Thomas Aloysius Keller is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. He and his landmark Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry in Yountville, California, have won multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation, notably the Best California Chef in 1996, and the Best Chef in America in 1997. The restaurant is a perennial winner in the annual Restaurant Magazine list of the Top 50 Restaurants of the World.
Rick Bayless is an American chef and restaurateur who specializes in traditional Mexican cuisine with modern interpretations. He is widely known for his PBS series Mexico: One Plate at a Time. Among his various accolades are a Michelin star, the title of Top Chef Masters, and seven James Beard Awards.
Eric Ripert is a French chef, author, and television personality specializing in modern French cuisine and noted for his work with seafood.
Grant Achatz is an American chef and restaurateur often recognized for his contributions to molecular gastronomy or progressive cuisine. His Chicago restaurant Alinea has won numerous accolades and Achatz himself has won numerous awards from prominent culinary institutions and publications, including the Food and Wine's "best new chefs" award in 1998, "Rising Star Chef of the Year Award" for 1999, "Best Chef in the United States" for 1998 and a 2003 "Who's Who Inductee" from the James Beard Foundation.
Jean-Georges is a two-Michelin-star restaurant at 1 Central Park West, on the lobby level of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City, named after its owner Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
Alessandro Stratta is a celebrity chef and restaurateur of mixed Italian and French heritage. Stratta played the role of Iron Chef Italian on the television show Iron Chef USA. He was the recipient of the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef Southwest in 1998 and was executive chef and owner of his famous namesake restaurant, Alex, in Las Vegas until its closure on January 15, 2011. He was later diagnosed with colon cancer and became a cancer survivor. He was the executive chef and owner of "Tapas by Alex Stratta" in the Las Vegas suburb of Summerlin, until it closed in 2015. In 2016, Stratta became executive chef de cuisine at Prado restaurant at the Omni Hotel in Paradise Valley, Arizona.
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.
Beverly Kim is a James Beard Award-winning chef and restaurateur who was a contestant on Top Chef in 2011 and co-owns the Michelin-starred Parachute in Chicago. In 2019, Kim opened neighboring restaurant Wherewithall with her husband Johnny Clark.
Carrie Nahabedian is an American chef best known for her work at the one Michelin star restaurant NAHA in Chicago, Illinois. She has previously worked in a variety of restaurants, and while at NAHA, she won a James Beard Foundation Award in 2008.
Missy Robbins is an American chef who has held a Michelin star at two restaurants, and a contestant on season four of Top Chef Masters. Robbins specializes in Italian cuisine and owns two Italian restaurants in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Lilia and Misi, which opened in 2016 and 2018 respectively.
Paul Bartolotta is an American chef and restaurateur. Most recently he is known for his authentic style and his innovative approach to importing fresh seafood from Mediterranean waters. Paul Bartolotta has won the James Beard Foundation Award twice—once for Best Chef: Midwest, and again for Best Chef: Southwest (2009), at Bartolotta, Ristorante di Mare at Wynn Las Vegas. He is a recipient of the Insegna del Ristorante Italiano del Mondo, which was awarded to him in 1997 by Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, the President of Italy at the time.
Paul Virant is the chef and owner of Vie in Western Springs, Illinois, Vistro Prime in Hinsdale, Illinois, and Gaijin in Chicago, Illinois. His contributions to cooking include introducing inventive canning and preservation recipes to the restaurant industry, which culminated into the release of his cookbook, The Preservation Kitchen: The Craft of Making and Cooking with Pickles, Preserves, and Aigre-doux.
Jennifer Yee is an American chef, specializing in pastry. Born and raised in San Francisco, she worked in several pastry kitchens in some of New York's finest restaurants, including Lafayette in the NoHo neighborhood of Manhattan as Patissière, and The Grill in midtown Manhattan's Seagram Building, as the opening Pastry Chef, before becoming the Executive Pastry Chef for Chef Linton Hopkins' restaurants in Atlanta. Her work has been recognized by the James Beard Foundation in both New York and Atlanta.
Sepia is a mid-sized, upscale restaurant run by owner Emmanuel Nony and Executive Chef Andrew Zimmerman located in the West Loop neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Chef Zimmerman's menu is classified as New American cuisine, and focuses on local, seasonal products. Built in Chicago's Warehouse District, Sepia was originally a print shop from the 1890s. The renovation for the restaurant, designed by Gary Lee, included putting in a custom-tile, Art Nouveau floor and hand-crafted millwork in order to enhance the historical qualities of the building. Sepia also uses vintage stemware for their tables matching the vintage interior decor of the restaurant.
Quince is a restaurant in the Jackson Square neighborhood in San Francisco, California. Opened in 2003 by chef Michael Tusk and his wife, Lindsay, in Pacific Heights, the restaurant moved to their current location in Jackson Square, which is next door to sister restaurant, Cotogna. The Tusks partner with Fresh Run Farms of Bolinas, CA in sourcing exclusive produce for a $275 per diner tasting menu in the California tradition. The restaurant also features a global selection of caviar.
Iron Chef Gauntlet is a television series on Food Network that began airing on April 16, 2017. The series is a reboot of the Iron Chef and Iron Chef America series that gained popularity on Food Network and is hosted by Alton Brown, who also takes over as the series' Chairman. Seven chefs from around the country battle each other in an elimination contest, with the last chef remaining then facing a "gauntlet" challenge of defeating three other Iron Chefs in order to earn the title of Iron Chef. In the first season, the Iron Chefs forming the Gauntlet were Bobby Flay, Masaharu Morimoto, and Michael Symon. The second season of Iron Chef Gauntlet began airing April 4, 2018 and was scheduled for six episodes. The Gauntlet Iron Chefs for the second season were Alex Guarnaschelli, Gauntlet season one winner Stephanie Izard, and Michael Symon.
Sarah Stegner is an American chef, who co-owns and runs the Prairie Grass Cafe. She has won two James Beard Foundation Awards, for Rising Star Chef in 1994 and Best Chef Midwest in 1998.
Spiaggia was an Italian restaurant in Chicago on Michigan Avenue at Oak Street. After 37 years on the "Magnificent Mile," Spiaggia closed permanently, having never reopened following its COVID-19 closure in March 2020.
Fatima Ali was a Pakistani-American executive chef, restaurateur and television personality. She was known for her successful appearances on reality cooking shows Chopped and Top Chef, and for posthumously winning two James Beard Foundation Awards for her writing.
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.
