As the reality TV competition looks for its latest winner, we check in on past champions
Unlike other cooking shows where you may see home cooks try to make opulent desserts, precocious child chefs get yelled at by Gordon Ramsay or industry pros forced to cook a meal from baskets filled with marmite and goat’s brains, the Emmy Award winning Top Chef is actually trying to suss out who is a great chef.
Like a student studying abroad returning to the States sporting a beret for some reason, Top Chef has a new look, too, after its season in London and Paris where it pitted champs and fan favourites from around the globe in a “World All-Stars” season. Like in Houston, Buddha Lo of Huso in New York City emerged as a victor again with an almost old school-style of fine dining finesse to his cooking and plating. Top Chef’s has a new look this season with the exit of long-time host Padma Lakshmi, and the entrance of a new host, Kristin Kish, who will now be the loser each week to “pack their knives and go.” Before they crown a new champion, take a look back at what the previous 19 winners have achieved.
Harold Dieterle (Season 1: San Francisco)
That first season was still ironing out the wrinkles a little bit, with no Padma Lakshmi to be seen yet (Katie Lee, Billy Joel’s now ex-wife, was the host). In the finale, which was held in Las Vegas, Dieterle defeated Tiffani Faison with a menu that included olive oil poached bass and pan-roasted quail. After winning, Dieterle ran three restaurants in New York’s West Village: Perilla, Kin Shop and the Marrow. Despite solid reviews for each of the trio, he eventually closed them all, shuttering Perilla in 2015. He returned to New York in 2017 as the consulting chef at the gluten-free Italian restaurant Tali, but it closed in June of 2018. Dieterle ran his own restaurant consulting business and in 2024 plans to open a new Southern Italian restaurant with a seafood influence in New York.
Ilan Hall (Season 2: Los Angeles)
In a season that had some controversy, with a hazing incident of one of the contestants and Bravo not actually producing a reunion show because viewers didn’t like the chefs, Hall prevailed. After winning, Hall opened the Gorbals in LA, where he mashed up his Scottish and Jewish heritage with dishes like bacon-wrapped matzo balls. He expanded the concept to hipster enclave Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but he has since closed both locations. In 2015 Hall opened the vegan Ramen Hood in LA’s Grand Central Market. He also hosted a cooking competition show of his own, the testosterone-filled Knife Fight on the now-defunct Esquire Network. Hall is a regular on Food Network shows like Tournament of Champions and Guys Grocery Games.
Hung Huynh (Season 3: Miami)
Huynh, who had cooked at Per Se and Guy Savoy before competing on the show, beat fan favourites Casey Thompson and Dale Levitski in the three-way final. After leaving the show, Huynh worked for the restaurant and nightlife company EMM Group for four years, helping it grow the seafood restaurant Catch around the world, from New York to LA to Dubai to Mexico City. Upon departing EMM, Huynh worked private events, and in 2016 he took a job as the culinary consultant for Hilton at Resorts World Bimini in the Bahamas. In late 2019 he opened the Asian fusion restaurant Warrior on LA’s Sunset Strip. He is currently consulting and doing private events.
Stephanie Izard (Season 4: Chicago)
Izard won the season held in her own backyard of the Windy City, defeating Richard Blais in the finale. Since then, she’s gone on to build an empire in Chicago’s thriving West Loop restaurant scene. In 2010, she opened the perpetually packed Girl & the Goat, where she serves delicious, creative and globally inspired dishes such as wood oven roasted pig face, grilled butter chicken and duck tartare. Soon after she opened the Little Goat Diner and her Chinese restaurant Duck Duck Goat. In 2019 at Chicago’s new Hoxton Hotel she opened her Peruvian-influenced Cabra, and in 2020 she opened Sugargoat bakery and expanded her offering with meal kits delivered nationwide through Goldbelly. In 2021 she opened her pandemic-delayed Girl and the Goat in Downtown Los Angeles and has also brought her Peruvian restaurant Cabra to the city as well. Back in Chicago, she closed Little Goat Diner in the city’s West Loop and is moved it to Southport Avenue.
Hosea Rosenberg (Season 5: New York)
Season 5 was filled with chefs who would become fan favorites for years to come, including Fabio Viviani and Carla Hall. However, Rosenberg beat them all. The New Mexico-born chef returned to Colorado and has opened Blackbelly in Boulder, later expanding it to a butcher shop as well. In November 2017, Rosenberg opened Santo in Boulder, a restaurant devoted to the food of his home state, serving dishes such as Navajo fry bread and green chile pork and potato stew. In April of 2020, Rosenberg shared on Instagram that his daughter Sophie was suffering from a rare skeletal disorder called Multicentric Carpotarsal Osteolysis (MCTO). He and his wife started a foundation to raise funds and awareness around MCTO.
Michael Voltaggio (Season 6: Los Angeles)
The LA-based chef with a fondness for molecular gastronomy squared off all season against his brother Bryan, edging out his older sibling in a finale that showed their contrasting styles of cooking. Voltaggio later hosted the Travel Channel show Breaking Borders, where he went to conflict areas around the world to see how food could bring people together. He closed his flagship restaurant, Ink, and quickly reopened in a space nearby, but with a more relaxed, convivial environment and menu. However, he shuttered that restaurant in April 2018. While Michael and Bryan battled on Top Chef, they’ve since formed a strong alliance, opening Voltaggio Brothers Steak House at MGM National Harbor in their home state of Maryland, the Italian restaurant Vulcania at Mammoth Mountain in California, and also opened Retro at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas in 2023.
Kevin Sbraga (Season 7: Washington, DC)
Sbraga was a bit of a surprise winner during the DC season, considering he only won one elimination challenge during the whole competition. The drama of the finale was slightly tempered with Bravo accidentally posting a video on its site the day of the episode that revealed the winner before the show had aired. After winning, he opened multiple restaurants in Philly and one in Jacksonville, Fla., but he has eventually shuttered them all, closing the last one, the Fat Ham, in July 2017. In the summer of 2018 he opened his hot chicken spot Sonny & Sons near Purdue University in Indiana, but the food hall where it was located closed because of Covid-19. After consulting with Legends—the company started by Jerry Jones and the Yankees that focuses primarily on in-stadium food offerings—Sbraga became a VP of Operations in 2023.
Richard Blais (Season 8: New York)
After losing to Stephanie Izard in the finale of Season 4, Blais came back to the show in its All Stars season, where every chef was a contestant who had lost in previous years. Using his love of molecular gastronomy, and sporting a bad fauxhawk haircut, he prevailed his second time around. He continues to hang around the show, regularly appearing as a judge. In 2014, he opened modern American restaurant Juniper & Ivy in San Diego, while being the creative director of Flip Burger Boutique, with outposts in Atlanta and Birmingham. He currently has an expanding fast-casual fried chicken restaurant called the Crack Shack, which has six locations around Southern California and Las Vegas. And in March 2021, he opened Ember & Rye, a modern steakhouse inside the Park Hyatt Aviara north of San Diego. The competition reality show he hosts with Gordon Ramsay, Next Level Chef on Fox, is now in its third season.
Paul Qui (Season 9: Texas)
Few contestants have been as dominant as Qui was when he won nine of 17 challenges during the season that took place across the Lone Star State. And this wasn’t weak competition here. He defeated Sarah Grueneberg, who a few years ago won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest; Edward Lee, who hosted his own season of Mind of a Chef; and Nyesha Arrington, who worked for Michelin two-starred Melisse before opening her own acclaimed restaurants in LA. Qui went on to earn accolades with his eponymous restaurant in Austin, but a disturbing 2016 domestic violence incident led him to close Qui, and then reopen it as Kuneho. In November 2017, he announced he would be closing that restaurant as well. In Houston, he opened Aqui in 2017, but it also closed. In December of 2021, Qui partnered with Norwegian chef Christopher Haatuft to open the sustainable seafood concept Golfstrømmen inside Houston’s Post Market, but that restaurant closed in February 2024.
Kristen Kish (Season 10: Seattle)
Kish benefited from being on the first season in which Bravo deployed the web series Last Chance Kitchen, where eliminated chefs faced off in a tournament to gain re-entry to the competition at the finale. Kish, having performed very well early in the season with four wins, was eliminated five episodes before the finale. But she battled back to defeat Brooke Williamson, who until Kish had returned, dominated the field, winning three straight challenges. For a few years, you mainly found Kish roving to different events, hosting Travel Channel’s 36 Hours with former soccer player Kyle Martino, and in 2017 she published her first cookbook: Kristen Kish Cooking. In June 2018 she opened a new restaurant called Arlo Grey in Austin at the Line Hotel. Early in 2021 she cohosted a competition cooking show with fellow Top Chef alums Justin Sutherland and Jeremy Ford on Tru.Tv called Fast Foodies, where the trio competed to remake a celebrity guest’s favourite food. And in 2023 her new NatGeo show, Restaurants at the End of the World, premiered. After making frequent Top Chef cameos since winning, she is now the permanent host replacing Padma Lakshmi.
Nicholas Elmi (Season 11: New Orleans)
Defeating Nina Compton, who has gone on to create the outstanding restaurant Compère Lapin in New Orleans, Elmi wasn’t exactly a fan favourite when he scored the upset victory. However, since his win, Elmi has returned to Philadelphia to make his mark on the city’s dining scene. Elmi’s modern French-slash-American restaurant Laurel has earned him accolades both in the City of Brotherly Love and nationwide. With the success of Laurel, he opened the bar ITV and Royal Boucherie. Late 2019 he released his first cookbook, Laurel: Modern American Flavors in Philadelphia. Eventually Elmi headed out to the Philly suburbs too to open the all-day café the Landing Kitchen and the Mediterranean spot Lark. And in 2023 Elmi announced that Laurel would expand to take over the ITV space and in the process would change from tasting menu to à la carte.
Mei Lin (Season 12: Boston)
A protégé of Season 6 winner Michael Voltaggio, Lin defeated Gregory Gourdet of Kann in Portland, with a menu that included the rice porridge congee, which was topped with carnitas. Since her victory she’s traveled the world hosting pop-up dinners with fellow chefs, tests recipes for her forthcoming restaurant in Los Angeles and has even been spotted hanging out with Oprah. Her restaurant Nightshade in L.A.’s Arts District opened in January 2019 and was one of our Best of the Best winners that year. That restaurant closed during the pandemic. But now she has another hit on her hands, with her fast casual Szechuan hot chicken spot Daybird, which has seen consistent lines since it opened a few years back. She was crowned a champion again in 2023, when she won Tournament of Champions on the Food Network. Also, a totally unrelated fun fact about her season: One of the people she beat went on to lose their restaurant after alleged arborcide.
Jeremy Ford (Season 13: California)
One of the many Jean-Georges Vongerichten protégés to compete on Top Chef, the bro-ish Ford brought a cockiness and a modernist touch to the season that spanned locations up and down the Golden State. He started out hot, winning two of the first four challenges, but cooled slightly down the stretch before righting the ship and defeating Charlie Palmer disciple Amar Santana in the finale. After his victory he started planning his own restaurant in Miami, leaving Jean-Georges’ Matador Room to open Stubborn Seed on South Beach, which was one of Robb Report’s best new restaurants a few years ago. And in Michelin’s inaugural Florida guide, his restaurant notched a coveted star. In early 2022 he partnered with the renovated PGA resort for his take on the modern steakhouse, the Butcher’s Club and co-hosted a cooking competition show with previous winner Kristen Kish. Then, later that same year Ford opened another restaurant, Beauty and the Butcher in Coral Gables, Fla. Ford is bringing his Stubborn Seed to Sin City, opening a 120-seat version at Resorts World Las Vegas.
Brooke Williamson (Season 14: Charleston)
After the bitter sting of defeat in Season 10, Williamson returned to the competition in 2016 to avenge her loss in the final. Her experience paid off as she was a strong competitor throughout and eventually notched the overall win. Back home in L.A., she hasn’t tried to chase Michelin stars with a bunch of fine-dining spots. Instead, along with her husband, Nick Roberts, she focused on neighborhood spots like her bar and restaurant Hudson House, gastropub Tripel, Hawaiian-inspired restaurant Da Kikokiko and multi-part concept Playa Provisions. However, the pandemic, like it was to many restaurateurs, was brutal to Williamson’s business: She shuttered two of her restaurants and sold a third, but held strong with Playa Provisions and now she’s a fixture on Food Network shows.
Joe Flamm (Season 15: Colorado)
The former executive chef at Michelin-starred Italian restaurant Spiaggia in Chicago defeated Le Bernardin alum Adrienne Cheatham in the final to become the 15th Top Chef. Flamm took a circuitous route to the Colorado season finale. He won the coveted “Restaurant Wars” challenge only to be bounced immediately after a sudden death Quickfire when he cooked subpar cauliflower risotto for the great David Kinch of Manresa. Through the cooking competition Last Chance Kitchen, where eliminated contestants compete in mini-challenges for the chance to reenter the competition, Flamm proved victorious, returning to take on the four remaining contestants. Though he stayed on at Spiaggia for a time, he had a foot out the door; Flamm told us after his win that he’d like to open his own Italian restaurant in the Windy City. He did exactly that with Rose Mary, a wood-fired Croatian-Italian restaurant that debuted in Chicago’s Fulton Market in 2021 and featured one of our favourite dishes of 2022. He took over the kitchen at Blvd Steakhouse and is planning a new restaurant in the Windy City to open in 2024.
Kelsey Barnard Clark (Season 16: Kentucky)
The chef-owner of the restaurant and catering company KBC in Dothan, Alabama, made her mark on Top Chef‘s 16th season by cooking southern fare combined with the skills she learned cutting her teeth under Gavin Kaysen at Cafe Boulud in New York. She returned to her home state to open her own restaurant and came into the competition with her infant son, Monroe, cheering for her at home. In the finale held in Macau, she defeated chefs Eric Adjepong and Sara Bradley to take home the title. After winning, she returned home $125,000 richer to keep running KBC. During Covid-19, the catering arm of her company took a hit with people canceling big events. She’s discussed how PPP money helped keep her staff paid when takeout was the only option for KBC. After reopening for dine-in service she welcomed her second child, and in 2021 she dropped her first cookbook, Southern Grit.
Melissa King (Season 17: Los Angeles)
“The term fusion has a bad wrap,” Melissa King said in her title-winning season. “I really want to change that.” In the finale in Tuscany she made her point the best way possible, bringing together China and her surroundings in Italy for a four-course meal that wowed the judges with its skill and elegance. She defeated Bryan Voltaggio and Stephanie Cmar in the end to claim the title of Top Chef. However, the excitement had to have been tamped down a bit as her victory was revealed at a time when restaurants were crushed under the weight of the pandemic. Since winning she has been able to build up her collection of virtual cooking classes, went into the Portland bubble to be one of the rotating judges in season 18, and has hosted the NatGeo show Tasting Wild.
Gabe Erales (Season 18: Portland, Ore.)
When he was at the helm of Comedor in Austin, the restaurant earned the spot as one of our Best New Restaurants in America in 2020. Erales’ modern take on Mexican—which includes him cooking at the Noma Mexico pop-up—showed him as someone in control of his technique and flavors. He was able to impress the judges throughout his season, with a creativity and consistency that earned him the title of Top Chef. However, Erales was dismissed from Comedor by owner Philip Speer in December 2020, not long after filming for season 18 had wrapped. “Effective immediately, Comedor executive chef Gabe Erales is no longer with the restaurant due to repeated violation of our policies and for behaviour in conflict with our values,” Speer wrote in a statement announcing the termination. Erales later admitted that he retaliated against an employee at the restaurant whom he’d had an affair with, reducing her work hours after the relationship ended. Erales has been back opening restaurants again, beginning with Bacalar in Austin and following that with the Tex-Mex spot Ometeo in Washington, DC.
Buddha Lo (Season 19: Houston and Season 20: World All-Stars)
The chef behind Huso in New York City—the restaurant owned by Marky’s Caviar—used his fine dining finesse to take the Top Chef title, defeating the uber-talented Evelyn Garcia in the final (she opened her own restaurant, Jun by Kin in Houston, which was on our Best New Restaurants list last year). And since he works with a caviar company, he got to launch his own line of fancy fish eggs, Saint Urgeon. Lo immediately returned to compete on the “World All-Stars” edition, pitting winners and fan favourites from the Top Chef franchises that have aired around the globe. He won that season as well, and has got to enjoy perks of his new fame, like becoming a brand ambassador for Saratoga Water. He hit a bit of bad luck though, with a fire shutting down Huso for an extended period of time, but his restaurant reopened last fall.
This story was first published on Robb Report USA
