.. is also the third best competitive cooking show on television.

I speak, of course, of Food Network’s Next Iron Chef America, which has found a home on my TiVo for the last six weeks and has kept me entertained throughout. The premise of the show is one you might recognize. Take some of the best chefs in the country, test their culinary skills through a variety of challenges and one by one (for the most part) send them packing; leaving one to remain to be the next Top Chef Iron Chef.

While I poke fun at the laughably unoriginal premise of the show, it’s actually a pretty good watch. The pacing of the show is quick and brisk, just enough time to develop your own personal favorites and not enough time to tire of the “Chairman’s” completely cheesy theatrics and martial arts exhibitions and Top Chef copycat challenges. The show, and this week’s finale, features some familiar faces to foodies: chef Michael Symon of Cleveland’s Lola and chef-turned Katrina activist chef John Besh of Restaurant August in New Orleans. Judges Michael Ruhlman, Andrew Knolton and Donatella Arpaia provide a refreshing break from the uber-machismo of Tom Colicchio, the relatively vacuous Gail Simmons and the ridiculously melodramatic Padma Lakshmi. The comparisons to Top Chef are unavoidable and it seems the shows creators haven’t tried to avoid them, even making the chefs cook airplane food, a challenge done on Season 3 of Top Chef.

What I think Next Iron Chef does better than Top Chef is the show’s ability and seemingly its desire to showcase the culinary personality of each of these chefs, whereas on Top Chef, you really get the sense that the competition itself and to some extent the judges are the show’s stars and the competitors are set pieces. On this show, you don’t have Michael Ruhlman stalking around the kitchen, asking the chefs what they are working on and weighing in on a dish in the early phases of its conception and execution. The judges do not come into play a moment before the dish is set down in front of them for tasting and I think that is much to the show’s credit.

Next Iron Chef is the Eli Manning to Top Chef’s Peyton. Unassuming, kind of dopey but still pretty darn good.

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