Getty Villa ‘stars’ in TV’s ‘Top Chef Masters’

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Hey, this is Hollywood -- so it’s not too unusual to find L.A.’s cultural institutions featured in movies and TV shows. Who can forget Steve Martin roller-skating through the galleries of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1991’s ‘L.A. Story’ -- and, really, what would the advertising world do without the shiny curves of Walt Disney Concert Hall as a backdrop for high-performance vehicles?

But, although no statistics are available, Culture Monster suspects that it’s rare indeed for an area museum to turn up on a cooking show. But such will be the case tonight when Bravo’s ‘Top Chef Masters’ takes its three remaining chefs to Malibu’s Getty Villa -- catch their arrival via the video above. The chefs did not actually cook in the Getty kitchen, but did enjoy lunch on the grounds.

Our sister blog Daily Dish -- always hungry for news -- has the details.

And this morning, Culture Monster chatted with Getty spokeswoman Julie Jaskol about why the Getty participated in the project.

Jaskol reports that the ‘Top Chef’ crew spent about half a day on the Getty Villa campus, making use of the Villa’s reflecting-pool garden (above) as a the site where the competing chefs would accept their challenge.

‘We very much liked the idea because it is a national showcase for the collection and the beauty of the Villa,’ said Jaskol of the museum’s ‘Top Chef’ close-up. ‘Obviously our audience and the ‘Top Chef Masters’ audience has a lot of overlap, there will be some new people that we will be reaching out to. And half of our audience comes from outside of L.A.’

Also for cooking show fans: Television critic Robert Lloyd takes a look at ‘Top Chef: Las Vegas,’ which starts tonight, and another cooking show, the Food Channel’s ‘What Would Brian Boitano Make?’ in today’s Calendar.

-- Diane Haithman