Padma Lakshmi Talks ‘Top Chef’ Exit, What Kristen Kish Will Bring To The Table As New Host, WGA Strike, Pride In ‘Taste The Nation’ & 2023 Emmys Hat Trick

deadline.com:

Padma Lakshmi is having an “otherworldly and amazing” morning, after pulling her latest set of three Emmy nominations for the culinary competition show Top Chef, which she’s long hosted and exec produced, and her newer Hulu series Taste the Nation, examining cuisine from coast to coast.

The nod for Bravo’s Top Chef — her 14th, overall — is particularly meaningful given her recently announced decision to depart the franchise of which she’s been a part for 19 seasons. “It feels really, really great to be able to leave my tenure right at Top Chef, knowing that I gave it my all and the last season, we got the nominations again,” Lakshmi told Deadline this morning. “I’m really happy, and I want to thank all of the people who worked so hard on that show that you never see.

I’m over the moon because I’m leaving the show in a great shape.” In addition to that series, which she considers the “gold standard” in its domain, Lakshmi has much to be proud of with Taste the Nation, which she developed from the ground up and calls the joy of my life.” She feels “a little vindicated,” she says with a laugh, given the many rejections she got in pitches before setting the show up at Hulu. “Listen, I’ve been on television for 20 years, and this is the first time someone has given me the chance to create my own show the way I saw fit,” she said. “That’s a privilege that many people don’t get to make, and especially many women don’t get to make in Hollywood, and it took me until this moment in my career when I finally got the chance.

So, it’s not lost on me how rare this moment is.” Lakshmi’s Top Chef noms came in the categories of Outstanding Reality Competition Program and Host for a Reality or Competition Program, while Taste the Nation