Colicchio Advises Young Chefs to Not 'Do the TV Thing'

Chef and television personality Tom Colicchio recently offered his advice to young chefs, telling the the Daily Meal: "You have to stay home, you have to stay in your restaurants." Colicchio — who's been the head judge of all ten seasons of the Bravo reality television series Top Chef — elaborated: "A lot of these guys [have to] resist the temptation to go on tour and go to all these festivals and do the TV thing, and you [have to] stay home and take care of business first."

"There's temptation now to get out there and start doing something," said Colicchio. "[But] you gotta keep that down. You gotta really limit that." The most recent winner of Top Chef was the 28-year old Kristen Kish, and yes, she'll be going on the Top Chef Cruise that Tom Colicchio is also participating in.

Colicchio is the star of a fishing web series and a paid lover of Bounty paper towels. He has appeared in Treme a few times, the Simpsons, the Smurfs movie, and, in possibly his most celebrated role, a Diet Coke commercial. When challenged about all of his non-restaurant extracurricular activities, Colicchio explained, "But I've been doing this for 30 something years, and I didn't start doing TV until about six years ago."

· Tom Colicchio: New Chefs Should Stay Off TV [Daily Meal]
· All Tom Colicchio Coverage on Eater [-E-]
· All Top Chef Coverage on Eater [-E-]