Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Top Chef Master Season 2

The lineup of chefs and judges for the second installment of Top Chef Masters has been announced. For a full disclosure check here.

April 7th is the starting date. 22 chefs are set to compete, including 6 returning chefs from the first season. Does this give them a significant advantage? Among those returning is Wylie Dufresne, whose food I and many other have the upmost respect for, but his poor performance on season one made a lot of people think we might not see him on television again. I am pulling for him to make a bigger, better, brighter splash his second time around.

Other points of interest are Matt Groening of the Simpsons and Andrew Zimmerman of Bizarre Foods will be judges.

A few chefs I'm especially looking forward to seeing are Susur Lee who does Asian fusion out of Toronto, Marcus Samuelsson who is known for a unique blend of Norwegian and African influences, and authored one of my favorite cookbooks, Aquavit. And lastly Rick Tramonto of TRU in Chicago where he introduced the Midwest to forward thinking gastronomic adventures.