So you’re a “Top Chef” nerd. Maybe you loyally followed each season on Bravo, or perhaps you’re a newcomer who connected with the show via a favorite celebrity chef or recipe. But you’re hooked.
Now, with a new season kicking off on March 20, here are six ways to delve a little deeper.
1 — Let the winner of the first “Top Chef: All Stars” season teach you how to eat more plants. Richard Blais and his wife, Jazmin, filled last fall’s “Plant Forward” cookbook (Victory Belt Publishing, $39.95) with 100 recipes to help home chefs shift their cooking toward a more plant-centric diet. Recipes are built around both Blais’ creative food style, with approachable recipes for zucchini fritters, eggplant and chickpea samosas, jerk cauliflower steaks and a blended mushroom burger.
2 — Pre-order a copy of the new Viet-Cajun “Dac Biet: An Extra Special Vietnamese Cookbook” (Knopf, $38), due out this August. It’s by Nini Nguyen, a chef-testant from seasons 16 and 17, who brings her unique Vientamese-New Orleans fusion sensibilities to her new cookbook, co-written with Sarah Zorn. It draws on the Vietnamese concept of “dac biet” — which means special and luxurious — and promises recipes for dishes like charbroiled oysters in chile butter, a Viet-Cajun seafood boil, crispy fish sauce-caramel chicken wings and coconut crispy rice crepes.
Tom Haberstroh and Kevin Arnovitz, co-hosts of the podcast “Pack Your Knives” attend a Top Chef event in June. (Courtesy Tom Haberstroh.)
3 — Get the latest “Top Chef” analysis, broken down episode by episode. Pack Your Knives, a “Top Chef”-inspired podcast by sports analysts Kevin Arnovitz and Tom Haberstroh, will be back this season, Haberstroh confirmed. The die-hard fans interview contestants, discuss what’s happening in the restaurant industry and break down each episode of the show. There are whispers that a related Substack may also be in the works.
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4 — Melt your mouth (in a good way!) with “Top Chef”-approved hot sauce. This collaboration between New York-based Heatonist, the hot sauce purveyors and curators behind the hit Hot Ones series, and Mei Lin, winner of season 12 “Top Chef: Los Angeles,” offers up a limited-run trio of hot sauces featuring garlic, herbs and peppercorn flavors. The Top Chef x Heatonist Hot Sauce Trio ($30) is available at shopbybravo.com/collections/top-chef, along with “Pack your knives and go” T-shirts and other merch.
5 — Take a hands-on cooking class taught by Preeti Mistry, a chef-testant from season six and the chef behind Oakland’s now closed Juhu Beach Club. Mistry will be teaching a cooking class ($225) at Wind & Rye, a Sonoma County cooking school. Learn to make garam masala, use the spice blend in two vegetarian dishes, then enjoy a full meal prepared in class and paired with drinks; windandrye.com/classes/p/garam-masala.
6 — Or tune in for more foodie TV. This season, Bravo will debut a new digital aftershow called “The Dish with Kish,” with new judge Kristen Kish breaking down each episode with a “Top Chef” alum and offering a behind-the-scenes perspective. Guests lined up so far include Gregory Gourdet (seasons 12 and 17), Stephanie Izard (season 4) and Buddha Lo (season 19). Find more details at BravoTV.com.
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