Which Top Chef winner was most successful in their season?

Comparing winners of Top Chef

Maybe it’s just in my friend circle, but I have had many conversations about who is the best Top Chef winner. Because I’m me, this post is going to be about numbers and not feelings -- but your feelings are valid! Let me know in the comments what you think and feel. (For example, in my opinion, Richard Blais’ Season 8 win was incredibly impressive, even if there are people with better stats than him.) I’m looking forward to seeing which of the Top Chef 22 contestants will join this elite group!

We can all agree that the number of elimination wins is part of the equation. But how should quickfires come into play? And what about people who didn’t win much, but were often at the top of their challenges? To be honest, I can’t decide the one best way to determine who was most successful…so, here’s a few ways to look at success:

These winning chefs have the highest win rates across all their challenges:

• Brooke Williamson (Season 14: Charleston) had the best quickfire win rate

• Paul Qui (Season 9: Texas) had the best elimination win rate

• Melissa King (Season 17: All Stars LA) had the highest overall win rate.

And then looking specifically winning individual elimination challenges (in case people want to complain about people winning team challenges), these chefs’ elimination wins were all individual wins: