Top Chef tempted by NFT promotion payoff

Has the Top Chef host’s Twitter feed been hijacked by Crypto bros?'

If you had Tom Colicchio hawking NFT pizzas on your 2021 bingo card, let me be the first to congratulate you. Chefs endorsing products is hardly new, but historically they tend to promote legacy brands, copper-clad cookware or trusted names in kitchen appliances, over more speculative commodities. A chef without a reputation is just a cook. What does that make a chef who cooks virtual food?

Throughout his career, Colicchio has a distinguished track record of charitable giving and activism, but he certainly hasn’t shied away from opportunities to profit from his likeness since Bravo’s Top Chef, now in its 18th season, hit the airwaves. He pops up on my Facebook feed regularly shilling for a line of frozen prepared foods from a company called Ipsa.

Through his work with the Independent Restaurant Coalition, which he co-founded, Colicchio’s played an active role in mobilizing federal support for restaurants impacted by the pandemic. In that time, he’s worked closely with politicians like Chuck Schumer to bring awareness to the plight of the restaurant industry and used his platform to advocate policy changes that help struggling small businesses.
But his battle cries for independent restaurants have gone silent lately and curiously replaced with techno-babble designed to appeal to crypto investors and NFT collectors.

Ahead of launching a business venture called CHFTY Pizzas with former Top Chef contestant Spike Mendlesohn, Colicchio’s been using his Twitter feed to convey (what he would like us to believe is) a budding interest in NFTs.
https://twitter.com/tomcolicchio/status/1468242745387106306?s=21

​What’s unclear is who convinced Tom to sacrifice his reputation to stump for NFTs, and how much they’re paying him to join the crusade. Also, why would he be so willingly to slough off his reputation, built over years going back to his days at Gramercy Tavern to peddle potentially worthless crypto-paraphernalia? The simple answer is money. Colicchio will eventually abdicate his throne on Top Chef and bass-fish away his remaining years on the North Fork of Long Island somewhere. Is this NFT hustle his Ocean’s Eleven? One last big con before he hangs up his cleaver for good?

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