Celebrity Chef Mentors And Their Now-Famous Proteges: Top Chef Edition

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Celebrity Chef Mentors And Their Now-Famous Proteges: Top Chef Edition

by Mariella Mosthof 1:40 pm, August 1st

Last week, we brought you eleven notable celebrity chef mentors and their proteges who had gone on to become culinary royalty in their own right. This week, we bring you protege roundup: Top Chef Edition! Lots of Top Chefs come into the game already James Beard Award-nominated, and with impressive pedigrees to boot. Here, we rounded up some of the culinary icons our favorite cheftestants studied under before they faced the brutal critiques of Tom Colicchio, Hugh Acheson, Toby Young, and Eric Ripert. Check out our slideshow below to see who prepped five Top Chefs’ asses for the kicking.

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1.Eric Ripert and Jen Carroll

Top Chef: Las Vegas brought us one of the most memorably hardcore contestants of all time, which is how Jennifer Carroll later earned herself a spot amongst the Top Chef: All-Stars. Her impeccable technique was learned from the master himself, Eric Ripert. She worked as the sous chef at Le Bernardin before being hand-selected by Eric to run the kitchen as the chef de cuisine at 10 Arts. Interestingly, Eric, who had served as a regular judge on Top Chef, had to sit out Seasons Six and Eight, on which Jen was a contestant, to ensure no favoritism came into play come elimination time. You can catch Jen on Bravo's upcoming series Life After Top Chef, which is currently in production.

2.Wolfgang Puck and Hosea Rosenberg

While some of you may only recall Hosea Rosenberg from his gross late-night couch make-out cheating scandal (um, guys, it was the K-Stew/Rupert Sanders/Robert Pattinson triangle of its time), he actually went on to win his season of Top Chef: New York. And it was all thanks to Wolfgang Puck, whom he worked for waaay back in 1998, securing a head chef position just three years later. Next time, don't hook up with non-single ladies on a reality show, K, bud?

3.Jose Garces and Kevin Sbraga

Bobby Flay-slaying Iron Chef Jose Garces mentored Kevin "The Top Chef No One Remembers" Sbraga. (No, you're thinking of Kevin Gillespie, the ginger with the awesome pork tattoos. Not that guy. This guy. This guy in the photo.) Kevin worked for Jose as a recipe tester for his cookbook, which impressed Jose so much, he eventually promoted the would-be Top Chef to the position of culinary director of the Garces Restaurant Group. Garces also hustled his protege into the 2008 Bocuse D'or USA competition, where he earned the Best Meat Presentation award.

4.Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Angelo Sosa

Season 7 runner-up and eventual Top Chef All-Star Angelo Sosa studied under Jean-Georges Vongerichten early on in his career, and went on to work at Jean Georges, Dune, and Spice Market. He eventually worked his way up to executive sous chef at Spice, but obviously his biggest culinary accomplishment to date is appearing as house bartender on Watch What Happens: Live, right? Second biggest accomplishment would probably be finishing the Season 7 finale round while on his deathbed.

5.Tony Mantuano and Sarah Grueneberg

Oh em gee, how could we POSSIBLY forget that Top Chef Master Tony Mantuano (omg! Tonyyyy) was Sarah Grueneberg's mentor on Top Chef: Texas. Not only did she talk about it all the time, but Sarah became positively apoplectic at the sight of him when the final five had to cook a dish inspired by their mentors (you know, that episode where everyone except a cold, heartless Edward Lee wept).