The countdown has begun: Top Chef Colorado Season 15 starts Thursday night, and, in addition to being filmed across the state, two of the Front Range’s own chef contestants are competing for the title.Carrie Baird currently runs the kitchen at Denver’s Bar Dough, and Brother Luck operates his own restaurant by the same name in downtown Colorado Springs. New York native Harold Dieterle won the first season of Top Chef, set in San Francisco in 2006, after besting runner-up Tiffani Faison in the final challenge in Las Vegas. Here’s an overview of Top Chef winners, then and now. Season 15 alum Fatima Ali announced her battle with terminal cancer in 2018, and she died less than a year later. Top Chef has arguably been the biggest (and some might say greatest) culinary competition television program to ever exist. Ilan Hall was the Top Chef season 2 winner after impressing the judges with his 5 course menu of eel and caviar small stack, gazspaco, squab, shortrib and a fruit soup.. After Top Chef, Ilan opened restaurant The Gorbals (in LA) in 2009 and a second restaurant (in Brooklyn) in 2014. The most recent season Top Chef All Stars L.A. saw season 12's Melissa King return to win the $250,000, beating out 14 other returning chefs for the top prize with the most challenge wins of … The two Top Chef deaths left an indelible mark on the culinary world, and both were mourned by many in the cooking community. Viewers of Top Chef might be shocked upon revisiting season 1 when they realize that Katie Lee, not the now-iconic Padma Lakshmi, was the show's first host. Your Favorite 'Top Chef' Contestants, Then and Now. Lee (who, fun fact, was married to Billy Joel at the time) wasn't exactly praised for her performance on the show, with viewers calling her robotic and wooden. On March 25, 2020, it was revealed that Top Chef Masters winner Floyd Cardoz had succumbed to the novel coronavirus. What once was a show that featured a mixture of home cooks, professional chefs and culinary students has now become a force to be reckoned with by including James Beard winners and many others at the top of their food game who all vie for the … Harold Dieterle III (born June 11, 1977 in West Babylon, New York) is an American top chef, best known as the winner of the first season of the Bravo television network's reality television series Top Chef.After winning Top Chef, he owned and ran three restaurants in New York City: Perilla, Kin Shop, and The Marrow.He closed all three in 2014 and 2015. He planned to move the LA restaurant and make it a vegan restaurant but the restaurant never reopened. The chef-owner of the restaurant and catering company KBC in Dothan, Alabama, made her mark on Top Chef‘s 16th season by cooking southern fare combined with the … Harole Dieterle. “Top Chef” season 15 ended on March 8, 2018 with host Padma Lakshmi revealing the winner chosen by two renowned chefs — Tom Colicchio … Now in its seventeenth cycle — an all-stars season … Top Chef has crowned 16 winners since it debuted in March 2006, including Ilan Hall, Stephanie Izard, Joe Flamm and more. ... She became the first Pakistani woman to win the Food Network's Chopped before joining Top Chef in season 15… 1.