Top Chef’s sixteenth season premieres tonight, December 6th, on Bravo. The Emmy-winning culinary hit finds its way to Kentucky for another round of phenomenal cooking, big and bold personalities and host Tom Colicchio’s predictable annoyance over someone not seasoning their item enough for his liking.
This reality staple has also been a huge force in highlighting the talented chefs out there who identify as LGBTQ. One of them, Kristen Kish, took home the big prize at the end of the show’s tenth season in Seattle after being eliminated early on only to come back due to Last Chance Kitchen (chefs compete to return to the competition after their initial ousting) and become the winner.
Top Chef has highlighted several talented gay male chefs who have done wonderful both on and off the show. One of which from the list below made it all the way to the finals in his season only to narrowly lose at the end. Regardless, these men have proven their culinary chops one way or another and have become their own success stories in the process.
Here’s a list of 10 gay men who cooked their hearts out on one of the best culinary shows on television.
Dave Martin, Season 1: San Francisco
Carlos Fernandez, Season 2: Los Angeles
Dale Levitski, Season 3: Miami (Runner-Up)
Richard Sweeney, Season 5: New York
Ash Fulk, Season 6: Las Vegas
Ty-Lor Boring, Season 9: Texas
Jeffery Jew, Season 10: Seattle
Travis Masar, Season 11: New Orleans
Gregory Gourdet, Season 12: Boston (Runner-Up)
Jason Stratton, Season 13: California
This post was created by one of our Contributing Writers and does not reflect the opinion of Instinct Magazine or the other Contributing Writers when it comes to this subject.