‘Top Chef’ season 14: The returning chefs are…
Yet, it’s happening, and we can tell you now the full roster of people taking part on the returning-player side:
Season 2 – Sam Talbot.
Season 3 / Season 8 – Casey Thompson.
Season 7 – Amanda Baumgarten.
Season 10 – Brooke Williamson, Sheldon Simeon, and John Tesar.
Season 11 – Shirley Chung.
Season 12 – Katsuji Tanabe.
As of right now, the biggest surprise is that we’re not getting anyone back from last season, which had some great contenders / personalities like an Isaac or a Kwame. Also, three people from season 10? We do get it give the three that they chose (Brooke is super-likable and Tesar has villain upside), but that’s almost half of the returning player cast. We’re also not crazy about having a three-time player in Casey when we could’ve had Nina from season 11 on board.
Now that we’ve said all that, it is super-nice to have Shirley back on the show, and Katsuji is incredibly entertaining even if he is a hot mess from time to time.
We weren’t a regular viewer back in season 2 so we cannot comment much on Sam; yet, it is nice to see that Bravo remembers that the show did exist before 2009 and they are giving some other chefs a chance to see how much they’ve grown over time.
This season, if you missed our previous report, is set in Charleston, and will premiere on December 1 at 10:00 p.m. Eastern time. We presume that as per usual, we’ll be watching and providing as much coverage as possible. (Photo: Bravo.)