Padma Lakshmi is still rooting for Top Chef after departing the show.

“I watched the first couple of episodes and it used to be a little ordinary,” Lakshmi, 53, advised Us Weekly solely on the Gold Gala in Los Angeles on Saturday, May 11. “But everyone I like is on that display. So I’m rooting for them.”

Lakshmi showed her support for Kristen Kish, who replaced her because the host, including, “It’s a house I helped build, and I would like them to be successful. I feel Kristen will to find her footing, and I think she’s doing nice.”

Despite making the decision to move on, Lakshmi said it nonetheless felt “weird” no longer to be involved. “But I will be able to see all those people anytime I want,” she mentioned about keeping up a close bond with the display’s solid and team. “I don’t have to be on set to do it.”

Lakshmi announced her exit in June 2023, in a while prior to the season 20 finale aired.

“After much soul searching, I've made the tricky choice to go away Top Chef,” she wrote by means of Instagram at the time. “Having completed a wonderful twentieth season as host and govt manufacturer, I'm extraordinarily proud to have been a part of development this sort of a hit show and of the impact it has had within the worlds of television and food. After 17 years, lots of the solid and team are like circle of relatives to me and I can leave out working alongside them dearly.”

In her observation, Lakshmi said that she was looking forward to “other creative pursuits.”

“Other complex elements went into me just being carried out with Top Chef, which we don’t have time to pass into right here,” she noted on Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast two months later. “But I think I simply concept, ‘If I’m feeling this way, then I’ve got to agree with my intestine.’ I’ve additionally were given to make room in my existence and my time table for new things to bubble up.”

Lakshmi stated a lot went into stepping away after hosting the Bravo competition series for 17 years.

“I were on location for eight months out of the 12 months. And once I wasn’t on location, I used to be in pre- and post-production for both my shows,” she defined about Top Chef and her Hulu sequence, Taste the Nation. “And I was looking at edits of 1 show whilst at the set of another show. It used to be just onerous and untenable for me to proceed that manner.”

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Since her departure, Lakshmi has remained excited by her pastime initiatives such because the Gold Gala, which celebrates the most impactful Asian Pacific changemakers in tradition and society who blend trade greatness with societal just right.

“I like this organization. I think it’s actually a beautiful neighborhood that they’ve constructed that we didn’t have prior to. I’ve by no means been to this ball however I’ve indubitably observed the pictures, and it sort of feels love it’s a large number of fun,” she shared with Us on Saturday. “So I had numerous amusing designing the menu for this night, and I’m a little worried because it’s a 250-person dinner. But we wanted to focal point on simply really fresh components and South Indian food and make it hyper explicit.”

With reporting by means of Lanae Brody

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