When a show has been around as long as Top Chef, the fanbase tends to be… passionate. So, when news broke that longtime host Padma Lakshmi was leaving, it wouldn’t have been surprising for people to have ~thoughts~ on her replacement. It was hard to imagine a person who could fill Lakshmi’s shoes in a way that both honored such a beloved predecessor and felt new and fresh — but that’s precisely what Kristen Kish has done.
The fan-favorite Season 10 winner slid into the hosting role earlier this year for Season 21, Top Chef: Wisconsin, and seamlessly became part of the TC family alongside Gail Simmons and Tom Colicchio. She’s even earned her first Emmy nomination for her new gig. Kish is just one of those rare types who feels both relatable and aspirational. When she talks about food, you want to hear what she has to say.
Her experience speaks for itself, obviously — a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu in Chicago, she owns the hot eatery Arlo Grey in Austin, Texas, and has also hosted other culinary-centric shows, including 36 Hours on Travel Channel and National Geographic’s Restaurants at the End of the World. And just this month, she announced her upcoming memoir, Accidentally on Purpose, which will hit shelves next April.
Scary Mommy caught up with Kish to chat all things foodie, from gut health and “travel tummy” (both reasons she recently partnered with digestive relief product Iberogast) to fair food and why you just can’t church up chicken fingers.
Scary Mommy: Congrats on the Emmy nomination! Does it still feel a little surreal, your journey from Season 10 winner to here?
Kristen Kish: Thank you. Oh, oh, totally. A hundred percent. There are moments where we’re gearing up to do our, well, my second season, the show’s 22nd season — oh my God, that’s wild — and yeah, it’s like, I get to do it. You know when life catches you a little off guard, and it keeps surprising you, and you’re just like, ‘Holy sh*t,’ and your one job is to keep up with it? I find myself slightly behind, but in a good way.
SM: Top Chef went Midwestern this cycle, and Midwestern food makes me think of state fairs, which makes me think of fall. So, I’m curious, as we approach fall, what fair foods are absolute musts in your book — and what do you steer clear of?
KK: I have to admit, I haven’t been to a state fair maybe since I was a kid, dare I say. But I certainly know which ones are the top winners, and you don’t always have to go to a fair to get this, but a corn dog is always No. 1 on my list. One, I love corn dogs. Two, I love anything deep-fried, and three, I love anything on a stick. So convenient, delicious, and efficient, that is my favorite kind of dish.
To steer clear from… I understand the appeal and the craze of a deep-fried Oreo, or deep-fried butter, or whatever, but butter’s delicious without being deep-fried, and an Oreo’s already pretty perfect without being coated in other stuff and deep-fried. So, I’m not going to say, ‘No,’ if someone hands it to me, but it’s not something I naturally will gravitate towards.
SM: As someone who seems somewhat fearless when it comes to trying new things, how do you handle it when your stomach fights back?
KK: It’s something that I hadn’t realized until in recent years … really understanding what gut health meant. It’s not just about what your stomach feels, but it’s about what gut health actually does for the rest of your body, both internally and externally.
One of my very first, hardest lessons was when I was consuming a lot of sugar and fried foods when I was opening my restaurant. My skin showed; you could see it all over my face. I looked back at old pictures, and I looked tired and I looked dull. I think that was my first real lesson of being like, ‘OK, well, it’s not just, Does my stomach hurt when I eat something? Is that the marker of something that doesn’t agree with me?’ It’s about whole health.
Then, through my wife, I really, really learned about what gut health is. We’ve tiptoed into it. She started me on different teas — I call them her magic potions. But things you add to your water, like Iberogast. But five years ago, when I first met my wife and I didn’t know about Iberogast, she gave me dandelion tea and different things like that. So, it’s been a journey, and I probably consume more gut health products now in my life than I ever have.
SM: You obviously have to travel a lot for your work. What’s your secret to keeping ‘travel tummy’ from living your best foodie life?
KK: Man, I do all the things that I’m supposed to do. You want to eat pre and probiotic foods. You want to keep up on a generally good food lifestyle — however you want to look at that. I definitely take my fair share of apple cider supplements and turmeric and cinnamon. All the teas! We travel a lot with our own tea bags — to approved countries, of course.
I also find that whenever you travel and wherever it is that you go, especially internationally, there are a lot of really great medicinal, herbal, all-natural things wherever you go. So, my wife’s favorite thing to do is go into local pharmacies [and] figure out what kind of stuff they have that you can buy over the counter. Maybe it’s in my head, but when you buy something from the place you’re at, it helps.
SM: Oh, that makes sense. Like a local honey for allergies kind of idea.
KK: Yeah.
SM: Got it. Well, you’re very open about having anxiety, which I think people really relate to and appreciate. Since anxiety is so often tied to food — my child has food hyperfixations that help comfort them — I was curious if you had any thoughts on this connection and how parents can help their anxious kids with comfort foods in a healthy way.
KK: I’m not here to ever preach … I just had blueberry pie for dessert for lunch; I’m not going to lie. But for me, I have found with my anxiety that I have to start my day — and I can’t wait until I’m already hungry — with good protein sources so I’m not having these crazy blood sugar spikes. It helps stabilize me.
My wife has been the biggest champion of being like, ‘Kristen, eat protein, eat protein.’ And when I start to feel anxious, I eat the protein and I immediately, truly, feel a difference in how I feel internally. There are probably tons of studies and dietitians and science people who can give you the exact reasons why protein helps, I guess, in a way calm your nervous system. But it works; it absolutely works.
So, before I get deep into my day, I always like to start it the right way because then that just sets my internal mood and stabilizes me a little bit better.
SM: What does that look like for you?
KK: So, for example, on Top Chef, nine times out of 10, I start my day with fresh berries and a boatload of hard-boiled eggs. Is it the thing that I want to eat in the morning always? No, but I know it’s going to make me feel better going into my day — especially last season when I was incredibly nervous and anxious about doing a good job. I was trying to help myself the best way I could.
SM: Ah, I love a good hard-boiled egg.
KK: When it’s a seven-minute egg to me, that is perfect. When we were filming The Dish With Kish, every morning, the culinary team would make me five seven-minute hard-boiled eggs, and I would just pop them one after the other right before we started filming. My glam team was like, ‘You want to share with us? You got five of them.’ And I was like, ‘No. This is how I start my day.’
SM: I understand you’re also a chicken finger connoisseur, which is the comfort food of countless kids. And sometimes they’re just best enjoyed dug out from a greasy fry basket, but do you have any tips for trying to class ‘em up, so to speak?
KK: Oh, I don’t class them up. My favorite chicken fingers are the ones that you buy out of the freezer section and deep-fry. I typically don’t do it at home, but anytime I’m out and order — oh god, I can’t believe I’m going to say this — chicken fingers off the kids’ menu, those are the chicken fingers I want.
I will say that I grew up with a dad who would make homemade chicken fingers, and the way he would do them was just really, really simple.
He would take chicken breasts, he would cut them length wise, he would dredge them in flour, then egg, then in breadcrumbs. Then he would just shallow/deep-fry them in this wok that my parents had. He would serve them with Miracle Whip mixed with Dijon mustard, and I would always squeeze a big, healthy dollop of ranch over everything.
So, my dad’s chicken fingers are the only ones that I probably will eat homemade. But otherwise, I want them down and dirty.
SM: You can’t go wrong with down and dirty. Or ranch. Ranch for everything. Ranch for president.
KK: Or, hey, you can make it with some yogurt, a little garlic powder, fresh garlic, a little lemon, some chopped dill, and maybe some buttermilk. And we’re making a more gut-friendly — as long as you don’t have lactose intolerance or dairy issues — ranch.
