Top Chef Contestants Overview: Season 1

My rundown of Season 1's chefs (contains elimination spoilers).

Contestants in Order of Elimination

Chef: Kenneth Lee
Personality: Obnoxious jackass.
Cooking: What little we saw was sloppy.
Stand-out moments: Plate-flipping and primal knife-sharpening.
Elimination notes: He deserved it.

Chef: Brian Hill
Personality: Playa.
Cooking: Didn't stand out to me, really.
Stand-out moments: Admiring Candice's ass.
Elimination notes: Mushy carrots? Yeah, bye!

Chef: Cynthia Sestino
Personality: Tough-minded, no-nonsense older lady.
Cooking: A bit disorganized (which may've been circumstantial).
Stand-out moments: Mostly I remember her dealing with her dad's illness, rather than anything about her cooking.
Elimination notes: Went home voluntarily so she could be with her hospitalized dad.

Chef: Candice Kumai
Personality: Bubbly, young.
Cooking: A bit simple but some good ideas.
Stand-out moments: Her knock-down drag-out argument with Stephen.
Elimination notes: Eliminated for not realizing quiche won't stand up to microwaves. Her lack of experience got her, but that's easily curable with time; if she sticks with it, she'll probably be a pretty good chef.

Chef: Lisa Parks
Personality: Another no-nonsense lady, seemed generally focussed.
Cooking: Solid but maybe not spectacular.
Stand-out moments: Being the voice of reason in the kids' challenge.
Elimination notes: Between probably not being used to the time constraints and not having the restaurant experience I think it's not terribly surprising, but I was sad to see her go. I hope she kept cooking.

Chef: Andrea Berman
Personality: Seriously focussed on health-food advocacy, obviously passionate, seemed like a nice woman overall.
Cooking: Showcased her feelings about food, didn't compromise. Some of it was probably pretty tasty.
Stand-out moments: Repeated talks about bowel movements.
Elimination notes: Eliminated twice, once in episode 2, where it was too early to tell for sure how good she'd be, then again in episode 6. Probably a bit too focussed on the health food to make it to the end, but you gotta give her props for sticking to her ideals.

Chef: Miguel Morales
Personality: Class clown.
Cooking: Not much stood out, but it seemed solid.
Stand-out moments: Chunk La Funk, Master of Junk Food.
Elimination notes: As was pointed out, he tended to avoid leadership roles. I imagine he makes a superb chef tournant, but as for Top Chef? He didn't quite seem motivated enough for that.

Chef: Stephen Asprinio
Personality: Self-involved avant garde snob
Cooking: Too frou-frou foam and art for me, though in fairness from comments I gather it was often good.
Stand-out moments: Arguing with Candice; boring diners at Restaurant Wars.
Elimination notes: "This is Top Chef, not Top Sommelier!" He needed to focus on cooking, and too often, he didn't.

Chef: Lee Anne Wong
Personality: Tough, strong, frank, cool.
Cooking: I wish I could've tasted most of her dishes (save the ones using ingredients I don't care for); they seemed to be superb overall.
Stand-out moments: Actually I can't think of one particular stand-out moment, but she was overall the chef I'd most like to meet personally.
Elimination notes: She was robbed. Seriously, she was my personal pick to go to the top and while I suppose I can't disagree that last dish was a little busy, I still think she should've gone to the finale.

Chef: Dave Martin
Personality: Frazzled, emotional.
Cooking: Solid and tasty if not exactly upscale. Tied with Lee Anne for "dishes I most wanted to taste regularly".
Stand-out moments: "I'm not your bitch, bitch." (Letting Tiffani know how he felt about her behavior towards him.)
Elimination notes: Even though technically he didn't follow the rules, I still think he was robbed, too, since clearly the dishes he did put out were considered better than Tiffani's.

Chef: Tiffani Faison
Personality: Bitch. But, let's be fair; after the season was over she seemed to get a lot better.
Cooking: I will give her this: she made some really good-looking and good-sounding food. Whatever her other flaws, she clearly can cook.
Stand-out moments: Lying about back-stabbing Miguel; interrupting everyone at the reunion.
Elimination notes: Sorry to say, I was glad she lost because I didn't like her, but if I'm being fair, she did take a lot of risks in that finale and obviously put out some quality food.

Chef: Harold Dieterle
Personality: Quiet, shy, occasionally snarky.
Cooking: Mostly seemed to be really good.
Stand-out moments: "I'm a chef, not a..." It was like Dr. McCoy, only a chef.
Not-eliminated notes: First winner of Top Chef, and clearly someone who deserved it, even if I still wish Lee Anne had won.

Overall impressions

The personalities were many and varied, a good mix overall. I think you're always going to get a few people who are bitchy, if for no other reason than competition tends to bring out people's bad sides; likewise, the arrogance was no surprise, since it takes a certain amount of arrogance to think you can win something like this. It was nice to see a mix of experience and lack thereof, though obviously the lack thereof was a significant handicap for people.

Stephen was definitely the person most people disliked the most, but he actually redeemed himself a bit with me when he apologized to Candice during the reunion. He's still a snob, but he seems to have tempered it a bit with a dose of reality.

Dave was someone I was glad to see in the top, in part because he wasn't about the upscale dining. I think he gets too emotional to really be great at running a kitchen, but he definitely found the right career to switch to in terms of skill and passion. It was terrific to see someone who re-invented himself go so far, and it was seeing that that made me think this was a show that really was more about the food (though subsequent seasons dented that feeling a bit).

Lee Anne remains my favorite chef from all three seasons, and I'm really tickled she went on to continue being involved with the show behind the scenes; she also writes one of my favorite blogs about the show. She also does a great weekly video on how to cook the winning dish, The Wong Way to Cook (link goes to Season 3's finale dish, so, uh, spoiler).

I think all the chefs were dedicated and passionate (yes, even the ones I didn't like), which was nice, because it was really what the show was supposed to be about. Too bad that didn't necessarily carry over to Season 2, which I'll be posting about shortly.