Top Chef Masters Premiers June 10th on Bravo
Reality TV Cooking Competition Features World-Renowned Chefs
May 15, 2009
While the sixth season of Top Chef is being filmed in Las Vegas, Bravo has created a spin-off to keep its fan satisfied. Top Chef Masters will feature 24 chefs from top restaurants around the country. Well known chefs and previous Top Chef guest judges such as Wylie Dufrense, Rick Bayless and Hubert Keller will all compete to be the Top Chef Master.
Top Chef Masters Challenges and Prizes
Top Chef Masters will run for ten weeks. The first six episodes will each feature four celebrity chefs competing in Quickfire and Elimination Challenges. Quickfire Challenges will be based on previous Top Chef challenges that test the basic skills of the master chefs. The Elimination Challenges will focus on versatility and innovation as they deal with unusual ingredients or challenging clients. The winner of each Elimination Challenge will earn money for their favorite charity.
The winners of these six episodes will compete in the final four weeks. Each week, one chef will be eliminated. The final three contestants will compete for a prize of $100,000 for a charity of their choice.
Top Chef Masters Contestants
- Rick Bayless – Frontera Grill, Chicago
- Wilo Benet – Pikayo, San Juan, Puerto Rico
- John Besh – Restaurant August, New Orleans
- Graham Elliot Bowles – Graham Elliot Restaurant, Chicago
- Michael Chiarello – Bottega Restaurant, Yountville, Calif.
- Michael Cimarusti – Providence, Los Angeles
- Wylie Dufresne – wd~50, New York
- Elizabeth Falkner – Orson, San Francisco
- Hubert Keller – Fleur de Lys, San Francisco
- Christopher Lee – Aureole, New York
- Ludo Lefebvre – Ludo Bites, Los Angeles
- Anita Lo – Annisa, New York
- Tim Love – The Lonesome Dove Western Bistro, Fort Worth, Texas
- Rick Moonen – Rick Moonen's RM Seafood at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas
- Nils Noren – French Culinary Institute, New York
- Lachlan MacKinnon-Patterson – Frasca Food & Wine, Boulder, Colo.
- Cindy Pawlcyn – Mustards Grill, Napa Valley, Calif.
- Mark Peel – Campanile, Los Angeles
- Douglas Rodriguez – Alma de Cuba, Philadelphia
- Michael Schlow – Radius Restaurant, Boston
- Art Smith – Table Fifty-Two, Chicago
- Suzanne Tracht – Jar, Los Angeles
- Jonathan Waxman – Barbuto, New York
- Roy Yamaguchi – Roy's Restaurants, San Diego
Panel of Judges and Guest Stars
The traditional Top Chef panel of judges has been replaced by four big names in food for this spin-off. Kelly Choi, a food journalist, will host Top Chef Masters. New York Magazine food critic Gael Greene, Saveur magazine Editor-in-Chief James Oseland and British food critic Jay Rayner will be the permanent judges.
Many names have been mentioned as potential guest judges. Big names like Neil Patrick Harris and Morgan Spurlock will appear at judging. Previous winners of Top Chef, Tom Colicchio, Padma Lakshmi and Gail Simmons will all make appearances on Top Chef Masters.
Stay tuned for more gossip, episode summaries and cast profiles. Bravo’s Top Chef Masters premiers on June 10th at 10 PM. Visit the Top Chef Masters page for more information as the season progresses.
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