Top Chef Masters Season 1
Premiers June 10
Top Chef Masters will pit 24 world-renowned chefs against each other and see how well they fare in the tried and true format of Top Chef. In each episode, money will be at stake for the chefs, with the winners of eliminations being awarded cash donations for their charities. The first six episodes will consist of four chefs competing against each other to name one winner. The six winners of each episode will then meet up for the final four weeks when one person will get eliminated each episode until the finale where one winner is crowned Top Chef Master. The winning chef will receive $100,000 for the charity of their choice.
Each episode of Top Chef Masters holds two challenges for the chefs.The first is a twist on the classic Top Chef Quickfire Challenge which tests their basic abilities — for example in season 2 of Top Chef where the chef'testants had to create an amuse bouche out of items from a vending machine. Each Quickfire Challenge will be judged by a blind taste test and a five-star system, similar to fine dining reviews.
The second challenge is a more involved elimination challenge designed to test the versatility and invention of the chefs as they take on unique culinary trials such as working with unusual and exotic foods or catering for demanding clients. The food will be tasted and evaluated by the judges and a wide range of tasters for whom the challenge is aimed, whether it is patrons at a five-star restaurant or a room full of hungry kids — the food has to appeal to the diner as well as the critics if the chef is to survive.
The host:
Kelly Choi
Host, Top Chef Masters
Top Chef Masters
Kelly Choi is an acclaimed food journalist and creator, producer and host of NYC TV's weekly restaurant show Eat Out NY. A former model, Choi recently finished her first book The 20 Most Delicious Dishes in New York, which is set to hit stores in spring of 2009.
As producer and host of Eat Out NY, Choi chooses every restaurant featured on the program, then ventures to the back of the house – the kitchen – to prepare a dish with the chef. She is also host of the nationally syndicated and Emmy award-winning Secrets of New York, a weekly show that reveals little-known facts and mysteries about Manhattan. Topics include secrets of the city's subway system, skyscrapers, sewers, and even jails.
Choi has been a judge on Iron Chef America, and has received multiple Emmy nominations from the New York chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for her work on NYC TV. Born in Seoul, Korea, Choi won the Elite Modeling Agency’s “Look of the Year” contest, and has been voted as "One of the Sexiest New Yorkers" by the New York Post. She has a Masters degree in magazine writing from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
The Judges:
Gael Greene:
As New York Magazine's famed restaurant critic for over 30 years and the Insatiable Critic Columnist, Gael Greene has gone to great lengths to conceal her identity so that no restaurateurs can identify her. A best-selling author, Greene has written Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Ice Cream But Were Too Fat To Ask, The Mafia Guide to Dining Out and Nobody Knows the Truffles I've Seen.
Greene often documents her global travels with photographs by the professional street photographer, Steven Richter. Their work has appeared in magazines that include Travel & Leisure, Food & Wine, Diversions, Departures and Food Arts.
She co-founded Citymeals-on-Wheels with James Beard and remains a continuing force serving as board chair. Greene has made a significant impact on the city of New York through her work with the organization, rallying food world peers to make a commitment to help feed the city's homebound elderly, and devoting as many hours to fund-raising in recent years as she does to writing. Citymeals, the largest public/private partnership in the country, has raised $150 million in its twenty –four year history to help feed the city's frail elderly shut-ins. For her work with Citymeals, Greene has received numerous awards and was honored as the Humanitarian of the Year (l992) by the James Beard Foundation. She is the winner of the International Association of Cooking Professionals magazine writing award, 2000, and received a Silver Spoon from Food Arts magazine.
Jay Rayner
Judge, Top Chef Masters
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.
James Oseland
Judge, Top Chef Masters
James Oseland has been the editor-in-chief of Saveur magazine since 2006. Prior to that, he was the magazine’s executive editor. He has also been an editor at Vogue, Organic Style, Sassy, and Mademoiselle. In 2006 his book, Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, was published and went on to win awards from the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals and was named one of the best books of that year by Time Asia, the New York Times, Good Morning America, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and others.
Oseland has appeared on the Today Show and as a judge on Iron Chef America, and is a regular guest on radio programs, including The Splendid Table. He has lectured on a variety of culinary topics at the Asia Society, the Abergavenny Food Festival in Wales, Slow Food Nation, and the Culinary Institute of America’s Worlds of Flavor conference. Before becoming a journalist, Oseland wrote, ghostwrote and acted in numerous films, including Guncrazy (starring Drew Barrymore).
Oseland holds a BFA and MFA in photography and film studies from the San Francisco Art Institute. A California native, he has lived in India and Indonesia and now calls Williamsburg, Brooklyn home.
Premiers June 10
Top Chef Masters will pit 24 world-renowned chefs against each other and see how well they fare in the tried and true format of Top Chef. In each episode, money will be at stake for the chefs, with the winners of eliminations being awarded cash donations for their charities. The first six episodes will consist of four chefs competing against each other to name one winner. The six winners of each episode will then meet up for the final four weeks when one person will get eliminated each episode until the finale where one winner is crowned Top Chef Master. The winning chef will receive $100,000 for the charity of their choice.
Each episode of Top Chef Masters holds two challenges for the chefs.The first is a twist on the classic Top Chef Quickfire Challenge which tests their basic abilities — for example in season 2 of Top Chef where the chef'testants had to create an amuse bouche out of items from a vending machine. Each Quickfire Challenge will be judged by a blind taste test and a five-star system, similar to fine dining reviews.
The second challenge is a more involved elimination challenge designed to test the versatility and invention of the chefs as they take on unique culinary trials such as working with unusual and exotic foods or catering for demanding clients. The food will be tasted and evaluated by the judges and a wide range of tasters for whom the challenge is aimed, whether it is patrons at a five-star restaurant or a room full of hungry kids — the food has to appeal to the diner as well as the critics if the chef is to survive.
The host:
Kelly Choi
Host, Top Chef Masters
Top Chef Masters
Kelly Choi is an acclaimed food journalist and creator, producer and host of NYC TV's weekly restaurant show Eat Out NY. A former model, Choi recently finished her first book The 20 Most Delicious Dishes in New York, which is set to hit stores in spring of 2009.
As producer and host of Eat Out NY, Choi chooses every restaurant featured on the program, then ventures to the back of the house – the kitchen – to prepare a dish with the chef. She is also host of the nationally syndicated and Emmy award-winning Secrets of New York, a weekly show that reveals little-known facts and mysteries about Manhattan. Topics include secrets of the city's subway system, skyscrapers, sewers, and even jails.
Choi has been a judge on Iron Chef America, and has received multiple Emmy nominations from the New York chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for her work on NYC TV. Born in Seoul, Korea, Choi won the Elite Modeling Agency’s “Look of the Year” contest, and has been voted as "One of the Sexiest New Yorkers" by the New York Post. She has a Masters degree in magazine writing from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
The Judges:
Gael Greene:
As New York Magazine's famed restaurant critic for over 30 years and the Insatiable Critic Columnist, Gael Greene has gone to great lengths to conceal her identity so that no restaurateurs can identify her. A best-selling author, Greene has written Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Ice Cream But Were Too Fat To Ask, The Mafia Guide to Dining Out and Nobody Knows the Truffles I've Seen.
Greene often documents her global travels with photographs by the professional street photographer, Steven Richter. Their work has appeared in magazines that include Travel & Leisure, Food & Wine, Diversions, Departures and Food Arts.
She co-founded Citymeals-on-Wheels with James Beard and remains a continuing force serving as board chair. Greene has made a significant impact on the city of New York through her work with the organization, rallying food world peers to make a commitment to help feed the city's homebound elderly, and devoting as many hours to fund-raising in recent years as she does to writing. Citymeals, the largest public/private partnership in the country, has raised $150 million in its twenty –four year history to help feed the city's frail elderly shut-ins. For her work with Citymeals, Greene has received numerous awards and was honored as the Humanitarian of the Year (l992) by the James Beard Foundation. She is the winner of the International Association of Cooking Professionals magazine writing award, 2000, and received a Silver Spoon from Food Arts magazine.
Jay Rayner
Judge, Top Chef Masters
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.
James Oseland
Judge, Top Chef Masters
James Oseland has been the editor-in-chief of Saveur magazine since 2006. Prior to that, he was the magazine’s executive editor. He has also been an editor at Vogue, Organic Style, Sassy, and Mademoiselle. In 2006 his book, Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, was published and went on to win awards from the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals and was named one of the best books of that year by Time Asia, the New York Times, Good Morning America, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and others.
Oseland has appeared on the Today Show and as a judge on Iron Chef America, and is a regular guest on radio programs, including The Splendid Table. He has lectured on a variety of culinary topics at the Asia Society, the Abergavenny Food Festival in Wales, Slow Food Nation, and the Culinary Institute of America’s Worlds of Flavor conference. Before becoming a journalist, Oseland wrote, ghostwrote and acted in numerous films, including Guncrazy (starring Drew Barrymore).
Oseland holds a BFA and MFA in photography and film studies from the San Francisco Art Institute. A California native, he has lived in India and Indonesia and now calls Williamsburg, Brooklyn home.
