Top Chef Season 23: Carolinas trailer and cast reveal!
If you haven't yet seen the trailer, go do that right now!
OMG we have a cast!! The cast list of Top Chef 23: Carolinas has been released, and phew, is it a doozy! We’ve got a couple and we have identical twins. (As an identical twin myself, I’m excited to see Brandon and Jonathan interact!) We haven’t had a couple since Season 4’s (Chicago) Zoi Antonitsas and Jennifer Biesty. Unless they plan on lying about where they live (the population of Suttons Bay is under 1,000), it will be clear to the rest of the cast that Jennifer and Justin at least know each other. I’ll be curious to see how the fact that they’re a couple will come into game play, if at all.
The Top Chef 23: Carolinas cast is:
Sieger Bayer - Chicago, IL
Jassi Bindra - Houston, TX
Sherry Cardoso - Brooklyn, NY
Brittany Cochran - Charlotte, NC
Brandon Dearden - Hamilton, MT
Jonathan Dearden - Alexandria, VA
Oscar Diaz - Durham, NC
Duyen Ha - Los Angeles, CA
Jennifer Lee Jackson - Suttons Bay, MI/Detroit, MI
Anthony Jones - Alexandria, VA
Day Anaїs Joseph - Atlanta, GA
Laurence Louie - Quincy, MA
Rhoda Magbitang - Kailua-Kona, HI
Justin Tootla - Suttons Bay, MI/Detroit, MI
Nana Araba Wilmot - Cherry Hill, NJ
The trailer got me so excited for the show - take a look yourself!
I’m very proud to say that my guess of when the cast would be released was correct (as was reader Lisa F), but I was wrong about the premiere date. Top Chef is moving to Mondays, starting March 9th. We had 12 responses to our survey, and four of them guessed that the cast would be released on a Thursday. NO ONE guessed that the premiere was going to be on a Monday! Reader Max had the guess that was closest to the actual premiere date without going beyond it (Max guessed March 5th).
Our Season 23 cast is 15-strong. Shout out to readers Lisa F, Jason L, and 24 for guessing correctly!
All of the people who took the survey were thinking that there would be multiple James Beard award nominees or winners as well as at least one chef with a Michelin star. While there aren’t winners or stars, there’s quite a great list of accolades in this cast. Among them are:
Oscar Diaz – 2-time James Beard semi-finalist for Best Chef Southeast
Brandon Dearden – James Beard semi-finalist for Best Chef Mountains
Laurence Louie – James Beard nomination for Best Chef Northeast
Rhoda Magbitang – led a team at a restaurant that earned Michelin Guide recognition
I cannot wait for this season. At Pack Your Knives, we’ll of course be bringing lots of analysis here on the Substack (with extras for paid subscribers!), the podcast with Tom and Sara, as well as the Power Rankings and Fantasy League in collaboration with find-topchef.com.
What do you think of this cast? Have you been to any of their restaurants?
Love how the twin dynamic adds a fresh wrinkle to the competiton here. The couple being from the same tiny town is gonna make it so hard to hide their relationship, and I'm curious if that becomes a strategicadvantage or ends up isolating them socially. I've seen in past reality shows where pre existing relationships can backfire fast once other contestants feel like there's a voting bloc forming.
Watching and listening from Australia. As always TOP CHEF is a highlight of the year both the show and the podcast. Will the team be looking at and discussing Padma's new series America's Culinary Cup which premieres on CBS?