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’s Culinary Cup, the new cooking competition show set to air on CBS next year.
Lakshmi, who spent nearly 17 years hosting and executive-producing Top Chef before stepping down in 2023, was, understandably, exhausted by the format. “I didn’t really want to come back to the genre,” she says. “I just felt like I was part of the legacy of a show that’s so beloved and so successful and really felt like the gold standard.” But CBS made an offer Lakshmi could not refuse: the chance to create and design the cooking competition show of her dreams.
Though she’ll serve as the onscreen host, Lakshmi is most excited about her off-camera role as the show’s creator. “I spent a lot of time talking about the cinematography and visual language of the show,” she explains. Her years of experience shaped the format of the project—though she’s mum on the details, it will be devoid of the things that bother her the most about cooking competitions. “It’s actually taking away all the bells and whistles, stripping the competition down to focus on the purity of cooking.”
Lakshmi is determined to create a new legacy competition show, one that is centered on expertise and leadership, not gameplay. “I want to create a new institution reflective of American cooking and different from the Frenchified traditions we have inherited and swallowed in this country — especially with fine dining,” she explains. “France has the Bocuse d’Or, there’s 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.” The munificent monetary prize of a million dollars will go a long way to help establish the show’s importance. “A million dollars is four times what any [other show] is giving out,” she says, becoming more animated as she speaks.
Since leaving Top Chef, Lakshmi has remained incredibly busy—possibly even more so. Once America’s Culinary Cup wraps filming, she will begin promoting her new cookbook, Padma’s All American. Available this November, it’s a book seven years in the making—her 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.
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Featuring recipes, photographs, and stories from the show, Lakshmi says there is so much more than that. “Some of it’s personal, some of it’s from Top Chef, but all the photographs that you see in the book—other than the beauties of the recipes—were all shot on the road,” 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. “It’s the last five years of my life on the road.”
Lakshmi sees the book as her call to action to get Americans to learn more about the food and the people around them. Her voice oscillates between excitement and a gentle nervousness as she explains her hopes for how people receive the project, especially at this tense political and cultural moment. “I was born in India and I only came here when I was four, but honestly, I’m American. I’ve lived here most of my life, and there’s nothing less American about me than someone else. And so [the book is] a rallying cry. ‘We are all American,'” she says. It’s a crucial part of what she sees as her life’s mission. “I hope to make people curious about the food they eat, to make people curious about the foods other people eat, to cook for themselves and their families more, to be enticed.”
Though Lakshmi’s travel schedule is nonstop, she values her time at home in New York City the most. She loves to cook and host and entertain in her lower Manhattan apartment, and feels no pressure to keep up with the endless myriad of hot, new restaurant openings. Instead, Lakshmi finds a deep pleasure in revisiting spots that she has loved for years, speaking about each as if they are old, dear friends.
Kalustyan’s
“To me, Kalustyan’s is the best store in the world, bar none. It’s so inspiring to be there, it’s where I get all my spices,” says Lakshmi, who grew up going to the beloved shop, especially when there were no Indian stores outside Queens. “When I don’t know what to cook, I just stroll the aisles. And when I was traveling around the world, craving Indian food in the middle of Paris—as one does—they would ship me spices I couldn’t find,” she recalls with a laugh. “Every spice in any recipe in my book you can buy from Kalustyan’s.”
This Willy Wonka–esque shop on the Lower East Side is known for its dozens of rotating gelato varieties. “It’s not what you think of as an ice cream store—it’s all beige. If you took a kid there, they’d be like, Where are we?” says Lakshmi, who is particularly fond of their celery and fennel flavors. “We’re often nearby doing a lot of shopping, and my facialist is down the street. A facial, some celery ice cream. Perfect.”
“It’s a tiny little wine bar that has been there since the ’90s,” Lakshmi says. “I used to live right down the block and would hold all my meetings and interviews there. I spent my 20s living in Italy, and their food reminds me so much of Roman trattorias. It’s not pretentious, and they have a lot of great wines by the glass. I see a lot of regulars there, it’s my Cheers. I actually put their amatriciana recipe in the new book.”