I’m obsessed with the reality restaurant competition “ America’s Next Great Restaurant ” with Bobby Flay , Curtis Stone , Lorena Garcia , and Chipotle founder Steve Ells , so I JUMPED at the chance to join an interview with chef Bobby Flay to dish about the show! The show’s official synopsis for those of you who aren’t familiar with it: Contestants vie for the opportunity to see their original restaurant concept be realized with the opening of a restaurant chain in three locations: Hollywood, Minneapolis and New York City. Funding the restaurant concepts are four accredited investors: chefs Bobby Flay, Lorena Garcia, and Curtis Stone, as well as Steve Ells, founder, chairman and co-CEO of Chipotle. Flay, Stone, Ells and Garcia also serve as mentors, working with the competitors to further develop their ideas. Each contestant’s concept is put through rigorous business and cooking challenges to determine whether it has what it takes to become America’s next great restaurant. The season finale is this Sunday and I can’t wait! The cool thing is that the winning restaurants will be open already on MONDAY!! Crazy, right?! Bobby chatted about what drew him to the show and what he’s looking for from the finalists. What drew you to this project? BF: I get offered a lot of different television opportunities. And this is one that really struck a chord with me because it’s what I do in my real life. I don’t usually go around investing in people’s other – people’s restaurants. In fact I’ve never invested in somebody else’s restaurant before. But I invest in my own. And I conceive and come up with the concepts and help design and get open restaurants. I mean that’s really what I do for a living. So it’s something that I live every day. So I thought that it would be really a terrific opportunity to help mentor someone else to take that step in their own lives. Why not offer it to anybody in America who actually has a good idea? That’s what I loved about this entire idea for America’s Next Great Restaurant. Continue reading under the gallery photos! Photos by Wenn.com What he’s looking for in the winner: BF: A couple things, well more than a couple things actually, lots of things. First of all a great concept, something that I think is going to resonate with the American people. Someone who is truly passionate about what they’re doing so it’s not just a good business idea but something that it really means a lot to them. Somebody who has an incredible work ethic that can make great decisions and basically throw themselves in front of the bus to stop it if something goes wrong. Somebody that’s going to be completely in it 1000%. Bobby says the restaurants will be fast casual and priced right: the restaurants are going to be very value orientated. So the price point will be low enough that basically anybody could eat there. Was there was a concept that you really believed in and you were surprised that they didn’t go farther just because the food wasn’t up to snuff? Well I think the person we got the most reaction about after we asked them to go home was the Meltworks, the grilled cheese concept. And I think that he had a very good idea. In fact I always tell people like if we – if the competition was one day long he would have won because he came in completely ready with a concept that he thought, you know, just give me the money and I can open this tomorrow. And we found a lot of holes in the concept. And so what we tried to do was get him to do some things and think about things a little differently. And he just didn’t feel like doing that. And I mean that’s his choice. But when you’re asking somebody for money to put up these restaurants I think that you have to take into consideration what people think. So basically I think that his concept started out really good, very solid but it didn’t grow over time. So I was a little surprised that he didn’t sort of go with the flow of little bit more. And I think that if he would have done that I think that he would have been fighting for the restaurant right, you know, this weekend. Is healthy food a factor in the decision in choosing who the winner will be? It actually plays an important [part in the] decision because it’s something that’s important to all of us. And I think that if you listen to Steve Ells talk about it is something he talks about all the time. And so, you know, it was always top of mind. And even like a – like for instance like there’s, you know, there’s three concepts left so the Indian concept can really lend itself although it can be high in calories as well. But it’s a place where it can really lend itself to being healthy. The meatball concept I would say has a little bit more of a difficult chore in that department but as long as it’s not really fat laden which you can totally make happen and devise things around the meatballs that, you know, things like salads that really bring a sort of fresher approach to it I think that that is really helpful. And then even soul food which is traditionally very high in calories can be made in a much healthier way. And I think that if you watched some of the programs, if you watch some of the episodes the last few weeks you saw that Jamawn was really working towards that because he knew that that was incredibly important. So I think that they all had that top of mind and I think the investors did as well. The three finalists on the season finale are: The Brooklyn Meatball Company, Spice Coast (Indian food), and Soul Daddy. I have to say that I love all three finalists and just wish they’d give each of them one restaurant instead of awarding THREE to the winner! They all deserve it! The one question we didn’t get to ask was if there will be a season 2. I suppose it’ll depend on the show’s ratings, how well this first set of restaurants do financially, etc. Have you been watching? Who do you hope comes out on top?? Even if you haven’t watched since the first episode, I highly recommend tuning in for the finale, you won’t be “lost”, trust me! I love that they didn’t resort to any of that “fake drama” stuff to keep things “spicy” for TV. It’s been so positive and enjoyable to watch. Kudos to them and to NBC!