Sunday, August 7, 2011

TC News and Information 8.7.11 - Happy Anniversary to the Magical Elves!


Variety spotlights the production company behind Top Chef as the Magical Elves turn 10! Take a trip down memory lane here. And read more about upcoming Top Chef Season 9 here, where a Bravo exec discloses “We started things a little differently with more chefs. A big challenge for us after ‘All Stars’ is to make everything seem big again and I think we've succeeded. The challenges are inventive, there are a lot of special guests and there will be a traveling element, which is new.”

Meanwhile, Top Chef Masters has been renewed for a 4th season and the Elves are casting a new Bravo series, ‘Around the World in Eighty Plates,’ which “will follow up-and-coming chefs as they travel to various cities around the world to compete in culinary challenges. Contestants will have to learn the local cuisine, culture and customs so that they can best reinvent the menu at world-renowned restaurants,” according to TV Guide.

In other news, check out this New York Times item about head judge Tom Colicchio’s “secret farm” next his new Riverpark restaurant. (Take that, Elia.)

Top Chef Masters judge/former Gourmet editor/food memoirist Ruth Reichl is penning a new novel “set in World War II and the present.” It may involve food.

TC Season 2 and All-Stars contestant Marcel Vigneron is doing low-tech street tacos for The Gap.

We hear Season 6 finalist and Fan Favorite Kevin Gillespie won the Celebrity Chef Cookoff at this weekend’s Gig Harbor Wine and Food Festival in Washington State. Don’t miss this great video interview with the Bearded One filmed prior to the event. Turns out this Atlanta boy used to cook in the Pacific Northwest.

TC All-Star Dale Levitski and the team from his Chicago restaurant Sprout (which includes his Season 3 co-contestant and bff Sara Nguyen) were invited to cook at the James Beard House in NYC. Don’t miss the photos of their feast from Feast.

Season 3’s Camille Becerra’s newest gig is as a culinary producer of “pop-up” dinners in Manhattan. The Daily Meal explains.

Season 4’s Nikki Cascone is in on the culinary producer action as well, with “Southampton Supper Under the Stars” August 27, where she’ll be joined by TC contestants Manuel Trevino and Angelo Sosa, and a Bravo Housewife (or three?).

And reaching into the “way-back machine,” we’re glad to see Cynthia Sestito (who elected to leave at the beginning of the first Season of Top Chef due to her father’s illness) is out and about and picnicking with panache. Check out these photos from a recent Grey Goose event in the Hamptons.

Only two weeks and change until Top Chef returns to Wednesday nights, with Season 2 of Top Chef: Just Desserts! I’m especially excited because one of the contestants, Megan Ketover, is from my city (Cincinnati) and I have Downtown Restaurant Week reservations to taste her food! Anyone else have a hometown contestant to root for?

Posted on AllTopChef.com

2 comments:

JordanBaker said...

I was, no joke, just this weekend wondering about whatever happened to Cynthia from Season 1 (it happened while I was making a variation on Elia's breakfast tostada/waffle dish, so it was a whole Top Chef moment).

Kristine said...

Being from Ohio, I have to root for Megan as well. Hope I didn't curse her. So far, every near-hometown person I've rooted for was eliminated early.