It’s been just over a month since Padma crowned fan favorite
Stephanie Izard the fourth Top Chef. But filming has already begun for Season 5—setting sixteen “cheftestants” loose in Manhattan for the long-awaited
Top Chef: New York.
While notoriously tight-lipped Bravo has little to say about the upcoming season, details are starting to leak, whetting our appetites for celeb-chef sightings—beginning, of course, in Brooklyn. In ever-trendy reality show fashion, Top Chef is housing its contestants in Williamsburg. By night, the chefs will shack up in the
Twenty Bayard condo complex on McCarren Park; by day, they’ll work out of the
Benjamin Hotel, descending on Midtown and hightailing, no doubt, to the nearest Whole Foods.
Meanwhile, former Top Chef stars are keeping themselves busy. Last season’s resident molecular gastronome
Richard Blais just ended a gig with Garrett Popcorn, promoting liquid-nitrogen-frozen
“Popcornsicles” in New York; Season 3 giant
CJ is hosting an August all-you-can-eat
“Highbrow Barbeque” on the Hudson. Some of the hardest-fighting finalists have already found restaurant success.
Spike Mendelsohn involved his whole family in the opening of D.C.’s comfort diner
Good Stuff Eatery, while first Top Chef winner
Harold Dieterle’sPerilla has become a Greenwich Village neighborhood favorite.
And if you’ve ever wanted a lesson from a Bravo-approved instructor, the
CIA’s Astor Center outpost is offering
cooking classes with Top Chef alums all summer—so you can perfect your foam technique with Season 2 pretty-boy
Marcel or chat about spice combos with Chicago’s spunky
Dale.
Season 5 filming began on July 21st and generally lasts about six weeks—so there’s plenty of time for chef-stalking. New York readers, have you spotted Top Chef around the city? Let us know.