Gail Simmons Breaks Down the Epic Premiere of 'Top Chef: World All-Stars'

The judge also reveals how the idea for the anniversary season came from a worldwide conference before the pandemic.

SPOILER ALERT! The following interview spoils the events of the premiere of Top Chef: World All-Stars, including who was eliminated. Please do not read further if you do not wish to know the results of the episode.

Tonight, Top Chef kicked off its twentieth season with its most audacious idea yet, bringing together sixteen of the best "cheftestants" from various international franchises of the Emmy-winning series. And for what was called the "Top Chef Olympics," its opening ceremonies arrived with aplomb, already making a successful proof of concept. There was the thrill of being introduced to so many new international chefs who proved success in their prior seasons. There were the simple, yet effective challenges that showcased both their independent styles as well as collaboration. There was drama, with an unfortunate spill in the kitchen coming to the forefront at Judges' Table. And, most importantly, there was incredible food, causing head judge Tom Collichio to call this the best premiere the show has ever had.

"It was thrilling," agrees judge Gail Simmons in an interview with Parade.com. "There are so many challenges in any season on that first episode. Contestants are coming into a brand new kitchen they've never cooked in before. They don't have their teams. They're in front of thousands of cameras. They're given these time constraints, these challenges. They're bewildered and disoriented in a new place for the first time, and that all applies even though they've done it before. And on top of it, half of them are dealing with a language barrier which can't be underestimated. I think that just made the stakes higher, and made it even more rewarding when we saw how much talent they had."

Read below for more of our interview with Gail, including how this season's concept came to be, filming in London, and her take on the events of the premiere. Top Chef: World All-Stars airs Thursday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.

Related: Everything to Know About Top Chef Season 20

How did the idea of World All-Stars come together for season 20?
We've been working on this idea for a long time. It didn't come to us one day right before we left as a huge surprise. A big idea like this does not get executed overnight. It took actually the better part of two years to make it happen. And even up to the last minute, there were location changes. There was concept changes along the way until we kind of nailed down what it would be. And that started back in our all-star season, actually, which we shot the finale of in Tuscany in 2019 right before the pandemic hit. After we all did our finale in Tuscany, instead of going back to the states, three or four of our executive producers, our show runner, and our executives from Bravo and other people flew to Paris and had a first ever Top Chef conference. They met with the show runners and executive producers of every other iteration of the show around the world.

So we've known for years, obviously, that, in addition to our show being aired in 100+ countries around the world, there were these 29 other variations of the show. And so the fact that our executive producers were finally able to have this two or three-day conference where all of the producers got together from the four corners of the earth to talk about Top Chef, to share best practices, to share their experiences, challenges, and the ways that they all do the show is really exciting. And I was so thrilled to hear from them when they got back from that conference about all their learnings. And one of the things they came back with was this idea. So through the pandemic, we just were trying to figure out how to make it work. And obviously, the producers did so much research and took so much time to really create what became World All-Stars. And it felt big and perfect for the 20th anniversary.

What contributed to the decision on London as a central location for season 20?
I was thrilled, super psyched about being in London for a lot of reasons. Some you can imagine, and some perhaps might surprise you. I knew London; I've been to London many times. I have good friends there; I've spent a little time there. I have always adored the food of London, the diversity, and the immigration culture, which adds to such delicious and interesting restaurant landscapes. But also the history of British food itself, which I think is sort of underestimated and misunderstood. British food has got such a bad rap. I'm not talking about the ethnic foods that exist in England. I'm talking about British pub food. But I think it's come a long way. And now really London is the city to beat in terms of best places to eat on Earth, I think. So I was thrilled from that perspective

Also, London is sort of a neutral territory for us for a lot of reasons. It's obviously an epicenter. It's the gateway to Europe; it's the gateway to the Middle East, from America. It's sort of this central place. So it felt like an even playing field. It wasn't like we were bringing everyone to America to be at our home-court advantage. We were all traveling; we were all a bit like fish out of water. But it's English, so the language for the American audience would be easy. And also for us, the most interesting thing I thought was that London isn't one of the countries that has its own variation of Top Chef. So unlike the other places we go when we're shooting in different cities across the U.S., they didn't sort of care that we were there in a great way. We weren't coming in as this big production that everyone knew and that we could sort of take for granted.

We were very humbled to be in London, because England has all its own food shows and cooking competitions, none of which are Top Chef. I mean, I think it airs on a smaller cable network now. But it doesn't have its own version outright the way that all these other countries do. So that, in a way, made it even more of a level playing field for all the contestants. And also, as I said, it was quite humbling, for Tom, Padma and me to come to a place where we could really sort of be incognito and take nothing for granted about who we were and what we do. And that felt really great too, a sort of "check yourself" 20 seasons in. We've come so far, but we can still really be students, and have a lot to learn about this culture, and a lot to discover. That was really refreshing.

Outside of the U.S. cheftestants, how much knowledge did you have of the cast's prior seasons before filming?
Very few. The only other version that I'd ever seen was Top Chef: Canada, which I have guest judged on a few times. And I've watched one or two episodes of Top Chef: France because over the last few seasons, we've also worked with them a little bit, exchanging ideas for challenges. Otherwise, I had no context for any of the other contestants at all, let alone the way that their country does Top Chef. And what's fascinating is that every country interprets it in their own way to fit their own audiences, that fit their own cultural culinary landscape, and their own way that consumers watch television.

So in France, Top Chef is two hours long and airs a few days a week. Some have way more contestants to start. Some do it all on location; some do it all in studio. And so I think we tried to take the best of all of them and bring those to this flagship to our original version. Obviously, we were the original, we've been on the longest. And we wanted to also honor all these countries we're representing. I think in this season 11 of the 29 countries are represented, which was pretty great. Because it was hard to figure out the casting and make sure that we had a really broad range of interesting winners and runners-up from all those corners of the world.

Let's get into the events of the premiere, which Tom said is the best you ever had from a pure talent perspective. Do you agree with that?
Oh, it was thrilling. And absolutely, Tom was right. Because there are so many challenges in any season on that first episode. Contestants are coming into a brand new kitchen they've never cooked in before. They don't have their teams. They're in front of thousands of cameras. They're given these time constraints, these challenges. They're bewildered and disoriented in a new place for the first time, and that all applies even though they've done it before. As I said, there are so many differences to our version. And on top of it, half of them are dealing with a language barrier which can't be underestimated. Culturally, it's one thing to be in a kitchen with fifteen strangers. It's another thing to be in a kitchen with fifteen strangers where none of them speak your language. And so you're also dealing with cultural discovery and conflict and conflict resolution. And in the kitchen, when you're trying to communicate and trying to do your best work personally--not just represent your restaurant, but represent your country--that can be incredibly, incredibly difficult. I think that just made the stakes higher, and made it even more rewarding when we saw how much talent they had. 

That first Quickfire Challenge was so much fun, specifically getting to see these pairings come together. Sometimes they were based on ingredients, sometimes similar cooking styles, and sometimes by pure coincidence. What surprised you the most about that first challenge?
First impressions feel arbitrary. And you look at how we put everyone together, and how is this gonna play out? Are they going to be able to negotiate with each other as total strangers? And I think this'll be an utterance throughout the whole season, every time they work as teams, there are so many layers of cultural communication. It's like going to the floor of the U.N. every episode, and just seeing what comes into play. And I think food is such a beautiful vehicle for that. Because it's such a universal language, but there's so much nuance, and everyone brings their different style, their different histories, and heritage. And I think that's what you get to see in that very first episode right out of the gate.

And to that point, what's interesting is watching how those relationships and those very first pairings play out down the line and throughout the season. Because five or six episodes later, it's kind of cool to go back to them and see how they all first met, and where they all end up at the end in terms of their friendships. And the trajectory, the narrative of how everything plays out in the kitchen, it's kind of beautiful.

What was your reaction at Judges' Table when you hear about Gabriel accidentally spilling water in Dawn's pot? Did that affect the way you saw her dish at all?
It's always very tricky. We didn't know of it before then. Often we don't even know any of it at the time of Judges' Table. We feel pretty adamant that we just judge the end result of the dish and what's presented to us, not what happened behind the scenes. That can be very hard because if it's not someone's own fault that it just turned out a certain way, then how do you account for that as a judge? So that's the thing. That's what we don't want to know. We like it to think about it in the same way that we hope customers think about it when they go to a restaurant. You, as a regular diner, make a reservation and go to a restaurant, and someone says, "You're about to pay $40 for this entree, but the guy next to me spilled my water, and I didn't have enough stove top space, and also he changed the temperature of my oven. And that's why your food's not good, but you still have to pay for it."

What do you say? You're like, "I don't actually care. All I care is that I have a great experience, that my food is cooked as it's meant to be cooked, that it's beautiful, that it tastes delicious, and that, if I'm going to pay my hard-earned money for it, it's going to live up to those expectations and that value." It doesn't matter what happened behind the scenes. It's the only way to be fair. So that's what we try to do. Because when you're working in a kitchen, you have to make it work. When you're under a time crunch, when that timer goes off, wherever you are is where you have to stand and defend yourself. And that's why it can be a complicated conversation. And we try to be fair, and we try to be constructive. And we try to understand intention the best that we can. But ultimately, we have to judge the dish standing on its own as it's presented to us.

The first elimination came down to Gabriel, who didn't do well at the vegetable part of the challenge, versus Samuel, who cooked the vegetables well but made crucial preparation errors. What ultimately made you decide to eliminate Samuel over Gabriel?
We did think long and hard, because that is always what it comes down to. The nitpicking of the finesse of a dish and the dish's intention, and also the pleasure factor of how to eat that dish. And as much as there were some beautiful things about the vegetables on what Samuel made, the fish, to my memory, was not professionally handled. And that was the error. It was cut too thick; it was messy; it was cut in a very rough way. And it just did not feel up to the same standard as so many of the dishes that we ate that day for the challenge we gave them. And I think as his first foot forward, unfortunately, it didn't eat well. And it didn't feel as fresh and light and bright as it should have. And I think that was because the fish and the sauce were clunky, heavy, and felt messy. So, in the end, it lost out. And we just felt really confident that that was the dish that wasn't going to make it forward.

Finally, give me three things you can tell us about the season of Top Chef: World All-Stars to come.
High stakes, high energy, and high tea.

Next, check out our interview with the finalists of Top Chef: Houston, including winner and World All-Stars competitor Buddha Lo.