“Afterwards, we have three different personalities…”: Glenn Viel talks about his gray team on the show Top Chef!

Wednesday March 13 marked the start of the new edition of Top Chef. A special launch, because this year, the program is celebrating its 15th anniversary. It was therefore important to do things in a big way and surprise the public. The first new thing? The arrival of two new chefs on the jury: Dominique Crenn and Stéphanie Le Quellec who will support Hélène Darroze in leading the orange brigade. Facing them, we can find Philippe Etchebest, Paul Pairet and Glenn Viel, at the head of the gray team.

A new organization that redistributes the competition cards. Glenn Viel confided via an interview given to Dauphiné Libéré on this new dynamic.

Glenn Viel affirms that Top Chef as a candidate was not made for him: “I have more of a leadership role, I would say. In cooking, I’m not spontaneous, I take a lot of time, because I need to think. And then in a competition with this pressure, this pace, you need courage that I didn’t necessarily have at the time”. So, when the offer to participate as a candidate was made to him, the leader declined it.

Finally, he will indeed participate in the program but as a jury. A role that he particularly appreciates but which does not turn out to be that easy: “What is more complicated is getting a candidate to discover themselves, to stand out and to evolve throughout the competition to try to get to the final. In Top Chef, we don’t just talk about technique. We also talk about look, alchemy”.

This year, new challenge: Glenn Viel manages a brigade with two other chefs: Paul Pairet and Philippe Etchebest. A trio with energy to spare which is likely to make viewers laugh a lot this year. How did the chef experience this trio? : “With Paul and Philippe, we make an incredible team, we spend a lot of time together. It’s almost a recreation for us to get together every year during Top Chef. Afterwards, we have three different personalities. With Paul, we have more agreement on our way of thinking. Everyone listens to each other, sometimes one takes the lead and above all, we must not drown the candidate in information, which is not easy”.

This year, the chef also wet the jersey with Paul Pairet in the event “Who can beat” a new major challenge: “It was rock and roll. This is a compulsory test and there are registers on which we are less good. It’s not easy for us, because we have created comfort in our usual work system, with collaborators, large kitchens, lots of equipment, we know where the salt, pepper, etc. are. So of course, we’re afraid of looking stupid, of forgetting something on the stove. But hey, we did pretty well anyway.”

This 15th season has many surprises in store and an astonishing promo, as Glenn Viel states: “I invite everyone to follow the competition to find out. In any case, there were a lot of surprises and twists and turns, with young people who I find quite incredible in the way they look at each other. It’s great that we’re in such a caring competition.”