Top Chef | |
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Genre | |
Presented by |
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Starring |
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Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 14 |
No. of episodes | 203 |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) |
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Running time | 42 minutes |
Production company(s) | Magical Elves Productions |
Distributor | NBCUniversal Television Distribution |
Release | |
Original network | Bravo |
Picture format |
480i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV) |
Original release | March 8, 2006 | – present
External links | |
Website | |
Production website |
Top Chef is an American reality competition television series which premiered on March 8, 2006, on Bravo. The show features chefs competing against each other in various culinary challenges. They are judged by a panel of professional chefs and other notables from the food and wine industry with one or more contestants eliminated in each episode. The show is produced by Magical Elves Productions, the same company that created Project Runway.
The show has spawned multiple spinoff series, including Top Chef Masters, featuring established award-winning chefs; and Top Chef: Just Desserts, featuring pastry chefs. Another show, Top Chef Junior, featuring contestants in their early teens, was scheduled for a 2008 debut but never aired. Numerous international adaptations of Top Chef have also been produced.
The series' fourteenth season, which takes place in Charleston, South Carolina, premiered on December 1, 2016. On January 24, 2017, it was announced that Bravo had renewed Top Chef for a fifteenth season.
Top Chef is a reality show that uses a progressive elimination format. The beginning of each season starts with twelve to nineteen professional chefs selected through auditions. The chefs are brought to the season's host city or state, which typically inspires themes throughout the season. The chefs live in a provided apartment or house during the course of the season, and normally do not have access to outside communication. Each episode, the chefs participate in a Quickfire Challenge and an Elimination Challenge (described below). The winner of the Quickfire Challenge is typically granted immunity from elimination, a prize, or another benefit for the following Elimination Challenge. The loser of the Elimination Challenge, as the name suggests, is eliminated from the competition. This format continues until two or three chefs remain. Each finalist is challenged to create a full-course meal; the chef with the best meal as determined by the judges is declared the "Top Chef" of the season. Towards the end of the season, when only four or five chefs remain, the show moves to another host city to finish out the competition.