{"id":22559,"date":"2025-10-30T14:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T14:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/22559\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T14:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T14:35:10","slug":"padma-lakshmis-favorite-nyc-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/22559\/","title":{"rendered":"Padma Lakshmi\u2019s Favorite NYC Spots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Padma Lakshmi was determined to never host a cooking competition ever again. But after taking a few days to relax by a beach, she was heading off to film America\u2019s Culinary Cup<\/a>, the new cooking competition show set to air on CBS next year.<\/p>\n

Lakshmi, who spent nearly 17 years hosting and executive-\u200bproducing Top Chef<\/a> before stepping down in 2023, was, understandably, exhausted by the format. \u201cI didn\u2019t really want to come back to the genre,\u201d she says. \u201cI just felt like I was part of the legacy of a show that\u2019s so beloved and so successful and really felt like the gold standard.\u201d But CBS made an offer Lakshmi could not refuse: the chance to create and design the cooking competition show of her dreams.<\/p>\n

Though she\u2019ll serve as the onscreen host, Lakshmi is most excited about her off-\u200bcamera role as the show\u2019s creator. \u201cI spent a lot of time talking about the cinematography and visual language of the show,\u201d she explains. Her years of experience shaped the format of the project\u2014though she\u2019s mum on the details, it will be devoid of the things that bother her the most about cooking competitions. \u201cIt\u2019s actually taking away all the bells and whistles, stripping the competition down to focus on the purity of cooking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lakshmi is determined to create a new legacy competition show, one that is centered on expertise and leadership, not gameplay. \u201cI want to create a new institution reflective of American cooking and different from the Frenchified traditions we have inherited and swallowed in this country \u2014 especially with fine dining,\u201d she explains. \u201cFrance has the Bocuse d\u2019Or<\/a>, there\u2019s also the IKA Olympics in Germany, and I wanted to create an American institution that chefs would want to win in the way that every actor wants an Oscar or a singer wants to win a Grammy.\u201d The munificent monetary prize of a million dollars will go a long way to help establish the show\u2019s importance. \u201cA million dollars is four times what any [other show] is giving out,\u201d she says, becoming more animated as she speaks.<\/p>\n

Since leaving Top Chef, Lakshmi has remained incredibly busy\u2014possibly even more so. Once America\u2019s Culinary Cup wraps filming, she will begin promoting her new cookbook, Padma\u2019s All American<\/a>. Available this November<\/a>, it\u2019s a book seven years in the making\u2014her producing partner took a look at her initial book proposal and suggested it as the foundation for her popular food-and-travel show Taste the Nation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Padma’s All American: Tales, Travels, and Recipes from “Taste the Nation” and Beyond<\/p>\n

Featuring recipes, photographs, and stories from the show, Lakshmi says there is so much more than that. \u201cSome of it\u2019s personal, some of it\u2019s from Top Chef, but all the photographs that you see in the book\u2014other than the beauties of the recipes\u2014were all shot on the road,\u201d she says. In addition to curating rigorously tested recipes, she leans into storytelling, too, with essays and profiles of people she meets along the way. \u201cIt\u2019s the last five years of my life on\u00a0the road.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Padma Lakshmi was determined to never host a cooking competition ever again. But after taking a few days…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1214,290,9,56,63,65,64,14959],"class_list":["post-22559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity-chefs","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-padma-lakshmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}