Bravo’s “Top Chef” Returns for a New Season in Portland Kicking Off with a Supersized Episode on Thursday, April 1 @ 8PM [VIDEO]

Bravo’s “Top Chef” will call Portland, Oregon home for season 18, kicking off with two weeks of supersized premieres starting on Thursday, April 1 from 8:00 – 9:15PM ET/PT.

The Emmy and James Beard Award-winning series returns with host Padma Lakshmi, head judge Tom Colicchio, and Gail Simmons.  For the first time ever, a collection of “Top Chef” all-star winners, finalists, and favorites are joining an elite rotating judging and dining panel including Richard Blais, Carrie Baird, Nina Compton, Tiffany Derry, Gregory Gourdet, Melissa King, Kristen Kish, Edward Lee, Kwame Onwuachi, Amar Santana, Dale Talde and Brooke Williamson.   This season also includes appearances by José Andrés, Massimo Bottura, Gabriel Rucker, and Alice Waters, as well as “Portlandia” stars Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein who stop by “Top Chef” Kitchen for a Quickfire Challenge.

Beginning Thursday, April 8, Bravo’s Emmy-Winning digital companion series “Top Chef: Last Chance Kitchen,” hosted by Tom Colicchio, returns for season ten as the eliminated chefs go head-to-head to try to cook their way back into the competition. Presented by BMW of North America, each week’s episode will be available on Bravotv.com, On Demand or wherever you stream Bravo’s “Top Chef” at the conclusion of each week’s episode.

Meet the New Cheftestants:

· Brittanny Anderson – Richmond, VA

· Avishar Barua – Columbus, OH

· Dawn Burrell – Houston, TX

· Gabe Erales – Austin, TX

· Nelson German – Oakland, CA

· Byron Gomez – Aspen, CO

· Sasha Grumman – Houston, TX

· Roscoe Hall – Birmingham, AL

· Sara Hauman – Portland, OR

· Kiki Louya – Detroit, MI

· Maria Mazon – Tucson, Arizona

· Shota Nakajima – Seattle, WA

· Gabriel Pascuzzi – Portland, OR

· Jamie Tran – Las Vegas, NV

· Chris Viaud- Milford, NH

*For more information on the cheftestants, please visit Bravotv.com/top-chef

During a time of extreme hardship in the restaurant industry, these chefs have more on the line than ever before. From working with foraged mushrooms and picking produce at the famous Hood River Fruit Loop to visiting the Tillamook Creamery, the chefs are tasked with cooking with Oregon’s natural bounty of ingredients. With Padma, Tom and Gail and a table full of alums to impress, the expectations have never been higher, especially in this year’s unique Restaurant Wars where the teams must perfectly execute on a micro-restaurant concept with a cohesive seven-course tasting menu that rivals the best in the world. To stay in the game, the chefs must cook at their best while contending with a Quickfire using ingredients used on the Oregon Trail and a surf and turf elimination challenge honoring the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. While in the “City of Roses,” the judges definitely don’t hold back their thorns as they narrow it down to find this season’s “Top Chef.”

The winning chef will earn the coveted title of “Top Chef,” $250,000 furnished by S.Pellegrino(R) Sparkling Natural Mineral Water, a feature in FOOD & WINE magazine and an appearance at the annual FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen.

Last season, “Top Chef” ranked as 2020’s #1 food show across all of cable, averaging nearly 1 million P18-49 and 1.1 million P25-54.  Additionally, the season was up 42% on Video On Demand/Streaming, all told, it was viewed over 10 million times.  (Food Show: Nielsen, L7, P18-49/P25-54, FY 2020, including food programs across cable, excluding repeats. VOD/Streaming: Rentrak and Adobe Analytics, S17 vs. S16, includes STB, TVE (on+off), dMVPD, and OVD.)

“Top Chef” is produced by the Emmy Award-winning production company Magical Elves with Casey Kriley, Jo Sharon, Doneen Arquines and Hillary Olsen serving as executive producers.