Ilan Hall

Last updated
Ilan Hall
Ilan Hall.jpg
Ilan Hall in the kitchen at the Gorbels in 2010.
Born
Ilan D. Hall

Education Culinary Institute of America
Culinary career
Cooking style Spanish, Israeli, Fusion
Current restaurant(s)
    • Ramen Hood, Los Angeles (2015–present)
Previous restaurant(s)
    • The Gorbals, Los Angeles (2009–2014),
    • The Gorbals, Williamsburg, Brooklyn (2014–2015),
    • ESH, Williamsburg, Brooklyn (2014–2016),
    • Casa Mono, New York City (2006–?)
Television show(s)

Ilan D. Hall is an American chef, television personality, and restaurateur. He won the second season of Top Chef, and is owner-chef of Ramen Hood in Los Angeles. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Hall is a native of Great Neck, New York. His parents were both immigrants: his father from Glasgow, Scotland, and his mother from Israel. Both his parents were from Jewish families. [2] [3]

As a teenager, Hall worked at Marine Fishery, a seafood store in his hometown of Great Neck [4] and was later trained at Italy's Lorenzo de' Medici Apicus Program, [5] [6] and at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). [7]

Career

In 2007, Hall won season two of “Top Chef.” Ilan was a line cook at Casa Mono, a Spanish restaurant in Manhattan. He had a rivalry with Marcel Vigneron during the show, with whom he attended culinary school simultaneously. [8] Bravo ranked "The Head Shaving Incident" involving Hall and Vigneron as "probably the biggest scandal in Top Chef history." [9]

In August 2009, he opened his first restaurant, The Gorbals, in downtown Los Angeles. [10] Less than a week after opening, The county health department shut down The Gorbals because of an inadequate water heater. [11] It reopened on October 23, 2009, but then permanently closed in 2014. [12] [13]

In 2014, Hall opened a second iteration of The Gorbals restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. [14] [15] He redesigned the menu with an Israeli barbecue concept in 2015 and renamed the restaurant ESH , the Hebrew word for fire. [16] ESH closed in September 2016.

Hall opened Ramen Hood in Los Angeles at Grand Central Market in 2015. [1]

Hall hosted Knife Fight , a cooking competition show on the Esquire Network for four seasons. [17] [18] The show ended in 2017 when NBCUniversal announced it was shutting down the Esquire Network cable channel. [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tiffani Faison</span> American celebrity chef and restaurateur

Tiffani Faison is an American celebrity chef and restaurateur. She is based in Boston, has served as a judge on Food Network's television series Chopped, and is a four-time James Beard Award Finalist for Best Chef: Northeast. She was the winner of Season 3 of Tournament of Champions and was named Boston's Best Chef by Boston Magazine in 2022. She was one of two finalists on the first season of Bravo's reality show Top Chef, where she finished second to Harold Dieterle.

<i>Top Chef: Los Angeles</i> Season 2 of American television series

Top Chef: Los Angeles is the second season of the American reality television series Top Chef. It was first filmed in Los Angeles, before concluding in Waikoloa Village, Hawaii. The season premiered on October 18, 2006, and ended on January 31, 2007. Padma Lakshmi replaced Katie Lee Joel as the host, with Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons returning as judges. The winning recipe from each week's episode was featured on Bravo's Top Chef website and prepared by Season 1 contestant Lee Anne Wong in a web video called The Wong Way to Cook. Bravo cited negative viewer reaction to the Season 2 chefs' attitudes and overall behavior as the reason why no reunion episode was filmed. In the season finale, Ilan Hall was declared the winner over runner-up Marcel Vigneron. Sam Talbot was voted Fan Favorite.

Marcel Vigneron is an American chef. He is the first place winner of Last Chef Standing and was also the runner-up of the second season of Top Chef, which aired in 2006–2007. From 2011 on, he has had multiple other television appearances and is the Executive Chef of The Aster Hotel and Lemon Grove Restaurant.

Stephanie Izard is an American chef and television personality best known as the first female chef to win Bravo's Top Chef, taking the title during its fourth season. She is the co-owner and executive chef of three award-winning Chicago restaurants, Girl and the Goat, Little Goat, and Duck Duck Goat, and opened her first restaurant, Scylla as chef-owner at the age of 27. Izard received a James Beard Foundation Award for "Best Chef: Great Lakes" in 2013 for her work at Girl and the Goat. She has made a number of appearances on Top Chef since her win, both as a guest judge on subsequent seasons and as a participant in Top Chef Duels. In 2017, Izard competed in the Food Network series Iron Chef Gauntlet, where she overall defeated chefs Bobby Flay, Michael Symon, and Masaharu Morimoto to obtain the title of Iron Chef.

Kevin Gillespie is an American chef, author and former Top Chef contestant. He is a former co-owner and executive chef at Woodfire Grill in Atlanta. He opened Gunshow, a restaurant in Atlanta, in 2013 and Revival, a restaurant in Decatur, Georgia, in 2015. Gillespie also started Red Beard Restaurants, allowing Gillespie to expand and provide consulting services to other start-ups. Kevin Gillespie's Gamechanger opened in August 2017 on the 200 concourse western end zone of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. In May 2024, Gillespie opened Nadair in Atlanta, a restaurant showcasing his Scottish heritage.

Bryan Voltaggio is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, and author. He is a Top Chef television series alum; and he was a semi-finalist for the James Beard award. His brother is celebrity chef Michael Voltaggio. He resides in Frederick, Maryland and is known for Mid-Atlantic cuisine.

Michael Voltaggio is an American chef, restaurateur, and author. He is a Top Chef television series alum and the winner of season 6. His brother Bryan Voltaggio is also a celebrity chef. He resides in Los Angeles, California.

<i>Knife Fight</i> (TV series) American TV series or program

Knife Fight is an American reality/cooking competition television series on Esquire Network. It was set to premiere April 23, 2013, but was pushed to September 24, 2013, to coincide with rebranding of the now-defunct Esquire. Knife Fight was hosted by season 2 Top Chef winner Ilan Hall and executive produced by Drew Barrymore. The show ran for four seasons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Solomonov</span> Israeli chef and restaurateur (born 1978)

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."

Antonia Marie Lofaso is an American celebrity chef and restaurateur. She has appeared on the reality television shows Top Chef, Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen and Restaurant Startup, among others. Lofaso owns the restaurants Black Market Liquor Bar, Scopa Italian Roots, and DAMA in Los Angeles, California.

Paul Qui is a Texas-based Top Chef winner and James Beard award recipient. He operates restaurants East Side King (Austin), Thai Kun (Austin) and Pao (Miami).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kwame Onwuachi</span> American chef

Kwame Onwuachi is a Nigerian-American chef based in New York City, New York. A published author and restaurateur, he also appeared as a contestant on Top Chef in 2015. He was recognized by Food & Wine magazine, Esquire magazine, and the James Beard Foundation as "Rising Star Chef of the year" in 2019.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Han Oak</span> Korean restaurant in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

Han Oak is a restaurant serving Korean cuisine in Portland, Oregon's Kerns neighborhood, in the United States. Owned by chef Peter Cho and partner Sun Young Park, Han Oak was The Oregonian's Restaurant of the Year in 2017.

Marukin Ramen is a Tokyo-based chain of ramen restaurants.

Carrie Baird is an American chef and businesswoman. She is a Top Chef alumna and restaurateur.

Felix Gabriel "Gabe" Erales is an American chef specializing in modern Mexican cuisine based in Austin, Texas. In 2021, Erales won the eighteenth season of Top Chef, becoming the series' first Latino winner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hapa PDX</span> Restaurant in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

Hapa PDX is a restaurant in Portland, Oregon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramen Ryoma</span> Chain of Japanese restaurants

Ramen Ryoma is a Japanese restaurant chain with locations in the United States and Chile. In the U.S., the restaurant operates in the Portland metropolitan area and in San Diego, California.

Rialto was a restaurant in Harvard Square’s Charles Hotel owned by Jody Adams and Michela Larson. Opened in 1994, it closed on June 22, 2016. Originally, it was announced she would leave the restaurant in the hands of executive chef David Ladner, but it was later announced it would close down.

References

  1. 1 2 Repanich, Jeremy (17 March 2020). "Here's What All 16 'Top Chef' Winners Are Doing Now". Robb Report. Archived from the original on 11 April 2020. Retrieved 21 April 2020.
  2. "Matzo Balls Meet Bacon At Top Chef's Restaurant : NPR". M.npr.org. 2011-03-12. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
  3. "Top 20 Under 40 los Angeles- Ilan Hall - Page1 - Shalom Life USA". Archived from the original on 2012-10-01. Retrieved 2012-09-06.
  4. Leventhal, Ben (January 29, 2007). "BREAKING: Top Chef Finale Spoiled AGAIN". Eater LA.
  5. "Newsday | Long Island's & NYC's News Source". Newsday.
  6. "Bio at the Top Chef website". Archived from the original on 2007-02-02. Retrieved 2007-02-02.
  7. "Chef Ilan Hall '02, International Food Ambassador". CIA Culinary School. 2011-05-24. Retrieved 2022-07-11.
  8. Patterson, Spencer (2008-06-05). "Now we're cooking". Las Vegas Weekly. Greenspun Media Group. Retrieved 2008-09-03.
  9. "Top Chef Season 9 - 'Top Chef's Biggest Scandals of All Time - Photo Gallery - Bravo TV Official Site". Archived from the original on 2012-02-07. Retrieved 2013-02-12.
  10. "Thegorbalsla - Dunia Sementara, Akhirat Selamanya". Thegorbalsla.
  11. "Gorbals Boils Over". Zagat.com. September 3, 2009.
  12. Arfa, Orit (November 4, 2009). "Bacon-wrapped matzvah balls with Top Chef Ilan Hall". JewishJournal.com.
  13. "The Gorbals (@thegorbals) | Twitter". twitter.com. Retrieved 2016-02-01.
  14. Houck, Brenna (2014-04-04). "Inside Ilan Hall's Urban Outfitters Restaurant in Brooklyn". Eater. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
  15. "Information Products Online". thegorbalsbk. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
  16. "Ilan Hall's The Gorbals Evolves Into Esh, an 'Israeli Barbecue'". Eater NY. 2 December 2015. Retrieved 2016-02-01.
  17. "'Top Chef' Winners: Where Are They Now?". Us Weekly. 2021-07-02. Retrieved 2022-07-11.
  18. Houck, Brenna (2013-08-13). "Watch a Preview for Knife Fight, Premiering Sept. 24". Eater. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
  19. Daniel Holloway (2017-01-18). "NBCUniversal to Shut Down Esquire Network (EXCLUSIVE) – Variety". Variety.com. Retrieved 2019-03-01.