Entertainment :: Television
Couple thrives on the heat of ’Top Chef’ by Roger Brigham
EDGE San Francisco EditorWednesday Mar 26, 2008
Jen Biesty and Zoi Antonitsas both love a good challenge. They know what it’s like to compete in a male-dominated profession, they know how to succeed, and they know how to bounce back from a failure. It was only natural then that the two Bay Area culinary artists would apply to be on the fourth season of the hottest cooking show going, Bravo TV’s "Top Chef." But no one was more shocked then they when they were both chosen for the cast, becoming TC’s first couple gay or straight.
"I think I was silent when I first heard," Antonitsas said. "I was in shock. We never even dreamed it would be possible we would both be picked. We knew there had never been a couple on the show."
"Our first reaction was we were very excited for the opportunity," Biesty said. "Then we wondered what it would be like as a couple." Nothing like a weekly elimination cook-off challenge with 13 other chefs to put a strain on a four-year relationship. "When we got past that is when we decided it would be fun," she said.
In the fourth season of Top Chef, eight men and eight women cook spontaneous dishes in response to that episodes challenges, then find whose dish pleased judges Tom Colicchio, Padma Lakshm, Gail Simmons and Ted Allen the most and who must pack their knives and go.
The previous three seasons have all been won by men; only one women has made it into the final two. This season, filmed in Chicago, has a heavy East Coast tilt, with six of the chefs hailing from New York City--Andrew D’Ambrosi, 30; Dale Talde, 29; Lisa Fernandes, 27; Manuel Trevino, 33; Mark Simmons, 29; Nikki Cascone, 35--and "Spike" Mendelsohn, 27, from nearby Williamsburg, N.Y. Atlanta is represented by two contestants: Richard Blais, 35, and Nimma Osman, 26, who was eliminated at the end of Episode One. San Francisco has two representatives in addition to Biesty and Antonitstas--Erik Hopfinger, 38, and Ryan Scott, 28--and Los Angeles is represented by Antonia Lofaso, 31. Hometown Chicago is represented by Stephanie Izard, 3, and Valerie Bolon, 32, who was eliminated in the second show.
Episode Three airs today.
Biesty, 34, is the chef at San Francisco’s COCO500 Restaurant. Antonitsas, 30, is a chef and consultant in San Francisco. Both see cooking as a creative expression of individual efforts blended in a team effort.
"What originally drew me was the excitement," Biesty said. "It’s kind of like playing basketball to me. You have to be coordinated as a team. You have to work as a team. It’s fast. It’s hot."
"It’s a constant challenge," said Antonitsas. "This is a way for me to create something in an artistic way that represents me."
Antonitsas played soccer in elementary school, then switched to softball in middle school and high school. "Those two sports are team sports," she said. "I think the restaurant business is a team sport as well. It’s not about being a tennis player scoring points over another player. It’s a team effort. Everyone is such an important player. All of a sudden your dishwasher doesn’t show up? You’re screwed.
"I don’t know anyone who’s a chef for the money. It’s an insane career choice. We’re lucky to be doing what we love to do. I never punch out. I’m always punched in."
Biesty said the interaction with other contestants on Top Chef has been a high point. "I love the challenges, I love the excitement," she said. "I look forward to it every day. I feed off the stress.
"It was great meeting a lot of the contestants and seeing their techniques of how they prepare food."
Learning on the job and the show
Biesty dreamed of having wings before she dreamed of frying them. "I wanted to be a pilot originally," she said. "I was 16 and working as a bus girl in Brooklyn. I just started noticing the kitchen and was really drawn to it. But I kept working in that restaurant and the chefs brought me up under their wings."
From there she went to the Culinary Institute of America in New York. "I learned some in school, I was a natural, but I learned a lot later working," she said. "I learned more about food later."
She said being a lesbian in the male dominated cooking world is tough but worth it. "It was a challenge," Biesty said. "When I went to school, I was one of two females in that (CIA) class. I didn’t think much about it then because I was a precocious young kid from Brooklyn and I was full of myself.
"I always felt that in a kitchen, if you can prove yourself, you’ll be accepted. Later, when I worked in New Orleans, I saw a lot of racism and sexism. But that was in the 1990s."
"I would watch some cooking shows. I was the youngest of four, so it wasn’t until around college that I started really cooking."
For Antonitsas, competing on Top Chef has been a voyage of self discovery.
"Doing a show is as much about acting as it is about cooking. There are things that you’re doing that in real life you wouldn’t necessarily do. Put a camera in front of someone and a whole bag of pressures comes along. ’How do I look? How do I talk?’ You start to pick at every detail of how you act.
"It’s very stressful. It’s a life changing experience. Yes, I’m glad we did the show. There have been moments when I would have said no, because it is life changing. Part of me misses the old life that isn’t there any more, but I’m not a big believer in regrets. Once I had the opportunity to do the show I would have been crazy not to.
"I definitely learned about myself. I’m definitely a private person about everything. I’m not a chef with a clean chef’s jacket. I was all of a sudden going from this very private person to being someone whom--well, I think people watching the show will assume we all want to be famous. I don’t want to be famous. That’s not true for all of us.
It’s made me realize I’m not that fame-seeking person. It really makes you focus on the details of your life and ask questions about why you do things."
The exposure, they both said, has been everything they dreamed it would be and more.
"Just last night I had a few different tables (of customers) come in saying, "We came in to see the Top Chef," Biesty said. "It’s been positive."
"It’s a way to get national recognition," said Antonitsas. "You can’t pay for that kind of advertising. In terms of professional chefs, getting their comments, that is very flattering."
And they both learned to roll with the punches when the comments are less than flattering.
"I believe in good and evil," Antonitsas said. "You have to have balance. Sometimes making a mistake on a plate will get you closer to that perfect dish."
Roger Brigham, a freelance writer and communications consultant, is the San Francisco Editor of EDGE. He lives in Oakland with his husband, Eduardo.
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