Top Chef Stuffs a Wetsuit: Our Moist Elevator Encounter With TV's Sam Talbot

On Tuesday, June 24, just before 2 p.m., the Transom stepped into an elevator and all of a sudden found ourselves gazing at dreamy Top Chef contestant Sam Talbot.

Holy smokes! Er, who’s gonna win Top Chef season whatever?

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Talbot, who wore a tight black V-neck T-shirt that revealed bulging biceps, accentuated by a necklace with a giant shark tooth.

Shucks. So, what else is going on?

“I just opened a restaurant in the Hamptons.” Right, right—that seafood joint, the Surf Lodge. Does he surf? “No, I wakeboard,” said Mr. Talbot, who then mumbled something about going through his publicist. Right, dude. “I wakeboard every morning, and then I’m in the kitchen at night,” he said. (Wakeboarding: a combination of surfing and waterskiing.) Mr. Talbot, a former underwear model, was looking very tan. “He’s hot,” gushed the young lass who was accompanying us.

Surf Lodge’s recent addition of a brunch menu is not keeping the reality star from hitting the open water most mornings. He can generally be found in Sag Harbor, zipping around on his all-black wakeboard, wearing a wetsuit. “Just a torso one,” he said. “And nothing on the bottom.” Kidding!

He only began the pastime this summer, encouraged by his partner Jamie Mulholland, but as a former “amateur snowboarder,” he’s taken to it quickly. Does it hurt when he falls? “Fuck, yeah, it hurts,” Mr. Talbot said. “It’s also how I keep sane.”

smorgan@observer.com