What the Newly Announced ‘Top Chef’ All-Stars Have Been Up To (PHOTOS)
Eric Adjepong (Season 16: Kentucky)
Adjepong and wife Janell founded Pinch & Plate, a “customizable, mobile dinner party service” which offers restaurant-quality meals in customers’ homes.
Karen Akunowicz (Season 13: California)
Akunowicz is the chef/owner of Fox & the Knife enoteca in Boston. She also won the 2018 James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Northeast.
Jennifer Carroll (Season 6: Las Vegas)
Caroll, who also returned for the all-star Season 8 and Last Chance Kitchen Season 7, is the executive chef at Spice Finch in Philadelphia and the founder of Carroll Couture Cuisine.
Stephanie Cmar (Season 11: New Orleans)
Cmar is a full-time private chef now, after opening the pop-up shop Stacked Donuts in Boston and working at the area restaurants Fairsted Kitchen and SRV.
Lisa Fernandes (Season 4: Chicago)
Fernandes launched the Sweet Chili food truck in 2013 and opened a brick-and-mortar Sweet Chili location in Brooklyn in November.
Kevin Gillespie (Season 6: Las Vegas)
Gillespie has opened five Atlanta-area restaurants — Gunshow, Revival, Gamechanger, Ole Reliable, and Cold Beer — and released the cookbooks Fire in My Belly and Pure Pork Awesomeness.
Gregory Gourdet (Season 12: Boston)
Gourdet is culinary director at Departure in Portland, Oregon, but recently announced plans to open his own restaurant. His cookbook, Everyone’s Table: Global Recipes for Modern Health, is slated for release in 2021.
Melissa King (Season 12: Boston)
King became Whole Foods’ first chef ambassador and has worked with the nonprofit organizations La Cocina, March of Dimes, and Whole Kids Foundation and the LGBTQI charities Harvey Milk Foundation, Brave Trails, and Tegan and Sara Foundation.
Jamie Lynch (Season 14: Charleston)
Lynch is a chef-partner at the 5Church restaurants in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina; and Sophia’s Lounge in Charleston, where he and his partners will open Tempest next year.
Brian Malarkey (Season 3: Miami)
With his business partner, Malarkey has opened several restaurants across the United States, including Animae, Farmer & the Seahorse, Green Acre, Herb & Eatery, Herb & Ranch, Herb & Sea, Herb & Wood, and NIMA Cafe.
Nini Nguyen (Season 16: Kentucky)
Billing herself as “chef/ceramicist/internet troll” on Instagram, Nguyen has spent the past year hosting private events and starting a pop-up dinner series.
Joe Sasto (Season 15: Colorado)
After moving to Los Angeles in 2017, Sasto served as executive chef at Cal Mare before leaving the restaurant to host dinner parties and pasta classes through his Tanto Si pop-up series. He plans to open his own restaurant in Northern California.
Angelo Sosa (Season 7: Washington D.C.)
Sosa, who returned as an all-star for Season 8, has opened multiple restaurants, most recently Death by Tequila in Encinitas, California. He has also released the cookbooks Exposed: 100 Global Recipes From Sweet to Salty, Earthy to Spicy and Healthy Latin Eating: Our Favorite Family Recipes Remixed.
Bryan Voltaggio (Season 6: Las Vegas)
Voltaggio, who also competed on Top Chef Masters, is the executive chef/partner of VOLT and Family Meal, and he has three restaurants — STRFSH, Voltaggio Bros. Steak House, and Estuary — with his brother and fellow Top Chef alum Michael Voltaggio.
Lee Anne Wong (Season 1: San Francisco, Season 15: Colorado)
One of the O.G. cheftestants, Wong is now chef/owner of Koko Head Café in Honolulu, executive chef of Papa’aina at the Pioneer Inn in Maui, and executive chef of Hawaiian Airlines. The second location of Koko Head Café is scheduled to open in Tokyo next year.
Pack your knifes and… return!
Fifteen former Top Chef contestants — or “cheftestants,” to those in the know — are heading back to the kitchen for the Bravo reality competition’s 17th season and its second all-stars installment.
Scroll through the gallery above to see where the Top Chef: All-Stars L.A. contestants’ culinary careers have taken them in recent years.
Top Chef, Season Premiere, Thursday, March 19, 10/9c, Bravo
