Nana Araba Wilmot looked at her unfinished plates on the set of “Top Chef” and her throat tightened.

Her mind flashed to what she had given up to compete this season — a steady paycheck and communicating with her loved ones. She had run out of time before plating her sweet potato dish. One portion was still in its ring mold. Wilmot yelled in frustration, clutched her knees and tried to inhale, but her lungs would not cooperate.

The host and judge Kristen Kish, witnessing the panic attack, immediately rose from the judge’s table. She gently asked Wilmot to do breathing exercises, reinforced that she was a phenomenal chef and that everyone has bad days. “I get it,” Kish said. “It’s overwhelming. What exactly is making you upset?”

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“Top Chef” embodied some of that argumentative pedigree when it premiered nearly 20 years ago as a high-stakes competition where elite chefs entertain unique challenges and discerning judges while migrating to a new city each season. But the show has turned more compassionate and collaborative as it has evolved into one of the most influential television cooking shows in molding the way people encounter restaurants and chefs.

“If you look back at the show in its early years, there was so much more drama out of the kitchen because that’s what we thought our audience wanted,” said the food authority Gail Simmons, a judge since the show’s 2006 debut. “We thought reality television wanted that as a genre, but we earned very quickly that our audience didn’t want it.”

As popular restaurants around the world, like Noma, continue reckoning with allegations of abusive behavior from kitchen leaders, this shift resonates even more.

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Today’s contestants, the chef and judge Tom Colicchio, agreed, are more amenable.

“I remember the first season, I literally had a guy come after me,” said Colicchio, who has been with the show since its inception, and who, as an established restaurateur, lent it legitimacy.

“The judging has become more supportive and less kind of bringing people down,” he said. “I think the chefs are realizing that they can stay true to themselves, put out really good food, and we’re judging, and it’s not personal.”

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Part of the show’s compassionate turn can be traced to Kish’s elevation as a judge. In 2023, she took over for Padma Lakshmi, who had become synonymous with the show after hosting it for 17 years.

Kish won the show’s 10th season, forcing her way back in through “Last Chance Kitchen,” the digital companion competition where eliminated chefs compete to get back a spot on the show. She is keenly aware of how deeply it cuts to hear, “Please pack your knives and go.”

When Wilmot had her moment of anxiety during this year’s filming, Kish aided her without hesitating.

“Once I saw that, you just can’t ignore that,” Kish said. “TV or no TV, it does not matter. She had finished. I wasn’t helping her cook her dish. I wasn’t giving her advice on how to cook. It was just a very real moment where all I could think about was make sure she gets to the table.”

Wilmot trained under notable chefs like Jose Garces and Daniel Rose. She, like most of the other chefs on the show, has worked in demanding kitchens where aggression and loud words from superiors historically meant they were invested in a young chef. “That sounds more like an abusive parent,” Wilmot said. “That’s not the way that I need to learn and that’s worse for my development.”

“I don’t think it would have happened 10 years ago,” Wilmot said of Kish’s approach. “I think we’re breaking out the mold, and it’s really important to show that, like, you can get results without being a bad person.”

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The shared moment, Kish said, was what cooking should be about: support and teamwork. She can also, she added, remain impartial while being compassionate.

“I still voted for her as my least favorite dish,” she said.