Top Chef Masters 2- Meet Thierry Rautureau

Known affectionately as “The Chef in the Hat,” French born Thierry Rautureau is the owner of Rover’s Restaurant in Seattle. Raised on a farm in the Muscadet region of France, this James Beard Award-winner for Best Chef in The Pacific Northwest began a cooking apprenticeship in Anjou, France at age 14 before training at top culinary locales across that country. He eventually found himself working for Jean Claude Poilevey at La Fontaine in Chicago before heading to Los Angeles’ The Regency Club and The Seven Street Bistro Opening Rover’s in 1987 after a chance visit to Seattle, Rautureau has been a staple on the national culinary landscape ever since, and has been featured in Gourmet, Zagat’s, USA Today, and every major metro-Seattle publication that covers dining.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Susan Feniger

Susan Feniger is well known to Angeleno’s as one half of the popular "Too Hot Tamales" along with her longtime business partner Mary Sue Milliken. Almost 30 years ago, the two chefs opened CITY restaurant, becoming an instant success story. Next came Border Grill in Santa Monica, California and Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, and then the Latin themed Ciudad in downtown Los Angeles and the Border Grill Truck.

With the opening of Susan Feniger’s STREET in Hollywood in 2009, the celebrated chef launched her first solo venture. Feniger’s dream of creating a unique restaurant inspired by the authentic flavors of street food was fulfilled, creating a spontaneous love story enjoyed by foodies and the media alike. A veteran of 396 episodes of "Too Hot Tamales" and "Tamales World Tour" series, Feniger also co-authored five cookbooks with Milliken--City Cuisine, Mesa Mexicana, Cantina, Cooking with Too Hot Tamales, and Mexican Cooking for Dummies. She has been on the board of the Scleroderma Research Foundation for 17 years, spearheading a mission to find a cure for scleroderma, a life-threatening and degenerative illness, by funding and facilitating the most promising, highest quality research, as well as placing the disease and the need for a cure in the public eye. Feniger also serves on the board of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Jimmy Bradley

The chef-owner of two popular New York City restaurants — The Red Cat and The Harrison — Jimmy Bradley presides over neighborhood joints that have become destinations for guests from around the city and the country. A purveyor of straightforward, occasionally irreverent, food, and contagious conviviality, all of it wrapped up in an attitude-free package, Bradley has helped contemporary diners rediscover the intrinsic value of classic Mediterranean cuisine, reinterpreted for a modern American clientele. His accomplishments have earned him features in New York magazine, Food & Wine magazine, Bon Appetit, and The New York Times, as well as appearances on Today and The Martha Stewart Show among others. His cookbook, was published in 2006.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Ana Sortun

Cited as one of the country’s “best creative fusion practitioners,” Seattle-born Ana Sortun graduated from La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine de Paris before opening Moncef Medeb’s Aigo Bistro in Concord, Massachusetts, in the early 1990s. Following stints at 8 Holyoke and Casablanca in Harvard Square, she opened Oleana in 2001, immediately drawing raves for dishes that The New York Times described as “rustic-traditional and deeply inventive.” Awarded the Best Chef: Northeast” honor by the James Beard Foundation in 2005, her cookbook SPICE: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean was published in 2006 and has become a best-seller. Her husband’s farm, Siena Farms, provides Sortun’s restaurant with all of its fresh produce and is named after their daughter. Her most recent undertaking has been Sofra Bakery & Café in Cambridge, which offers a unique style of foods and baked goods influenced mostly by Turkey, Lebanon, and Greece.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Jerry Traunfeld

After graduating from the California Culinary Academy, Jerry Traunfeld served as executive chef at Alexis Hotel in Seattle and as a pastry chef at Jeremiah Tower’s Stars in San Francisco. After spending over 17 years honing his skills as executive chef of The Herbfarm, Traunfeld went on to open Seattle-based restaurant Poppy, named after his mother. The 2000 James Beard Award winner for Best American Chef: Northwest and Hawaii, he is the author of The Herbfarm Cookbook, The Herbal Kitchen: Cooking with Fragrance and Flavor, and has appeared on Martha Stewart Living, Better Homes and Gardens, The Splendid Table, and a host of other television and radio programs.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Govind Armstrong

Raised in Costa Rica and Los Angeles, Govind Armstrong is one of the nation’s brightest cooking stars, noted for his commitment to market-driven California-style cuisine. Creator of the Table 8 brand of restaurants, Armstrong is currently the executive chef and owner of 8 Oz Burger Bars in Los Angeles and South Beach. He plans on expanding to California, Arizona, and Nevada. Armstrong began his culinary training at age 13 at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago restaurant in West Hollywood. He is the author of Small Bites, Big Nights and has been featured in People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People” issue, Bon Appetit, Gourmet, O: The Oprah Magazine, along with appearances on Oprah, Top Chef, Iron Chef America, and Today.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Tony Mantuano

Regarded internationally as an influential culinary force, Chef Tony Mantuano is the chef/partner at Spiaggia, the only four-star Italian restaurant in Chicago. Awarded the 2005 James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Midwest, Mantuano worked in several Michelin-starred restaurants in Italy before opening Spiaggia in 1984 to critical acclaim, and has since gone on to win The Chicago Tribune’s highest culinary prize, The Good Eating Award, and named a Food & Wine Best New Chef in 1986.

His other ventures include Mangia Trattoria in his hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin and as the chef/partner of Terzo Piano at new The Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago. Mantuano’s first cookbook, The Spiaggia Cookbook, was lauded by Food & Wine magazine as one of the top 25 cookbooks of 2004. In 2008, Mantuano co-authored Wine Bar Food with wife Cathy, which was the inspiration for WINE BAR FOOD outposts at the 2008 and 2009 U.S. Open Tennis Champions. He has also made numerous television appearances and has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and Food & Wine and is a frequent contributor to local Chicago television and radio stations.

In addition to his 2005 honor, Mantuano’s Spiaggia also received James Beard Foundation nominations for Outstanding Restaurant in America in 2006 and 2007 and for Outstanding Service in 2008 and 2009. The Mantuanos were honored with the keys to San Martino in the Italian region of Molise (the ancestral home of Cathy Mantuano) for serving authentic Italian cuisine to President Barack Obama, a long-time guest who celebrated his presidential election victory at Spiaggia in 2008.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Marcus Samuelsson

Award-winning chef and cookbook author Marcus Samuelsson is the youngest chef to ever receive two three-star ratings from The New York Times, the first of which was awarded to him after just three months as Executive Chef of Aquavit. His impressive list of accolades includes a 2003 James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: New York City, having already won the foundation’s 1999 best Rising Star Chef honor. He has received consecutive four-star ratings in Forbes’ annual All-Star Eateries feature, named one of the 40 under 40 by Crain’s, and was hailed one of The Great Chefs of America by the Culinary Institute of America.

Also named by the World Economic Forum as one of the Global Leaders of Tomorrow, this Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised talent studied at the Culinary Institute in Goteborg, Sweden, before apprenticing in Switzerland and Austria. Having made Aquavit a landmark in Scandinavian dining in New York City, Samuelsson has found additional success as the author of The Soul of a New Cuisine and New American Table. Most recently, Samuelsson was guest chef for the Obama Administration’s first State Dinner honoring the Prime Minister of India.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet David Burke

One of the leading pioneers in American cooking today and owner of David Burke Townhouse, David Burke at Bloomingdales, Fishtail by David Burke, Burke in the Box, David Burke Prime, David Burke’s Primehouse, David Burke Las Vegas, and Fromagerie, Burke is one busy chef. Having trained at the Culinary Institute of America and in France under esteemed chefs Pierre Troisgros, Georges Blanc, and Gaston Lenôtre, Burke went on to become America’s first recipient of France’s coveted Meilleurs Ouvriers de France Diplome d’Honneur for excellence in American cuisine by age 26.

Burke’s other accolades include Japan’s Nippon Award of Excellence, the Robert Mondavi Award of Excellence, and the CIA’s August Escoffier Award. In addition, Burke was inducted into the 2009 James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America. Also credited with being a standout culinary product inventor (GourmetPops, Flavor Sprays & Flavor-Transfer Spice Sheets), Burke is a noted author of two cookbooks, Cooking with David Burke and David Burke’s New American Classics.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Carmen Gonzalez

Puerto Rican native Carmen Gonzalez has been a prominent figure in American dining for over 20 years. Upon opening the nationally recognized, Miami-based Carmen the Restaurant in 2003, it was hailed “One of the Best New Restaurants in America” by Esquire magazine. Gonzalez has been recognized with many honors including the Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence from 2004-2006; AAA’s coveted 4 Diamond Award in 2004 and 2005; a 2006 mention in Zagat’s America’s Top Restaurants; among others.

Gonzalez has been featured in The New York Times, Miami Herald, Food & Wine magazine, and Bon Appetit, as well as appearances on The Martha Stewart Show, Today, MGM Latino, among others. Gonzalez’s greatest passion comes from community outreach efforts, involving herself for many years with Share Our Strength, the James Beard Foundation, Chef Carmen Cooks for a Cure, and Feeding the Mind Foundation, the latter two of which she founded.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Monica Pope

Named 2009’s Best Chef at the Houston Culinary Awards, Monica Pope is a 2007 James Beard Award Nominee for Best Chef: Southwest and the owner of t’afia and Beaver’s in Houston. The only Texas woman to ever be named a Top 10 Best New Chef by Food & Wine magazine, Pope first learned to cook from her Czech grandmother and went on to earn her Chef’s title from Prue Leith’s School of Food and Wine in London.

After working in Europe and San Francisco, Pope returned home to Houston to open her first restaurant, the critically acclaimed The Quilted Toque. Soon after opening her second Houston restaurant, Boulevard Bistrot, she garnered national praise from top critical publications including Travel & Leisure, which hailed her “one of the most ingenious restaurateurs around.” Her latest venture, t’afia, has been featured in Gourmet, O: The Oprah Magazine, Bon Appetit, and Fortune.

She recently published a digital cookbook, Eat Where Your Food Lives (available at www.ChefMonicaPope.com) and is currently working on a cooking memoir entitled Eating Hope (and Other Things I’ve Had to Stomach).

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Susur Lee

Hailed by Zagat as “a culinary genius,” Susur Lee has emerged from his humble beginnings as a 15-year-old apprentice in Hong Kong to become a worldwide leader in Asian fusion cuisine, blending traditional Chinese dishes with classical French techniques. In 1987, Lee opened the doors to his 12-table Lotus restaurant in Toronto, earning rave reviews from The New York Times, Art Culinaire, Gourmet, and Food & Wine magazine.

Lotus ran successfully for a decade before Lee decamped for a "re-energizing" period to Singapore, where he served as head chef and consultant. Returning home to open Susur in 2000, Lee has since launched restaurants in Manhattan (Shang), Washington D.C. (Zentan), and a second restaurant, Lee, in Toronto.

Lee is a sought-after guest chef across the globe, and has been featured on numerous media outlets. A noted philanthropist, he contributes regularly to the James Beard Foundation, cancer research at Spinizolla in Boston and the Null Foundation, which provides scholarships for underprivileged students to attend culinary school.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Rick Tramonto

Rick Tramonto is executive chef/partner at the world-renowned four-star and Relais & Chateaux restaurant Tru, in Chicago. Tramonto is also culinary director of Tramonto’s Steak & Seafood, RT Sushi Bar, and Osteria. He has received a bevy of awards and honors including the James Beard Foundation for Best Chef: Midwest Award, the Robert Mondavi Award for Culinary Excellence, Food & Wine magazine's Top 10 Best New Chefs 1994, Outstanding Service Award from The James Beard Foundation, Four-star Mobil, and the Wine Spectator Grand Award.

Tramonto started his culinary career in Rochester N.Y., at Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers in 1977, and has gone on to work with some of the masters: Pierre Gagnaire, Michel Guerard, and Alfred Portale. An accomplished cookbook author with six titles to his credit, his seventh book is due to be released in Spring of 2010 called Rick Tramonto Steak with Friends. Tramonto has a number of television appearances that include Oprah, Today, Iron Chef America, and most recently as a judge on Top Chef.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Maria Hines

The 2009 James Beard Award winner for Best Chef: Northwest, Maria Hines sharpened her culinary skills at reputable restaurants from coast-to-coast before becoming a sensation as executive chef of Earth & Ocean in Seattle in 2003.

Named one of Food & Wine magazine’s best chefs in 2005, the Ohio native truly established herself as a national dining force when she opened her certified organic restaurant Tilth, which features New American cuisine. Only the second restaurant in the country to receive the Oregon Tilth organic certification, The New York Times named Tilth one of the top 10 best new restaurants in the country in 2008.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Jody Adams

Jody Adams is a James Beard award-winning chef with a national reputation for her imaginative use of New England ingredients in regional Italian cuisine. Her four-star Rialto restaurant in Cambridge has been named “One of the top 20 new restaurants in the country” by Esquire magazine and “One of the world’s best hotel restaurants” by Gourmet.

Beginning her culinary career as a line cook at Seasons restaurant, she went on to open Hamersley’s Bistro as sous-chef and then served as executive chef at Michela’s in Cambridge, where Food & Wine listed her as “one of America’s ten best new chefs.” Soon thereafter, Adams opened Rialto in Harvard Square, collecting many honors as a result, including being inducted into the Nation’s Restaurant News Fine Dining Hall of Fame. Adams has been featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Bon Appetit, among many others. She also has a strong commitment to hunger relief and is known for her loyal support of The Greater Boston Food Bank, Share Our Strength, and Partners in Health.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Meet Debbie Gold

A James Beard Award winner and four-time nominee, Debbie Gold has led Kansas City’s The American Restaurant to national recognition as its executive chef. Initially studying restaurant management at the University of Illinois, Gold received her professional culinary training at L’Ecole Hoteliere de Tain L’Hermitage in France.

After apprenticing for two years at Michelin-starred restaurants across that country, she returned to Chicago to hold positions at such reputable venues as Charlie Trotter’s, Everest, and Mirador. Although Gold took a hiatus to begin her successful restaurant venture 40 Sardines, she returned to The American Restaurant as the executive chef to once more lead the locale to a host of honors, including consistent AAA Four Diamond and Mobil Travel Guide Four Star ratings.

Top Chef Masters 2 - Preview

Here's a little preview of the upcoming season which starts on April 7th!

Additions and Changes to Top Chef Masters

Although Kelly Choi will be back, along with all of last season's regular judges, Season 2 of Top Chef Masters will also have Gail Simmons playing a judgmental role. Can't have Judges' Table without a little cleavage! Sounds like there will be some fun guest judges as well.

From the press release:

This season, Top Chef Masters will feature guest stars and judges Mekhi Phifer, "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening and star Hank Azaria, Andrew Zimmern (Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern), the cast of Modern Family, US Olympic Swimmer Jason Lezak , Bravo's "Real Housewives of OC" Lynne Curtin, Alexis Bellino, and Tamra Barney among others.

and:

For the second season of "Top Chef Masters," www.BravoTV.com is serving up a new behind-the-scenes treat: unprecedented access to the Judges Table with extended footage of the judging process, only available online. Viewers also will learn how to make each week's winning recipe step-by-step in the popular Top Recipe video series, which returns this season with a brand-new host: Atlanta chef and "Top Chef: Las Vegas" finalist Kevin Gillespie.

Hmm - wonder why Fabio is out as Top Recipe host/chef? Speculate here!

Top Chef Masters 2 Participants Revealed!

EW has apparently got the scoop on the 22 chefs who will be competing in season two of Top Chef Masters - including 6 chefs who competed in season 1.

The six returning chefs:

Graham Elliot Bowles – Graham Elliot Restaurant, Chicago, Ill.
Wylie Dufresne – wd~50, New York, N.Y.
Ludo Lefebvre – Ludo Bites, Los Angeles, Calif.
Rick Moonen – Rick Moonen’s RM Seafood at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, Nev.
Mark Peel – Campanile, Los Angeles, Calif.
Jonathan Waxman – Barbuto, New York, N.Y.

And the newbies:

Jody Adams – Rialto Restaurant, Cambridge, Mass.
Govind Armstrong – 8 oz Burger Bar, Los Angeles, Calif.
Jimmy Bradley – The Red Cat, New York, N.Y.
David Burke – David Burke Townhouse, New York, N.Y.
Susan Feniger – Street, Los Angeles, Calif.
Debbie Gold – The American Restaurant, Kansas City, Mo.
Carmen Gonzalez – Chef Consultant, New York, N.Y.
Maria Hines – Tilth, Seattle, Wash.
Susur Lee – Madeline’s, Toronto, Canada
Tony Mantuano – Spiaggia, Chicago, Ill.
Monica Pope – t’afla, Houston, Texas
Thierry Rautureau – Rover’s, Seattle, Wash.
Marcus Samuelsson – The Red Rooster, New York, N.Y.
Ana Sortun – Oleana, Cambridge, Mass.
Rick Tramonto – TRU, Chicago, Ill.
Jerry Traunfeld – Poppy, Seattle, Wash.

Can't wait until the new season starts on April 7th!