EPISODE 1 NYC Top Chef

Melting Pot
Bravo's Emmy and James Beard Award-winning series Top Chef: New York returns for its fifth season, bringing seventeen promising chefs to The Big Apple. Drawing inspiration from New York's diverse cuisine, the chef's team up in their first challenge to shop in various neighborhoods around the city to ultimately craft dishes influenced by the ethnic flavors of their chosen districts. One of the world's most famous chefs and restaurateurs, Jean George Vongerichten, serves as guest judge. Guest Judge: Jean-Georges Vongerichten



Lamb Plate
Beef Skewer with Onions, and Lamb Chops with Tabouli, Hummus and Middle Eastern Yoghurt Sauce

Hummus:
Blend in Robot Coupe until smooth

Middle Eastern Yoghurt:
Mix all items together and serve.

Parsley Couscous Salad:
Mix all items together and serve.

Lamb Chops:
1. Marinade lamb with all spices and oil.
2. Sear in pan about a minute, each side.
3. Finish in oven at 375 degrees for 5 minutes.

Beef Skewer:
1. Skewer meat and onions and marinade with all the spices and the oil.
2. Sear in pan about a minute on each side.
3. Finish in oven about 375 degrees for about 5 minutes.

Mint Oil/Jimmy Chutney:
Mix together and serve.

Stefan

Top Chef New York City Premieres Wed, Nov. 12th @ 10/9c

Top Chef Video

Top Chef Cast

Bright knives, big city. On Top Chef: New York, the fifth season of the No. 1 food show on cable, 17 new cheftestants take on the Big Apple and compete for their shot at culinary stardom. Cookbook author, actress and host Padma Lakshmi once again returns to the judges' table, alongside head judge Tom Colicchio, renowned culinary figure and chef/owner of Craft Restaurants, and judge Gail Simmons of Food & Wine magazine. This season introduces new judge Toby Young, food critic and best-selling author of the book How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which was the basis for an upcoming film. In what will prove to be the most challenging season yet, some of the biggest names in food, music and entertainment, including Martha Stewart, Foo Fighters, Jean-Georges, Eric Ripert, Rocco DiSpirito, Wylie Dufresne, Jean-Christophe Novelli and Natasha Richardson will be featured. Bravo's Emmy- and James Beard Award-winning Top Chef offers a fascinating window into the competitive, pressure-filled environment of world-class cookery and the restaurant business at the highest level. Each episode holds two challenges for the chefs. The first is a Quickfire test of their basic abilities, and the second is a more involved Elimination Challenge designed to test the versatility and inventiveness of the chefs as they take on unique culinary trials, such as working with unusual and exotic foods or catering for a range of demanding clients. The challenges not only test their skills in the kitchen, but also reveal whether they have the customer service, management and teamwork abilities required customer service, management and teamwork abilities required of a Top Chef. The competing chefs live and breathe the high-pressure lifestyle that comes with being a master chef, and each week someone is asked to pack their knives and go home.

Top Chef 5 Spotted

Top Chef fanatics: meet your new Season 5 cheftestants. Photographer Kurt Strahm over at the blog Restless brings us the first paparazzi shots of a group of the contestants leaving their home base at 20 Bayard and getting into the white TC vans. If these are the contestants left at this stage of the game, we have four females (two brunettes and a blond seen clearly in the first two shots, one blond with a ponytail in the last shot) and at least six male chefs (six seen in first shots, an additional chef or PA with hat in last shot), and not a faux hawk nor a tattoo in site. Looks like a Colicchio-like shaved head is the hairstyle of choice for the NYC season, and a female chef could be taking over Spike's role as the self-consciously stylish contestant (the backwards hat, the high tops).
Now, Top Chef fans, restaurant industry insiders—and anyone else unencumbered by a million dollar confidentiality agreement—it's your turn to do your part. If you can ID any of the above chefs, let us know. We still have plenty of tickets to the New York Wine and Food Fest and some choice reservations for informants.

Top chef Season 5 At Whole Foods ??

Top Chef’ Contestants Spotted at Whole Foods Last Night
Earlier today, one of our eagle-eyed readers noticed Top Chef filming outside of Craft, and now an Eater tipster reports that they got a glimpse of the contestants loading food into large white vans outside of the Whole Foods on Houston Street last night. Their description of the cheftestants is as follows.

• 20-something Indian-American woman, on the short side and looking a bit bedraggled.
• 40ish man, balding, gray hair, trim beard, smoking a cigarette and looking tough, black leather clogs.
• Late 30s man, tall, husky, like a mix between Season 3's Joey, Howie and Season' 4's Eric all rolled into one.
• Shorter Asian dude, wearing a wife beater, exceedingly tan, and covered with black tattoos.
• Tall, African-American woman with a bandana.
• Late 20s dude, dark hair, with the soft paunch of a Williamsburg hipster.
•Tall, thin pretty/crunchy looking female, no makeup.
• Another shorter, more non-descript female.
• There was another chick, tall, thin, blond, an indie pin-up, who might have been part of the crew.
• One of the coolers had the name "Gene" written on it.
And there’s your tip sheet. If you see these guys filming around town, do let us know.

nytimes.com

Top Chef In Brooklyn ?????

Bravo's top-rated and highly acclaimed reality food show, Top Chef, has big plans for the fifth season. Like real estate, it's all about location, location, location and Top Chef has chosen a most unique place, somewhere you might not guess in a game of 20 questions. I'm not going to reveal the place until after the jump, because there may be some of you out there that want to be surprised.

Just to recap, Top Chef has already spent seasons in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago. They've also had special episodes and finales in Napa Valley, Las Vegas, Hawaii and Aspen and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Traveling to interesting and even exotic locales is part of the fun, giving the contestants a chance to incorporate the regional foods and the style of that part of the world.

Okay, if the suspense is getting to you -- I know it is -- go to the jump and see where season five of Top Chef is going to be...

BROOKLYN! No, I'm not kidding. The new season of Top Chef will reportedly be set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn -- hometown of Barbra Streisand. (She grew up at the corner of Newkirk and Nostrand Avenue, if you want to be precise.) Also Barbara Stanwyck, Mae West and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Seriously, this isn't as bizarre as you might think. Brooklyn is New York. It's one of the five boroughs and it's quite trendy and gentrified, as they say in NYC. There are great studios out there -- I remember going to Brooklyn when Another World filmed there, in the same studios that now house As the World Turns.

Also, some of the most amazing restaurants and chefs are in the metropolitan area, including season one winner Harold Dieterle. Peter Luger's, the number one steakhouse in the world for 24 years and running, is in Brooklyn. There'll be no shortage of guest judges or restaurants. It's actually an excellent choice.

Top Chef contestants probably will be bunking in a Brooklyn townhouse or loft, and they're putting together a new kitchen and studio set as speak. TC isn't the only reality show that'll be shooting in Brooklyn; MTV's The Real World is also going to be filming there in the upcoming season.
Tags: Barbara Stanwyck, BarbaraStanwyck, Barbra Streisand, BarbraStreisand, Brooklyn, cooking, Hawaii, Las Vegas, LasVegas, location, Los Angeles, LosAngeles, Mae West, MaeWest, metropolitan, Miami, Napa Valley, NapaValley, Puerto Rico, PuertoRico, season five, SeasonFive, Top Chef, TopChef, Williamsburg
TvSquad.com