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Curbly’s Top Design Fan Club, Week 7: Chef’s Dining Room

by on Mar 22, 2007

Andrea's Room

Bravo T.V.’s Top Design seemed to turn a corner last night. It was actually good. Although, I have a feeling the turnaround has come too late, having lost their audience in the mire of crap shoveled up for our viewing pleasure earlier on in the series. Oh well.

The Task

The five remaining designers were asked to create a chef’s table for the new restaurant of a mystery chef/judge. They were told the chef preferred mid-20th century modern, arts & crafts influences and handmade elements. They were told think luxurious high end. Their budget was 2K for materials and 40K for memoed pieces from the PDC.

Carisa's Room

The Drama

Oh Carisa’s beam, I was rooting for you. I wanted to see you take out that 10 grand slab ‘o tree table! But alas, Carisa was too quick for you as she moved the slab out of the way just in the nick of time. Drat! Michael too surprised us by refusing to respond to the judges’ question, ‘In which room would you not want to eat.’ Most pegged Goil’s as most unappealing. Agreed.

Michael's Room

Tom Colicchio

The Winners and Losers

I must admit, when Tom Colicchio walked into the judging room, my heart skipped a beat. Oh, Tom, I’ve missed you so! (Is it just me or is this man hot?) Anyway, Tom picked Andrea’s absolutely luxuriously chic room as the winner. Michael’s crime-scene art, airport rug and unfortunate collection of mismatched chairs bought him a ticket home.

Goil's Room

The Summation

Low-lights included Carisa’s stark room, which looked as if it belonged in a monastery, and Goil’s psych ward offering. (It was crazy and slightly frightening.) Highlights included just about everything in Andrea’s room, especially the suede walls and those impractical but gorgeous white chairs. The still photos of Matt’s room doesn’t do it justice; it was beautiful. He went all out with leather floor tiles–again, probably impractical, but rather magnificent. Although they looked great, his choice of using brown/black serving ware was a bold choice for a chef’s table, as unadorned white is the usual choice in such applications. His use of large palm leaves for place mats was genius as was the addition of olive branches for adornment. And, although his room made me gag, Goil’s clever flower ‘chandelier’ was cute and could be a great DIY project, although I agreed with his fellow contestants that I wouldn’t want it hanging over my table. Pollen peppering my food is a bit unappetizing.

Matt's Room