Top Chef is an American reality competition television series which premiered on March 8, 2006, on Bravo. The show features chefs competing against each other in various culinary challenges. They are judged by a panel of professional chefs and other notables from the food and wine industry with one or more contestants eliminated in each episode. The show is produced by Magical Elves Productions, the same company that created Project Runway.
Nine international adaptations of Top Chef have been produced, three of which, the Franco-Belgian Top Chef, Top Chef Canada and the Dutch Topchef, have had four seasons each. In the United States, the show has had two spin-offs: Top Chef: Masters, featuring established, award-winning chefs, and Top Chef: Just Desserts, featuring pastry chefs. Although one more spin-off had been planned in 2008 (Top Chef Junior, featuring contestants in their early teens), it has never aired as of 2014.
The twelfth season of Top Chef, set in Boston, Massachusetts, premiered on October 15, 2014.[4] On January 29, 2015, Bravo renewed the series for a thirteenth season which will premiere on December 2, 2015.
