Top Chef Masters

We at All Top Chef have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to view a screener of the first episode of Top Chef Masters, and I dare say you all are going to love it as much as we did!

The show is very much like the original, except that instead of all chefs battling it out at once, the first six episodes each feature 4 chefs. The winners from each episode go on to battle each other in the final four weeks until the finale when one will be crowned Top Chef Master.

There is a Quickfire Challenge and an Elimination Challenge. Kelly Choi is the host, and there are three judges, called "critics" because that's exactly what they are: Jay Rayner of The Observer, Gael Greene of New York Magazine, and James Oseland, of Saveur.

The judges critics have a lot of food knowledge and, it seems, quite different tastes/opinions, which always makes for an interesting tasting. Kelly Choi makes a lovely (if a tad too slim - eep) host. And it's nice to be able to concentrate on a handful of chefs at a time rather than all of them at once: we'll see every dish every episode, rather than just the best and the worst plus a handful of others.

In the first episode, Hubert Keller, Tim Love, Christopher Lee, and Michael Schlow participate in two very Top Chef-style challenges. One is left standing...and you'll have to wait until June 10th to find out who that is!