FoodNetwork Site Search Results

Most recognizable as the winner of Bravo's Top Chef All-Stars, Richard Blais has played an influential role in hospitality for the last 15 years. He began his career, as so many young aspiring chefs do, as the "poissonnier" at McDonald's. It was here that he first dabbled in deconstruction in cuisine, serving Filet-O-Fish sandwiches sans top bun. His developing passion for food and the service industry led Richard to The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. As an ambitious student, he spent time between semesters studying at the French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., under renowned Chef Thomas Keller and alongside then-rising stars Grant Achatz and Eric Ziebold. Upon graduating from the CIA in 1998, Richard ventured to New York for the opportunity to work with Chef Daniel Boulud at his famous flagship, Restaurant Daniel. Richard then followed his professional compass to Roses, Spain, where he completed a brief stage at El Bulli with culinary wizard Ferran Adrià. In 2000 Richard relocated to Atlanta to oversee a local seafood concept. His wildly creative approach to cooking and cuisine led to the establishment of Trail Blais, a forward-thinking culinary company that has consulted on, designed and operated some of Atlanta's most-popular eateries, including multiple outposts of Flip Burger Boutique and HD-1. He recently launched The Spence, a restaurant concept in midtown Atlanta, and opened Juniper & Ivy, in San Diego, where he offers a refined approach to American cuisine and showcases the seasonal and local ingredients of California. In Richard's debut cookbook, Try This at Home: Recipes from My Head to Your Plate, he reveals a simplified approach to adventurous cooking by sharing new flavor combinations and textures to reinvent home cooks' classic dishes. Each of the 125 recipes is straightforward enough to make at home, but for those who want to try using liquid nitrogen or a sous-vide machine, Richard offers fun variations on his recipes that add another level of excitement in the kitchen. Try This at Home was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award in 2014 in the Cookbook: General Cooking category. In December 2013 Richard appeared as the host of a brand-new television program entitled Cook Your Ass Off. The show, which aired on the HLN network, is a transformational culinary contest that focuses on the health struggles of everyday people. Talented chef contestants are pitted against each other in a three-round competition to transform daily indulgences into healthy and delicious meals. Richard has also appeared on the Today Show, Good Morning America, Live! with Kelly and Michael, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, as well as in numerous publications, including The New York Times, InStyle and Food & Wine magazine.

Dean McDermott, actor, television personality and Gourmet Dad, opened his home to America during the six seasons of the hit show Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood, along with wife Tori Spelling. Born and raised in Toronto, Dean is the winner of Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off, Season 2 and recently returned to his hometown to host the highly anticipated Food Network Canada series Chopped Canada. A self-proclaimed adrenaline junkie, the father of five is an avid adventurer and a mixed martial arts enthusiast. He also races motorcycles and is a phenomenal cook and a master DIYer. He appears regularly on a variety of daytime talk and entertainment shows, is a regular contributor to Parenting.com and is concentrating on growing his Gourmet Dad brand as he continues his culinary arts studies at the Art Institute of California's Culinary School. Dean shares his experiences and knowledge on his website, DeanMcDermott.com. From family and relationships to projects and hobbies, the site serves as a pit stop for dudes and dads of any age who want to talk shop about man-of-the-house stuff. Dean recently finished production on Tori & Dean: Cabin Fever, a series that follows Tori and Dean and their kids while they renovate an Ontario lakeside cottage into their dream vacation home. As a modern-day renaissance father, Dean keeps family, food and fun his primary focus. Dean is currently working on his first cookbook, which will be released in 2014. Find Dean on Twitter, @Deanracer, and Facebook, DeanMcDermott007.

Once you meet Kevin Gillespie, it’s not hard to see why he took home the title of Top Chef fan favorite. He may have two acclaimed restaurants under his belt—Gunshow in Atlanta and Revival in Decatur—but he’s also the kind of charming, down-home guy you’d like to have a drink with. And, true to his southern roots, he always has a good story to tell.Upon graduating from high school, Gillespie was accepted to MIT, where he had hoped to study nuclear engineering. His lifelong passion for cooking, however, led him instead to the Art Institute of Atlanta, and eventually, to top restaurants in Georgia and Oregon. In 2013, he opened the doors to Gunshow, his dim-sum-inspired take on Southern cuisine, which topped topped best-of lists at Bon Appetit, Esquire, and GQ. In 2015, Gillespie followed his debut with Revival in Decatur, Georgia, a fresh take on the family-style dinner with a focus on farm-raised, artisan-prepared ingredients.The author of two acclaimed cookbooks, including James Beard Award-winning Fire in My Belly, Gillespie was also named a 2015 semi-finalist for the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef: Southeast award, and semi-finalist for the Rising Star Chef of the Year award for three consecutive years. In 2011, he was nominated for Food & Wine’s People’s Best New Chef award as well as named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30. As a rising star bringing more than just good food to the table, Gillespie was named one of Mother Nature Network’s “40 Chefs Under 40” in November 2009 for promoting better health for people and the planet.He is a member of Slow Food Atlanta, Southern Foodways Alliance, Community Farmers Markets Chefs Advisory Board, Georgia Organics and the Society for the Preservation of Traditional Southern Barbecue.Kevin's Restaurants:Gunshow (Atlanta, GA) Revival (Decatur, GA) Kevin's Books:Fire in My Belly (2012)Pure Pork Awesomeness (2015)

The basic ingredients of bread are well-known: flour, water, salt, and some kind of leavening agent. But for really, really good bread—the kinds of loaves that change your life—you need one thing more. Patience. And that’s something Zachary Golper, the baking mastermind behind Brooklyn’s Bien Cuit, has in spades. It’s a skill he developed from the very beginning of his adult life, when he was 20 years old and working on an Oregon farm–cum–meditation retreat. That’s where the scent of baking bread lured him from his bed one night at 1 a.m. to the kitchen (in a sheep barn) where he first learned to ferment loaves for days. From there (and following an extensive detour through South America), he continued his apprenticeships—in Seattle, Las Vegas, and Philadelphia, where he worked as baker-in-chief to Georges Perrier, the chef at the renowned Le Bec-Fin.Along the way, he developed the skills and the deep knowledge of fermentation that you can taste in the breads he bakes at Bien Cuit, which he opened in 2011. The crusts are crackling, thick, and mahogany dark—in other words, bien cuit, or well-done in French. They’re the kinds of breads you want to slather with really good butter, or dip into a hearty soup, or drape with paper-thin slices of salty ham... if you can keep from nibbling them down to nothing on the way home from the bakery. (We’re speaking from experience here.)They’re also the kinds of breads you can actually bake at home, thanks to Golper’s in-depth, step-by-step instructions. And while, yes, they’ll require a bit of patience (fermentation does take time!), you won’t have to spend 15 years learning how to make them, as Golper did. We’ve broken his best, most important recipes down into 5 fundamental lessons that will show you how to produce sourdoughs, baguettes, rolls, ciabattas, and Pullman loaves that may very well change your life, or at least make you a better, more patient baker.Zachary's Restaurants:Bien Cuit Grand Central (Brooklyn, NY)Bien Cuit (Brooklyn, NY)Zachary's Book:Bien Cuit (2015)

Viewing the kitchen as both a culinary and spiritual haven, New Delhi-born Top Chef Master Suvir Saran has nurtured a lifelong passion for the traditional flavors of Indian cooking, which has led him to become an accomplished chef, cookbook author, educator, and organic farmer. Saran’s approachable and informed style has helped to demystify Indian cuisine in America and ultimately formed American Masala, his culinary philosophy, which celebrates the best of Indian and American cooking. A respected culinary authority, Saran is Chairman of Asian Culinary Studies for the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and travels extensively to teach audiences ranging from home cooks and fellow chefs to physicians and nutritionists. He has been a featured speaker and guest chef for notable gatherings such as the Healthy Kitchens, Food Network’s South Beach Wine & Food Festival, the New York City Wine & Food Festival, and many others. Saran has also led classes for culinary centers and schools nationwide.Renowned for his accessible approach to Indian flavors and techniques, Saran has penned three cookbooks: Indian Home Cooking: A Fresh Introduction to Indian Food, with More Than 150 Recipes (Clarkson Potter, 2004) with Stephanie Lyness; American Masala: 125 New Classics from My Home Kitchen (Clarkson Potter, 2007) with Raquel Pelzel; and Masala Farm: Stories and Recipes from an Uncommon Life in the Country (Chronicle Books, 2011) with Charlie Burd and Raquel Pelzel. Masala Farm was a James Beard Award finalist for Best American Cookbook for 2011. His recipes have been featured in publications such as Bon Appétit, Cooking Light, Food & Wine, Fine Cooking, Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, Departures, InStyle, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, as well as many others. He is a contributor to Food Arts magazine. He has been a featured judge on Next Iron Chefand Iron Chef on the Food Network and has had numerous appearances on national and local broadcasts. In spring 2011, Suvir was a break out star on Bravo’s Top Chef Masters, cooking to raise money for the Agricultural Stewardship Association. Most recently, Saran was Executive Chef/Owner at Devi in New York City, where he shared the authentic flavors of Indian home cooking with guests. Under Saran’s leadership, Devi consistently received popular and critical acclaim and earned a three-star rating from New York magazine and two stars from the New York Times. It was the first Indian restaurant in the U.S. to earn a Michelin star. When he is not on the road, Saran joins partner Charlie Burd in caring for American Masala Farm, a nineteenth-century farm set on sixty-eight acres of rolling land in upstate New York and home to lovingly raised heritage-breed animals and pets, including two dogs, a cat, sheep, ducks, geese, alpacas, chickens, guinea hens, and goats. Saran and Burd are dedicated to the recommendations of the American Livestock Breed Conservancy (ALBC) in choosing the farm’s animal population and exemplify farm-to-table living by providing local restaurants with their heritage-breed eggs.Suvir's Books:American Masala (2007) Indian Home Cooking (2004) Masala Farm (2011)

From his bright and vibrant outfits to his off-the-cuff sayings, Jason, from Grayson, Kentucky, describes himself as the down-home chef. A school cafeteria cooking manager and caterer, Jason has been cooking his entire life, with his modern, elevated recipes not only tasting delicious, but also being budget friendly. A self-taught chef and baker who previously competed on and won Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship, Jason shows viewers you don’t have to be a professional chef to cook delicious food. He's currently a judge on Best Baker in America and Worst Bakers in America.