Kenturah Davis

This show, while potentially entertaining to watch, conveys the serious (and well known) crisis in the restaurant world in terms of representation and inclusivity. I find myself cringing continuously as I watch this. While I'm not advocating that judging be weighted with consideration of race and gender of the competitors, something is terribly wrong when halfway through the series, the few women who made it to the show were all eliminated. The single chef from the entire African continent was white. Furthermore, to see Thanksgiving themed dishes served for the US episode with only white men on the judging panel and only white chefs representing the US, emphasizes the willful negligence and colonialist attitudes that dominate the fine dining world...for goodness sakes, the only dish that made any reference to the Native American presence (again, I'm talking about THANKSGIVING) was ranked in the bottom three. It seems that the show wants to affirm/reiterate/reinscribe a hierarchy in fine dining that is overwhelmingly dismissive of women and people of color. I think better scouting needs to be done to identify talent among underrepresented groups. While all those on this show are amazingly talented, I hope future season will try to compensate for these disappointing optics.