Where Are They Now? | NEW Top Chef Judges! | Top Chef: Portland

[Music] i'm melissa king i've been on a couple times i was on season 12 boston and also top chef all-star season 17. melissa you are top chef it's been quite a year you know and i think professionally the quarantine has actually inspired me to do a lot of different things with my career that i never thought to do like creating a merch line creating hot sauces just finding ways to really connect people with my food i think a lot of it was evolving this year i think that was the motto this year was like learn how to evolve but it's a lot it's a lot let's be real we need a break here i just want to say how excited we are to have all of you at the table with us i remember i got the call from the producers and i see i see top chef light up on my phone and i start panicking again because i thought they wanted me to compete and retired from the game i'm done i've already won i'm moving on and i gotta be real i feel less stressed on this side of the table i think it's such a great way for us as former competitors to be able to give the right advice to these younger chefs to kind of help mentor them through the game because we know how it feels this game will get in your head but you got to stay confident and stay true to yourself i'm really looking for the person that's going to embrace these challenges and really feel inspired by them i do appreciate that they were telling their story here of who they are and where they come from i think a lot of this competition is growth and it's not just being a great chef from day one it's how do you evolve through that process how do you evolve from challenge one to challenge 14 so i hope that we see that development and we really see them blossom into a really amazing chef i'm brooke williamson i was on season 10 i came in second behind kristen kish and then i ended up winning season 14 and that was the last time i competed i've judged a few times since where are all the eggs i do not miss this chaos it's hard for me to look at a plate of food and just take it for what it is in this circumstance if i go to a restaurant i'm incredibly easy to satisfy i am not high maintenance when i go out to dinner i don't pick apart food but i also don't want a chef to present me with a dish and claim to be someone they're not it's how you present a dish and and who you claim to be as a chef that i pay attention to the most i thought it was a really smart dish is there maybe one little thing that i would change about it sure but literally i could eat this for lunch every day honestly i feel like this top chef bubble is probably the safest place on earth right now at a quarantine happy to be here little star crazy uh you know it was it was some really nice peaceful time to myself actually but in the grand scheme of things this top chef experience is definitely not the strangest one i've ever had oh my god this is awesome my top chef experience has been very well rounded i know the disappointment i know the stress i know the anxiety i know the excitement i know how i feel when i'm cooking in a 20-minute cook the fact that i have seen so many perspectives really helps me as a judge because i can put myself in their headspace and i feel like every year that i'm given the opportunity to to do that i get a little bit better at the job and i'm appreciative for every opportunity that i'm given to do so hi there my name is kwame onwatchy and i'm from the bronx new york i was on season 13 and i was on a short stint of season 15. hey kwame welcome to last chance kitchen good to be back i see you kwame i'm man cora i see you kwame kwame this dish is really good mojo street food almost and you can fully turn to sophisticated without losing its all i did pretty well i was one of the youngest people on the show ever on the show and i made it far and i gained lifelong friends i started as a waiter in your restaurant and craft when walking into that kitchen it really showed me what cuisine could be and i really appreciate you know everything yeah wow in four years you've accomplished a lot no i think you can learn in every experience being on this side of the judges table it gives me a different insight to what critiquing is all about and the responsibility that you have when you are judging someone's food just more sauce a little bit of heat and more coil and more quail and i think we would have been in a really good place here i think the competition this season is great you know i think everyone comes from a diverse background of experience i think there's a lot of people to watch i don't like to bet on the horse that everyone else is betting on you know i think everyone can step it up at any point in time do you guys have any advice for them at all don't get in your head season your food taste your food and be yourself you know put yourself on a plate we want to see you they're putting their culture on their plate they're telling their story through this food the dish has a story it has a soul and people can resonate with that when they taste the food so just make sure you're putting your all into this i'm richard blaze i've been on multiple seasons of the show as a competitor being one of the ogs like i was in season four or eight like people weren't you weren't even born when i was competing the first time on top chef i'm concerned just hearing about plating times and i ran out of time yet two hours in the world of top chef two hours is a lifetime just to be clear i'm not the mean judge anymore because i've judged many episodes of top chef and i'm over it twitter i'm over hearing about how i'm the mean judge i'm overhearing mary from kansas about how i was such a nice contestant but i'm such a mean judge i'm not i'm the good guy this year i'm pretty sure it is so difficult to cook in these kitchens that's the way you come in saying as long as i'm not the first person to get every single time i'd like to think that i bring a little bit of a lighter note to whatever table i'm sitting at respect for serving us claws i love that sometimes the gravity can be really really intense it is so important and the food is so important but i do have a very you know strong philosophy that at the end of the day it's just food you all inspire me very very much i can't wait to spend how many episodes eating food with you and talking about it it's great being part of this alumni panel and there's so much strength you know on this panel and now i get to learn from them and about them by being friends with them and not just competing with them so it's been pretty wild richard you are top chef for this cast this will absolutely change their life the opportunities that will be you know in front of them when they get home and so many of my alumni judges are here to attest to that you know they've built empires they've won awards that's what it helped provide me i say the top chef turned a staircase into an escalator so get ready to get on the escalator it moves fast but if you don't jump on the escalator at the right time you fall now that you like it yeah that makes sense like a treadmill have you ever fallen off a treadmill i'm the only one who's falling off a treadmill okay my name is samar santana i was a finalist on season 13. it was a lot of fun i guess i did my thing i went all the way to the end my most memorable challenge uh during my season was the time i actually won the challenge uh cooking old school french food i made a squab uh with tornad vegetables i remember nice tropical sauce sea or flat grass sweet breads it was a flavor bomb it was it was so good you really showed us a lot of technique that couldn't have been done by just anyone thank you when i got the call from top chef the first thing i say when i answered the phone i was like please tell me i am not competing she's like uh we want you to be a judge i was like i don't have to compete i don't have to cook i don't have to run around i don't have to she's like no no and i'm like i'm in i say just tell me what you need for me i want to do it it's a great experience just uh getting to to do top chef from the other side getting to know padma and tom in a different level than you do when you're competing as a chef you know i mean i'm still like that little kid you know walking into class for the first day every time i see tom and pam i'm outside you know i i was just recently shooting an episode with her and i was shaking i didn't even know what to say i was just nervous i'm like i'm doing this next to padma right like it just took me back you know the first day when i walked into the kitchen of top chef and i see tom and partner standing there and i'm like oh my god this is real like this is tom and padme right there judging all the food you know it is a cooking competition when something is good i'm going to say it's good the mushroom had its own flavor had some citrus it was well balanced to me it was it was really good like the other day i tried dish and it was so good i licked the plate you know that's basically letting that person know that this is really freaking good hi i'm carrie baird i was on top chef season 15 in colorado and i did well i was a finalist i took fourth technically i would say that i'm best known for making a cake in the snow we were put into the woods and i ended up having to dig a little hole and bury my cakes and bake them in the snow she made an oven who does that it was easy not easy i don't think if i had to recreate that cake i could do it again i don't know what i was thinking i think i was sleep deprived but it was it was a fun episode really what this comes down to though is we have three pastas and i think that one was a little lacking carrie please pack your knives and go you know you're always like why did i get sent home but now that i'm on the side of it like you get sent home for a bad dish nothing else being a contestant and being judged is so hard it's so stressful and you're out there and the lights and the cameras and for me being on the bottom you just kind of go i just went blank i remember my heart pounding and my hands sweating it's a lot to take and you feel really bad about yourself and you're scared you're gonna get sent home and i had my first judges table last week and i felt really bad it's a sensory overload and these cute contestants i just want to hug them and tell them it's going to be okay good job guys my name is dale talby i've been on a lot of the top chef show i feel like i've done like three seasons i was on top chef season four i came in sixth place i was on top chef season eight all-stars came in sixth and i did top deaf duels you know going from being a competitor to being now a judge it's definitely a lot less nerve-wracking but i still have that competitive juice in me i see these challenges and they're so fun i want to get into them but you know you gotta like i feel like i'm on my retirement tour like i'm on the the back half of my career when it comes to these competition shows i could only do like one or two and then my like my back would go out or my knees i'd throw my knee out or something like that being a judge you get a real respect for what tom padma gail do it's not easy the job is hard especially when you know it's undecided and it's not a clear-cut winner it's really hard to send someone who you know misstep by just a little bit what we're deciding between is failure by what someone didn't do or failure by what someone did do it's a hard one yeah listen i think in your mind's eye you would think you get like seven chefs together and we'd just be like running amok but we are a little older i'm single digits top chef like four and eight we weren't even double digits yet i'll let the i'll let the double digit guys in the teens uh rage but the old guys kind of just you know chill out [Music] my name is nina compton i was on top chef new orleans and i was the runner-up i was in this you know this beautiful house in the french quarter with all these people this dynamic group from all over the country really talented chefs and i just saw how quickly some of the best chefs got eliminated i'm like oh i could be next so i'm just gonna live every moment as my best moment yes it was just like open the fridge and just whatever comes to my mind was crooked so i think i became more creative on the show because i didn't have time to stop and think and overthink things i think i was just cooking on a whim which is actually a lot of fun the pasta is perfect at this stage of the game this is how they should be cooking when you have tongkalito judge you any dish that you make it could be the best dish but you still cringe because he's like the god you know whatever tom says like you worship him the biggest thing you could ever win as a compliment from trump like here i thought the dish was really well flavored well seasoned the turtle was tender really nice nice job thank you being a judge is it it's amazing i think my style is flavor first you know that is the first thing i'm looking for i'm thinking i'm looking for balance i'm thinking of cooking technique but i'm also trying to understand what their vision was for this dish i know what it's like when you're cooking in the swamp and you have to construct your own kitchen like i've been there i know what it's like so you do have a little bit of sympathy towards them but you can also be like no you can do better than that because i've been in your shoes i think overall he nailed it and when you tasted it it's just like everything is just very well balanced so i enjoyed it i think the great thing about top chef it becomes like this infant family now we're judges and we're seeing people like i have been in those people's shoes i know it's terrible it's nerve-wracking it's stressful so be on the other side and to share this with other people that i really admire is fun [Music] you

Channel: Top Chef World

Views: 47,010

Rating: 4.9424462 out of 5

Keywords: Top chef, top chef world, tom colicchio, Padma Lakshmi, reality, top chef season 17, top chef last chance kitchen, Gail Simmons, lash chance kitchen, top chef 2020, top chef Canada, recipe, food, how to cook, bravo tv, bravo, eden grinshpan, Janet zuccarini, #topchef, gordon ramsay, kids vs adults, adult chefs, disaster, kitchen nightmare, chef faints, melissa king, brooke williamson, Kwame Onwuachi, richard blais, amar santana, carrie baird, dale talde, nina compton

Id: 5g1QxdIBRJo

Length: 14min 35sec (875 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021