TC News and Information 2.16.11 - Jay Rayner Out, 5 Cheftestants In

Jay Rayner tells Eater he's been "sacked" from Top Chef: Masters: "All I know is that the new host is non-American and therefore they couldn't have another non-American accent on the panel. And that's fine. I'm reasonably assured that is the reason. I don't examine these things too deeply, because all jobs come to an end. Being involved with TCM was fantastic. Being able to say I'd done it was fantastic. But it was difficult. I have two small children, and doing the show meant I would be in Los Angeles for a month at a time. And that was very, very hard. It ended up with me phoning my wife and saying, "I've got good news and I've got bad news: the bad news is that I'm no longer involved with Top Chef: Masters, and the good news is that I'm no longer involved in Top Chef: Masters." I knew she'd be delighted."

Meanwhile, Food + Wine is opening up its annual Best New Chef Awards this year to online voting from the public. You have until March 15 to vote for 10 nominees in 10 regions. And the Top Cheftestant nominees are:

Season 4 winner Stephanie Izard (Great Lakes)
Season 5 contestant Jeff McInnis (Gulf Coast)
Season 5 contestant and ousted All-Star Jamie Lauren (Pacific)
Season 6 finalist Kevin Gillespite (Southeast)
Season 3 finalist and ousted All-Star Casey Thompson (Southwest)

Voting linkage from Food + Wine here, and more from their "People's Choice" partner, CNN's
Eatocracy here. F+W has more details about each of the nominees, or you can find a quick and dirty list of all 100 nominated chefs from Eater, which assures us the press release says, "Inclusion as a nominee for The People's Best New Chef award does not preclude consideration for a Best New Chef award" (aka the traditional Best New Chef award decided upon by F+W) and that results will be announced in F+W's July issue. Guess our press release got lost in the mail :)

Meanwhile, Stephanie Izard's Girl and The Goat gets a positive write-up from Saveur, launching the magazine's venture into long-form restaurant reviews that aim to be "expansive, thoughtful pieces about very interesting restaurants of the moment," explains TC Masters sometime judge and Saveur editor-in-chief James Oseland, who offers no tidbits as to whether he - and his sweaters - will be back for TC Masters Season 3.

So who were you surprised to see on Food + Wine's list, and who are you proud to see from your own region? And what the heck do you think is going on with the revamp of Top Chef Masters?

TC News & Information 3.1.2010

The Guardian UK is giving away a dinner with Top Chef Masters judge Jay Rayner. Click here for more information and to enter.

LAist has an interview with Top Chef Masters competitor Susan Feniger.

Top Chef season 1 host Katie Lee and season 5's Fabio Viviani will serve as hosts and mentors of the Almost Famous Chef Competition, sponsored by S. Pellegrino. Top Chef Masters competitor Rick Moonen will serve as one of the judges. More info can be found here.

The CIA has a series of podcasts called Insight from the Inside, one of which features Top Chef season 2 winner Ilan Hall and season 3 winner Hung Huynh. Another features TC season 4 guest judge, hottie pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini. You'll need iTunes to access the podcasts. The listing is here.

The Return of Top Chef Masters

Yesterday's Television Critics Association Press Tour revealed that the second season of Top Chef Masters will premiere April 7 at 11PM before moving to its regular time slot at 10PM the following week.

Food journalist Kelly Choi will return as host, and regular Top Chef judge Gail Simmons will serve as a judge this season as well, joining restaurant critic Gael Greene, culinary expert James Oseland and food critic Jay Rayner.

Good news for Gail Simmons fans: she will also be hosting the upcoming Top Chef: Just Desserts, which is still in development.

TC News & Information

On tonight's episode of Top Chef Masters, Chef Michael Cimarusti will be playing for the charity the Grameen Foundation. Its mission is to enable the poor, especially the poorest, to create a world without poverty. With as little as $50 or $100, a poor woman can start a very small business and begin her family’s journey out of devastating poverty. Grameen Foundation is a leader in the fight against poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, the Arab World and the Americas, where building strong local institutions that reach even more people in the poorest communities is a cornerstone of their work.

To learn why Chef Cimarusti supports this organization,watch the video below.



And in other news...

Three former Top Cheftestants will be involved in an "Iron Chef-style" competition, the Grand Garlic Showdown, at the Gilroy Garlic Festival this weekend. Season 5's Jamie Lauren and Season 4's Ryan Scott will be doing battle, while Season 5's Fabio Viviani will be hosting. Read more about it here.

Television Without Pity has some amusing suggestions for Padma Lakshmi's upcoming NBC series.

When Reality Worlds Collide: TC4's Nikki Cascone is getting married, and Project Runway winner Christian Siriano is designing her dress. Read her wedding blog here.

Here's an interview with TCM Critic Jay Rayner about...what else? criticism.

Don't forget to visit Bravotv.com and read the blogs! Here, season 1 champ Harold Dieterle gives his thoughts on the most recent episode of Top Chef Masters.

Here's an interview with TC 4s Richard Blais.

And finally...a rundown of last week's Eater panel discussion with Leah Cohen, Harold Dieterle, and Lee Ann Wong on life after Top Chef.

TC News & Information

After 40 years of reviewing restaurants for New York Magazine, Gael Greene got the boot. Now she works as a reviewer for Crain's. Read her first review here.

Here's 10 things you might not know about TC4 winner Stephanie Izard.

TC1's Andrea Beaman and Dave Martin, plus TC2s Betty Fraser offer advice on minimizing refrigerator waste.

TC1s Lee Ann Wong now the Executive Chef for Kogi New York, reveals some of her diet secrets.

TC5s Fabio Viviani will host the Gilroy Garlic Festival Garlic Showdown on July 26.

TCM judge Jay Rayner talks about Top Chef Masters.

Bio - TC Masters Judge Jay Rayner

Jay Rayner is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster who has written for a wide range of British newspapers and magazines such as GQ, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, The New Statesman and Granta. After graduating from Leeds University in 1988, he joined The Observer newspaper for whom he now reviews restaurants. In 2006 he was named Critic Of The Year in the British Press Awards.

His first novel, The Marble Kiss, was shortlisted for the Author's Club of Great Britain First Novel Award and his second, Day of Atonement published in 1998, for the Jewish Quarterly Prize for Fiction. He is also the author of the novels The Apologist, (known in the US as Eating Crow) and The Oyster House Siege, as well as the non-fiction work Stardust Falling. He won a Sony Radio Award in 1997 for "Papertalk," BBC Radio Five Live's magazine program about the newspaper business.

He regularly appears as one of the food critics on Masterchef, and was on the panel of critics who made up the "enemy" on the daytime cooking show Eating with the Enemy. Most recently, Rayner came out with The Man Who Ate the World, a tour of the world's greatest restaurant cities and his search for the perfect meal. The paperback edition will be published this summer.