Compliments to the Chef

We're serving up rabbit and hiccups on this week's episode of the pod! Tune into our coverage of Top Chef season 23 episode 11.

We have the rizz king of season 23 on the pod, Oscar Diaz!!! Tune in to hear about Oscar's journey to Top Chef and what he's up to post-show. A two-time James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef Southeast, Oscar Diaz was born and raised in Chicago. Growing up surrounded by diverse flavors shaped his bold, multicultural culinary style blending his Mexican heritage, global influences, and Southern soul. After training in Michelin-starred kitchens across Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Chicago, he landed in Raleigh, N.C., where he helped to launch Cortez Seafood + Cocktails. In 2023, Oscar opened Little Bull in Durham, which recently earned a Michelin Guide recommendation and features an American melting pot of flavors. His second restaurant AAKTUN opened in 2024, pushing Latin American flavors. Oscar's latest project and third restaurant, TaTaco is a mercado-inspired eatery in Durham. Known for his fearless creativity and high-pressure skills, Oscar was featured in Time Magazine as a chef defining the “Nuevo South.” A musical aficionado at heart, he loves to DJ, travel and wants to apply the same passion and skills to food and remix his cuisine. Instagram: @buenosdiaz

The first of the brothers Dearden to grace the pod! Tune into the pod to hear about his career, time on Top Chef and his social media empireGrowing up in Sterling, Va., Brandon Dearden was drawn to the kitchen, often found cooking alongside his grandma, helping at his father's restaurant job and cooking on a line while in high school. He shares his passion for food alongside his identical twin brother and fellow competitor, Jonathan, this season. After earning dual degrees in Culinary Arts and International Baking & Pastry, he trained in Las Vegas, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. His career includes notable roles with Alinea, Saison Hospitality Group, Wolfgang Puck's Fine Dining Group, Charlie Palmer's Aureole and Daniel Boulud's Dinex Group. Now residing in Hamilton, MT, Brandon is the chef and co-owner of Ember and Grano, bringing a live-fire-driven approach to Montana cuisine built on local grain, seasonal agriculture and trusted ranching partners. Ember focuses on incorporating local ingredients, spotlighting its terroir, beef and hyper-seasonal produce. Grano specializes in American-Italian cuisine with well-executed, simple ingredients. Brandon was recently named a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef in the Mountains. Known for his ability to thrive under pressure, especially fueled by a friendly lifelong sibling rivalry, he approaches every challenge with focus and fire. Instagram: @chefauthorized

It's Tom Colicchio's favorite day of the year: mies en place AND a fishing trip. The Top Chefs get out of the kitchen and onto the water in this week's episode. Tune into hear our coverage of it all!

The chefs take on a dual quickfire/elimination challenge in this week's episode of Top Chef. But more importantly, RHODA IS BACK!!!!! Tune into our coverage of episode 9.

Tune into our coverage of the Last Chance Kitchen season finale!

It's RESTAURANT WARS in the Top Chef kitchen!!! Two teams have 36 hours to create a complete restaurant from start to finish, sans serif logo and all. We've got two Carolina-inspired restaurants and rock star teams of chefs ready to face off in the ultimate showdown. Who's restaurant will come out on top?

Last Chance Kitchen continues with this week's Top Chef eliminated contestant. Tune in to hear about what Tom is cooking up!

On this week's episode of Top Chef, wake up and smell the coffee because we're starting our day at the Cracker Barrel! With a few friends from Southern Charm joining Kristen for the quickfire, we see the chefs reinvent menu staples. The elimination challenge brings us to the end of the meal, with a sweet dessert showdown.Tune in!

Last Chance Kitchen has a three-chef showdown. Listen to our recap and conspiracy theories about what's going on in the competition

It's FINALLY the bbq episode and we're ready to enjoy it low and slow. The chefs compete in a pig roast show down, with the greatest pit masters in the south coming to judge their cooking. Tune in for our coverage of Top Chef episode 6!

Join us for an interview with chef Brittany Cochran to discuss her time on Top Chef and off camera! We discuss the second episode of Last Chance Kitchen (Nana vs. Rhoda), she crab soup and the culinary stylings of Myrtle Beach.

Put on your swim trunks and SPF, because Top Chef is headed to the waterpark! This week we have a wet/dry challenge highlighting dehydrated ingredients. The chefs pull out all of the stops for some tiny tots taste testers who really love....corn nuts.Tune into our recap of Top Chef Season 23 Episode 5!

Tune into an interview with current Last Chance Kitchen reigning champ Nana Wilmot!

Isn't it warm, isn't it cozy, side by side in the Top Chef kitchen?! We've got a fun wine pairing with JOSH for the quickfire and a smorgasbord of sides that will have you salivating for the elimination challenge. Tune into our coverage of this week's episode of Top Chef!

It's time for the chefs to show their true colors in this week's Top Chef showdown. We've got livermush, natural dyes and Emeril in the building! Tune in to hear our coverage about why Tom is grumpy.PLUS! Stick around for our interview with Week 2 eliminated chef Jassi Bindra. You won't want to miss this episode!!

It's getting hot in here with the spiciest peppers on the planet. Talenti makes its first product placement appearance of the season in a sweet/savory quickfire. Then the chefs split up to make a progressively hotter meal at PuckerButt farms. Tune in for this spicy episode recap of Top Chef Season 23 episode 2!

It's the Top Chef Season 23 premier!!!!!!!!!!! Welcome to the Carolinas, where 15 chefs will battle it out to see who will be crowned the next Top Chef. This week we meet the new cheftestants, say hello to the judges and meet some titans of the south. From a NASCAR race to Sean Brock's table, this is an action packed first episode you won't want to miss.

The gals from Above Deck join us to discuss this season of Traitors and this week's big episode. We have a recruitment, a banishment and a murrrrrrrder.

It's traitor vs. traitor in the castle. Who will win? Find out on this week's episode!

Today we are joined by guest Sophie Segreti from season 49 of Survivor! Sophie shares about her time on Survivor, as well as lends her newly trained reality chops to watching this week's epsiode of the Traitors. Tune in to discuss the black banquet, medieval met gala fashion and the downfall of Lisa Rinna!

Chaos, confusion, catastrophe in the castle! Traitors epsiode 6 is full of wild accusations and a housewife scorned. Colton is getting under(wood) everyone's nerves and Kristen Kish is masterminding an 8-way alliance. Tune in!

Colton is coming out swinging this week and leading the pack. He's super annoying, but things are really heating up in the Traitors castle. The smoked salmon is getting a lot of play, but the gamers are still being hunted. Tune into our coverage of this week's episodes, we'll see you at the round table!

Woah! Three episodes of The Traitors at a time?! We've got a lot of coverage to keep up with! We go into the castle to our first round table, a murder in plain sight, a shield battle and the reveal of the secret traitor! So much drama jam packed into one episode, tune in to dish it all!

Don your cloaks and best tartan, we're headed to the Scottish highlands to play the greatest game: The Traitors. Over the next 10 weeks we'll cover to deception, treachery and misdeeds of reality television's biggest stars in the Traitors castle. Most importantly, we'll follow Kristen Kish's journey into turret and beyond!Happy hunting!

It's the quarter finals and it's time to finally make....dessert??? As if that weren't what's been happening all season! The baker make cheesecake, steamed pudding and TRIFLE WITH NO WALLS! Tune in for out coverage of this week's episode of Great British Bake Off.

Whip up your eggwhites because it's meringue week in the Great British Bake Off tent! Paul and Prue are set to judge pavlovas, tarts and soufflés. Tune in to hear our coverage of this delectable week of GBBO!

Chill your butter because it's pastry week in the Bakeoff tent! The Great British Bakeoff returns with a delightfully British pastry week, full of lamination and esoteric bakes. You don't want to miss the sculpted tarts and sausage roll creations!

Let's get WONKED in the tent with delicious chocolate treats. There are volcanoes exploding with chocolate, pianos filled with chocolate and nymph grottos oozing with chocolate. You don't want to miss this great british bake of episode recap!

Sharpen your number 2 pencils and sit at your desks because we're back to school in the tent! Great British Bake Off is making nostalgic treats that are sure to bring you back to your school days.

It's the most highly anticipated week of the season, bread week! Activate your yeast because it's time to step into Paul Hollywood's thunderdome and challenges. The bakers take on bread in all it's forms and the gals take on the history of Jumbo Kingdom.

You gotta risk it for the biscuit and these bakers are putting it all on the line! Tune in for our punny coverage of the cookie extravaganza

We are back in the Great British Bake Off tent and we're ready for some delectably fondant fancy treats! Join us for our coverage across the pond, where we discuss Week 1 of everyone's favorite wind down television. Ready, set, bake!

We're ending our summer blockbuster series with perhas the most iconic 22 minutes of television in this century. Behold: The Dinner Party. From the brilliant minds of The Office comes an absolute calamity of coworkers socializing outside work. We breakdown this episode (and lots more), with our best pals at the LA Food Podcast. Tune in!

Put on your dinner jacket, hop in your Cadillac and join us for a Big Night. Joined by Founder and CEO of Big Night (the store) in NYC, we unpack this cinematic classic. From the timpano to the risotto to the surprise sucking pig, we get into the details and have a laugh doing it. Katherine Lewin is the founder of Big Night, a one‑stop shop for dinner‑party and hosting essentials in Greenpoint and the West Village. She is also the author of Big Night: Dinner, Parties & Dinner Parties.Instagram @kklewinBig Night Website: https://bignightbk.com/

This week we review The Taste of Things with Kendra Vaculin. Get ready for the Nancy Meyers kitchen of the french countryside and a delicious feast for the eyes!

Today is a momentous day for the pod. Compliments to the Chef is honored to present our interview with the beating heart of Top Chef, the one, the only, the lovely Gail Simmons. This interview gets to the soul of what makes Top Chef the greatest cooking competition to ever do it. You absolutely do not want to miss this interview with the woman who has been there since day one.

This week we are joined by Jessie Evans (@jessie_eats) to discuss the feel good, 2014-coded movie "Chef." Tune in for a fun conversation about the early days of social media, whom we'd cast as our love interests and the worst thing you can put caviar on.

Wash your hands and grab your rodents! The most highly anticipated food movie of the summer blockbuster series is HERE. Ratatouille is the pinnacle of food cinema, and there is no better person to unpack it than J Lee, Critic at Large @ Feed Me and Food Editor of Interview Magazine. Summer is hot, but J's takes on this cult classic film are even HOTTER! You don't want to miss this one.

It's time to discover the art of french cooking all over again! Tune into this discussion of three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep and her iconic performance as Julia Child in post-war france. We may also discuss Julie from time to time.

It's summer and we're ready to kick back with some famous movies all about food! For our first recap, we're going into the archives and bringing out the movie that started it all. Grab a slice and and your shoulder pads, because it's time to head to Rhode Island to watch MYSTIC PIZZA!

Top Chef Season 22 Winner Tristen Epps-Long joins the pod for a well-earned victory lap! Tune in to this post-finale catch up with the newest member of the Top Chef winner's circle.

It's time to say Ciao to Top Chef Season 22 with the most epic season finale. Bailey, Shuai and Tristen deliver the meal of their lives, which just so happens to be the best finale anyone has ever seen on Top Chef. Tom is overcome with excitement, Kristen is overcome with emotion and Gail is overcome with Canadian pride. Tune into our last coverage of Season 22, it's not goodbye, it's arrivederci!

Happy Top Chef finale day to those who celebrate!!! We have all three finalists on the pod today for a quick pregame for tonight's episode. Tune in to hear Bailey, Tristen and Shuai talk about their headspace going into the last cook of the season.

Top Chef has arrived in Italy and Tom is giddy with excitement! We have the first ever diabolical risotto challenge and, in true NBC fashion, Olympians! Tune in to hear our coverage of the elite athletic event of the season as the chefs go through a three-round Italian live showdown.

Top Chef season 22 semi-finalist Lana Lagomarsini is with us today on the pod! This is a long awaited interview as out number one instagram DM pen pal goes from internet acquaintance to IRL friend! Lana has an incredible story and spills tons of info about what it was like to be on Top Chef, her journey to the show and what she's up to now. You don't want to miss this episode!Find Lana on instagram @lana_cooks

We bid au revoir to Canada in this episode of Top Chef, with the contestants battling to see who will advance to the finale in Milan. With nothing but the land to provide their pantry, the chefs go foraging for their ingredients to honor the bounty of the Canadian wilderness. Tune into this deeply emotional episode and see the chefs compete at the highest caliber!

We've got apple bowl in the building!!!! OMG Vincenzo Loseto joins us on the pod to discuss his epic run on Top Chef, what he's up to and his plans for the future. You don't want to miss this interview!

It's the Top Chef semifinals and we're in Calgary! From the pancake breakfast to fine dining beef, this episode shows us the best of what Alberta has to offer. Don't be a silly GOOSEberry, and tune into our coverage of Season 22 Episode 11!

Winter, spring, summer or fall in the Top Chef kitchen! Join us for a trip around the sun with a challenge that celebrates the four seasons of...Canada. The chefs pull out all the stops to impress a panel of Montreal's greatest chefs and we get a sweater weather joke in front of a real-live SNL cast member. Can we get an AMEN for episode 10?!

It's the Top Chef LCK finale!! Katianna vs Cesar, who will win? And the gals join the guys from the LA Food Podcast to catch up on our fantasy draft and give a mid season rundown.