Wednesday evening. Luckily, Paul Bartolotta, who had recently joined the VISIT Milwaukee board, was all in on his longtime dream.
“Paul said, ‘We can do this, we can do this,'” said Williams-Smith, and then addressed Bartolotta directly: “You and your team constantly push us, your restaurants and our culinary scene to be the best representation of hospitality and culinary excellence that we can possibly be.”
The premiere of “Top Chef” Wisconsin marked a bittersweet milestone for Bartolotta, who co-founded the local restaurant empire in 1993 with his brother, the late Joe Bartolotta, who was known as the visionary behind the restaurant business and the ultimate cheerleader for Milwaukee. Taking the stage to say a few words prior to the panel discussion, an emotional Paul Bartolotta honored his brother’s memory.
“The one person I wish was here is my brother, Joe. … His hospitality heart lives within all of us. I wish he had been here, he would be really proud,” he said. “We’re going to build on that legacy.”
