Daniel Boulud is a French chef and restaurateur with restaurants in New York City, Palm Beach, Miami, Toronto, Montréal, Singapore, the Bahamas, and Dubai. He is best known for his eponymous restaurant Daniel, opened in New York City in 1993, which currently holds two Michelin stars.
Ted Reader is a Canadian chef and author of several cookbooks.
David Chang is an American restaurateur, author, podcaster, and television personality. He is the founder of the Momofuku restaurant group. In 2009, Momofuku Ko was awarded two Michelin stars, which the restaurant has retained each year since. In 2011, he co-founded the influential food magazine Lucky Peach, which lasted for 25 quarterly volumes into 2017. In 2018, Chang created, produced, and starred in a Netflix original series called Ugly Delicious, and through his Majordomo Media group, he has produced and/or starred in more television and podcasts. On November 29, 2020, he became the first celebrity to win the $1,000,000 top prize for his charity, Southern Smoke Foundation, and the fourteenth overall million dollar winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Marcel Desaulniers is an American chef who was part-owner of the Trellis Restaurant in Williamsburg, Virginia, a cookbook author, director Emeritus of the Culinary Institute of America, and self-described "Guru of Ganache". He is the author of the 1992 book Death by Chocolate.
Massimo Capra is an Italian restaurateur, restaurant consultant, cookbook author, and celebrity chef. He is known for his appearances on the television shows CityTV's Cityline, Global's The Morning Show, and Food Network shows Restaurant Makeover, Chopped: Canada, Top Chef Canada, and Wall of Chefs. He based in Mississauga, Ontario; near Toronto.
Michael D. Symon is an American chef, restaurateur, television personality, and author. He is of Greek, Sicilian, and Eastern European descent. He is seen regularly on Food Network on shows such as Iron Chef America, Burgers, Brew and 'Que, Food Feuds, and The Best Thing I Ever Ate, as well as Cook Like an Iron Chef on theCooking Channel and The Chew on ABC. He has also made numerous contributions to periodicals such as Bon Appétit, Esquire, Food Arts, Gourmet, Saveur and O, The Oprah Magazine.
Gavin Kaysen is executive chef and owner of Spoon and Stable, Bellecour Bakery, Demi, Socca, and Mara all in Minneapolis. He received the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest in 2018. Previous to his move to Minneapolis, he served as Executive Chef and Director of Culinary Operations for Daniel Boulud in New York City, over seeing Café Boulud in Palm Beach, Toronto and New York City.
Richard Blais is an American chef, television personality, restaurateur, and author. He appeared on the reality show cooking show Top Chef, and is known for his take on classic American cuisine. Blais was the runner-up for the fourth season of Top Chef and returned several seasons later to win Top Chef: All-Stars.
Andrew Carmellini is an American chef and restaurateur. He is the co-founder and culinary director of NoHo Hospitality, which owns and operates over 15 restaurants, bars, and food stands. Carmellini has received numerous accolades, including a Michelin star, a James Beard Award for Best Chef: New York City, and a spot on Food & Wine's Best New Chefs list. He is also the author of two cookbooks.
Top Chef Canada is a Canadian reality competition television series and is considered one of the most prestigious culinary competitions in Canada. The show premiered on April 11, 2011, on Food Network Canada. The first season consisted of 13 episodes, with 16 contestants vying for a grand prize of $100,000 and a GE Monogram kitchen valued at $30,000. Like the original American series, each week the chef contestants compete against each other in culinary challenges. Contestants are judged by a panel of professional chefs and other notables from the food and wine industry, with one or more contestants being eliminated each week. The Canadian edition uses the same graphics and music as the American version of the program.
Evangelos Spiros "Spike" Mendelsohn is a Washington, D.C.-based chef and restaurateur best known as the fifth-place finisher of the fourth season of Top Chef, which aired 2008–2009. He is the chef and owner of multiple restaurants: Good Stuff Eatery, Santa Rosa Taqueria, and We, The Pizza in Washington, D.C. In the summer of 2017, Mendelsohn closed his restaurant Béarnaise in Washington's Capitol Hill and opened Santa Rosa Taqueria in its place. In 2019, Mendelsohn opened PLNT Burger, a vegan restaurant featuring Beyond Meat, inside Whole Foods Market in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Anthony Eric Myint is an American restaurateur, chef, activist, author and food consultant based in the Mission in San Francisco, California. He is a founder of Mission Chinese Food, "The Perennial", Mission Street Food, Mission Cantina, "Mission Burger", "Lt. Waffle", and "Commonwealth Restaurant". He is a pioneer in the environmental and charitable restaurant movement.
Vikram Vij is an Indian-born Canadian chef, cookbook author, and television personality. He is co-owner, with his ex-wife Meeru Dhalwala, of the Indian cuisine restaurants Vij's Restaurant and Rangoli Restaurant in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also owns My Shanti, a restaurant in South Surrey, BC. In 2014, Vij was announced as a new "dragon" investor on the Canadian reality show Dragons' Den for its ninth season and departed at the end of the season.
Hugh Acheson is a Canadian-born chef and restaurateur. He owns four restaurants in Georgia, and serves as a judge on the reality cooking competition show Top Chef, and as an Iron Chef on Iron Chef Canada.
Michael Solomonov is an Israeli chef known for his restaurants in Center City, Philadelphia. His first restaurant Zahav, founded in 2008, has received national recognition including the James Beard Foundation "Outstanding Restaurant" in 2019. Solomonov was also awarded Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic in 2011, Cookbook of the Year in 2016, and Outstanding Chef in 2017 from the James Beard Foundation. In 2021, The New York Times named his restaurant Laser Wolf as one of "the 50 places in America we're most excited about right now."
Matthew James Matheson is a Canadian chef, restaurateur, actor, and internet personality. He portrays the handyman Neil Fak on the FX series The Bear.
Gregory Gourdet is an American chef, writer, restaurateur, and former finalist on the twelfth and seventeenth seasons of Bravo's American reality television series, Top Chef. He is of Haitian descent. He is the owner of the restaurant Kann and the former executive chef and culinary director of Departure at The Nines in Portland, Oregon. His book, Everyone’s Table: Global Recipes for Modern Health, is a national bestseller.
Alvin Cailan is an American chef, author, and television host; of Filipino-American ethnicity. He is the host of First We Feast’s The Burger Show which airs on YouTube and Hulu. Cailan launched Eggslut, a food truck that specialized in egg sandwiches. The food truck quickly became popular and often had waits that stretched to two hours long. Eggslut has brick-and-mortar locations, including at Los Angeles' Grand Central Market and Venice, Glendale, and Las Vegas. Cailan was named the head chef of Umami Burger in 2021.
The eighth season of the Canadian reality competition show Top Chef Canada was broadcast on Food Network in Canada. It is the Canadian spin-off of Bravo's hit show Top Chef. The program takes place in Toronto, and is hosted by Eden Grinshpan. Season eight features 12 chefs of various backgrounds considered to be the next generation of culinary stars in Canada. The final challenge was held at the historic Elora Mill in Elora, Ontario, with shopping done at the St. Jacobs Farmers' Market in St. Jacobs, Ontario.
Mei Lin is a Chinese-born American chef and television personality, best known as the winner of the twelfth season of the Bravo television network's reality television series, Top Chef. After winning Top Chef in 2014, Lin worked as a personal chef for Oprah Winfrey before going on to open her first restaurant, Nightshade in Los Angeles in 2019. She became engaged to her fiancé Andrew Skala on January 14, 2023. On April 9, 2023, Lin won the fourth season of Food Network's Tournament of Champions.
