Return of Top Chef

The baldie and the babe are back.

Top Chef Season 4: Chicago returns on Bravo at 10 p.m. Wednesday. (That's Tom Colicchio on the left and Padma Lakshmi on the right. )

“I think this season is tougher ... because the talent pool is deeper,” Colicchio told the Associated Press. “There are more contenders this year. These are good cooks without a doubt.”

Colicchio said Bravo couldn’t attract such talented people in the past because the show was taken lightly in culinary circles, and few with major cooking aspirations wanted to risk their reputation in a venue as derided as a back-stabbing reality show.

But that has changed.

“It has become respectable,” Colicchio said. “A lot of the chefs who came in season four probably wouldn’t have come out in season two. More and more talented chefs are coming out because the show is being taken seriously.”

One of the reasons they’re taking a chance on “Top Chef” rests with the guest judges. Last year, Eric Ripert, Daniel Boulud and Andre Soltner landed on the program, raising the stature of “Top Chef.”

Here's an interesting tidbit for anyone who loved Bill Buford's excellent book "Heat."

One of the new contestants is Manuel Trevino, former sous chef at Mario Batali’s Babbo, an

Italian restaurant. At Babbo, he worked with author Buford for about a year.

Buford says Trevino, or Memo as he’s known, “has got a crazy amount of talent, can’t believe there are other chefs on the program who have more skills or (have) as much elegant lightness under pressure, and, probably most important, he has a genuine creative fire, a wildness that will result in his coming up with a dish so unexpected and brilliant that he will be a finalist, or else will result in some kind of equally unexpected flameout."

After that assessment, are you really going to miss an episode? Not me.

Second Helpings will resume Thursday recaps and episode comments. (I'll have a spoiler alert at the top of the post.)

I'm really looking forward to this season.

Chicago is a great eating town and home to some of the nation's finest chefs. I wouldn't be surprised to see Charlie Trotter, Rick Bayless (the chef known for outstanding, and authentic Mexican cuisinel) and Rick Tramonto showing up as guest judges.