Top Chef has been around for a couple of decades now, and has filmed a lot of places across its 23 seasons, including the Carolinas during the current 2026 TV season. Of course, Kristen Kish is still a little newer on the series’ oft long-winded judges panel, and there are a lot of places she’d love to see the Bravo reality competition series film. She recently opened up about where she’d most love to go, and unfortunately, Cincinnati, Ohio took a little shrapnel.
Top Chef typically films the majority of its seasons in a different city or state as a whole, but the show often goes further afield for its finales. Sometimes the show even goes International, taking cheftestants to places like Italy or Singapore for the finale episodes. Per Kish, her no.1 finale pick would have to be in Japan:
We would love to do at least a finale. I’m looking right at you, a finale in Tokyo. I mean, the food is just something to explore and to celebrate. That being said, I will go anywhere you give me a plane ticket and I am there. Australia. I would love to do that. My wife is Australian, so I would like to go explore all of that.
Speaking at Deadline Summit, she also mentioned there are some more middle-of-nowhere places the show might go, too. I think she probably intended it to be a compliment to the great chefs around the world, but it kind of feels like a little bit of a shot at Ohio. Just saying.
But again, you could send us to the middle of nowhere in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I’d be completely fine too, because at the end of the day, we’re still getting great chefs, good story, and amazing food.
Listen, everyone loves making jokes about the cities in the middle. The thing is, I live in St. Louis, and it constantly shocks me Top Chef hasn’t filmed here. Unlike Season 23’s Charlotte, which has some good food but is not a food city, we’re a fine dining foodie city with a world class beer scene and A-tier BBQ, too. A lot of these Midwest towns have passionate food scenes (and there may be something to the people here spending less on rent and having more income for dining out). Cincinnati has some great food, too. I’d personally recommend Boca, and if Top Chef were to film during the BLINK art experience, it could be even cooler.
It’s not like Top Chef has completely avoided smaller towns completely. Top Chef: Kentucky and Wisconsin both gave fans tastes of mid-sized cities. I’m just saying, Cincy has a Metro population of 2.3 million; it’s not exactly in the middle of nowhere. Just in the middle. Go there sometime. I bet you’d be surprised.
In general, I know there’s a lot that goes into making a season of Top Chef and these decisions are not made lightly. In fact, you might think Top Chef is a well-oiled machine at this point, but it’s truly a feat it comes across this way, per Kish.
We go to a different city, and then within that city and state, we are traveling everywhere. It is a huge production, we are moving 300 person crews, and then on top of that, you’re building kitchens in fields, you’re hooking up gas lines where gas doesn’t exist. You’re making sure everything is still workable for a chef to perform at their highest, highest ability.
Picking a city is only the first step in a long checklist of moving parts that all have to come together – and sometimes outside – in order to make a great reality TV show. We saw that this season when a twist exit led to too few contestants for “Restaurant Wars.” In Season 23, the show has also experimented with bringing in several family members, and more money was thrown out to the cheftestants with winning dishes in Quickfires. It’s been a good season overall, and I can’t wait to see who goes home with the title of Top Chef.
