The Emmy and James Beard Award-winning cooking competition “Top Chef” returns for season 22, featuring 15 contestants who headed north to Canada to compete for some hefty prizes that include the grand prize of $250,000 and of course the honored title of “Top Chef.”
And among the talented group of contestants are two Los Angeles female chefs who, are not only neighbors who live across the street from each other, but also cook in local respected restaurants and put their considerable skills to the test on the Bravo show.
So meet chefs Katianna Hong and Kat Turner and get ready to watch them cook when the show streams on Netflix on Thursday, March 13.
Katianna Hong
Hometown: Clifton Park, N.Y.
Lives in: Los Angeles
Occupation: Chef/Owner of Yangban
Right off the bat the Korean-born chef earned a spot in one of the most prestigious restaurants in Los Angeles when, after attending the Culinary Institute of America Hyde Park and the UNLV School of Hospitality, she landed at the two-star Michelin restaurant Melisse in Santa Monica.
“Melisse is a very, very intense kitchen,” she said. “It was one of my first jobs and I learned a lot there. It makes you stronger, it makes you faster, it makes you better and so I think I walked into the competition being able to kind of take whatever comes at me and being very flexible.”
After Melisse she went on to Chef Christopher Kostow’s The Restaurant at Meadowood, and in 2014 was not just the restaurant’s first chef de cuisine but also the only woman in the nation holding that title in a kitchen that received three Michelin stars.
But her résumé kept cooking since she later opened Kostow’s second Napa restaurant, the Charter Oak. There the team earned a James Beard Award nomination for Best New Restaurant, a spot on Bon Appétit’s Top 50 Best New Restaurants List and Hong was honored as one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs.
In 2019 Hong and her husband opened Yangban, which was a 2023 James Beard semifinalist for Best New Restaurant. So with this background, should people expect to see her strut into the show with the hubris of a queen approaching her court or a WWE champion wrestler?
“That’s what my husband says, but I think a lot of it is just my face. I think I have a very serious stern demeanor sometimes,” Hong said.
Despite her own impressive background, Hong was still in awe of the talent on season 22.
“Everyone varies with their backgrounds, but everyone there is a really really badass chef. I was impressed with every single person I was cooking with,” she said.
“The whole experience was competitive, it was also very fun and extremely uncomfortable for me at times. It was also a whirlwind of emotions and I think you go through all of the emotions throughout the experience,” Hong said.
And what does she think viewers will remember about her from this season?
“Maybe my stern face, I’ve heard a lot about it,” she said.
Kat Turner
Hometown: Sturgeon Bay, Wisc.
Lives in: Los Angeles
Occupation: Executive Chef/Partner at Highly Likely restaurants
Growing up in rural Wisconsin in what she describes as “the middle of nowhere,” Turner turned to her mom and her collection of cookbooks highlighting world cuisine.
“It kicked off a love of international food and flavors and I felt like I was traveling before I even got into an airplane,” she said.
But after moving to New York and attending the Natural Gourmet Institute she actually hit the road when she returned to Los Angeles and began working as a private chef for celebrities including the Smashing Pumpkins. And she said life cooking on the road from a mobile kitchen gave her some needed skills for the “Top Chef” competition.
“I was cooking in different environments at different times so you become very tenacious and mobile given the time constraint and the resources,” she said. “I think when you are up against the wall and you’re in an unfamiliar kitchen or a new pantry you don’t know very well it takes a bit of thinking on your toes and I was pretty used to doing that. So I think it was an advantage.”
While she couldn’t give out too many details about the new season, Turner said the competition is harder than she imagined when watching the show on TV, but she had fun and one of the things that made her stand out on “Top Chef,” obviously besides her cooking, was her attitude and personality.
“I gave great soundbites,” she said with a laugh. “I had fun. If you’re not having fun you’re doing it wrong and at the end of the day, yes it was a competition and I’m very competitive, but it’s also entertainment and it also should be entertaining. And I do believe I was entertaining,” she added.
And what does she hope viewers remember about her from this season?
“I hope they remember I’m gorgeous and I look very young for my age,” she said with a laugh.