Gay chefs on food network

manny top chef gay

From the person who made history as the Food Network’s first openly queer show host, to out and proud chefs using their time on the juggernaut reality competition series Top Chef as a springboard to international fame, here are seven iconic queer food personalities who have been born out of culinary television. Now that the show has just recently begun its 19th season, taking place in Houston, we're taking a look back at 32 of the LGBTQ+ chefs that have appeared on the show.

Scroll through to meet. These popular male TV chefs are also found on most entertaining celebrity chefs and the best cooking TV shows of all time. There are thousands of males working as cooks and chefs both on television and throughout the world, but this list highlights only the most notable ones. From Top Chef Queen Melissa King to up-and-coming chefs like Ashleigh Shanti, this list of queer chefs you need to know about will introduce you to great cuisiniers, delicious food, and maybe even your new culinary crush.

Lazarus studied culinary arts at NYC's Food and Finance High School (during which he also ran a now-defunct blog, Keeping-it-Healthy), cooked in Food Network Test Kitchens, and was a recipe. A delicious way to savor Pride month! I spoke up and said that it was not a choice, why would I choose to have a more difficult life. From there, I felt more comfortable speaking my truth and having conversations without any judgment.

Tara Monsod is the executive chef of San Diego steakhouse Animae, serving up Japan's finest Wagyu 5 beef and fine dining dishes influenced by her Filipino-American childhood. She recently took the position next to head chef and Animae owner Brian Malarkey after working in a string of prestigious establishments like Herringbone, Burlap, and at the acclaimed Pizzeria Mozza.

Israeli-born British celebrity chef Yotam Ottolenghi wears many hats. He's the co-owner of six London restaurants and delis with Sami Tamimi, along with many bestselling cookbooks. He settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to found the innovative Amilinda, a showcase of Portuguese and Spanish influences inspired by his stints in the Iberian Peninsula. Connecticut native Laine Myers originally started working in professional kitchens to pay her way through college.

She was working as the executive chef at Nota Bene before COVID shut their doors, and she decided to focus on pasta pop-up Oro , delivering fresh handmade pasta and seasonal vegetable dishes. Jo Chan's another young Top Chef star with some impressive notches on her belt; before moving to Austin, Texas to work at Eberly where she is now executive chef , the San Diego Culinary Institute grad worked in NYC's Nobu Five Seven as well as being the executive chef for the Scandinavian branch of Marcus Samuelsson's restaurant brand.

Esparza specializes in regional Mexican cooking, especially from Central and Southern Mexico. Her passion for sharing Mexican culture goes beyond food — murals painted by a revolving array of local Latinx artists cover the walls of her restaurant with Chicano and Mexican cultural symbols like low riders and lucha libre. She originally moved back to her hometown of Nashville to be a writer, but reality quickly hit, and she ended up back in the kitchen at Faison, where McCormack found her true calling in cooking.

Scott's before opening the eponymously named Margot Cafe serving French-inspired takes on locally sourced ingredients. Globetrotting chef Deborah VanTrece catered for the Centennial Olympics in Atlanta along with cooking for many foreign dignitaries and international executives before opening Edible Art in East Atlanta 20 years ago. Nick DeSimone turned their decade of experience working in professional kitchens of all types into a writing career, spending the last two years writing about plant-based cooking, interesting recipes, and their trans journey for publications like Eater, USA Today, AllRecipes, and Mashed.

Transgender Thai chef Supanut "Ann" Khanarak started her career specializing in Western food before finding herself reverting back to the cuisine of her homeland, studying Thai cooking in Sydney for eight years and moving back to Bangkok to head kitchens at the Metropolitan Hotel and the Four Seasons. She recently started consulting for the Front Room restaurant of the Waldorf Astoria Bangkok to rave reviews , serving simple, elegant Thai flavors with upscale ingredients like Gaeng massaman si-krong nuea, a massaman curry made with Australian Wagyu and sweet potato; Phla lai bua or lotus stem, pomelo and homemade chilli paste; Maphrao cheesecake, cheesecake with young coconut jelly and white chocolate mousse.

Along with consulting for the Front Room, Khanarak also co-runs pad thai joint Pad Thai Wanchart and plans on opening her own restaurant and cooking school in the near future. Self-proclaimed " workaholic " Ritu Dalmia grew up in Kolkata, India, where her family ran an Italian marble business that she began working for full-time at the age of Her work frequently took her to Italy, where she developed a deep appreciation for Italian cuisine that eventually turned into a seven-restaurant fine dining empire stretching from New Delhi to London.

A prominent LGBTQ rights activist, Dalmia and five other members of the LGBTQ successfully filed a petition against an Indian law prohibiting same-sex sexual conduct, resulting in the Supreme Court of India ruling it unconstitutional to criminalize consensual same-sex sexual conduct. Kristen Kish knew she wanted to be a chef at a young age.

That passion drove the former model to attend Le Cordon Bleu, pursue a professional cooking career, and to be the second woman to ever win Top Chef. She married longtime partner Bianca Dusic who is also in the food industry in Miami powerhouse Eileen Andrade grew up in the kitchen; her family has owned restaurants since her grandfather opened restaurants in Cuba after he immigrated to Miami in the '80s, he opened the celebrated Islas Canarias.

Since then, she's opened cozy Cuban diner Amelia's across from her parents' restaurant and Latin-Asian fusion spot Barbakoa by Finka. As his "soul food bible" Son of a Southern Chef proves, culinary entrepreneurialism runs in his blood — his father Johnny Ray Lynch was also a chef who opened popular soul food restaurant Baby Sister's Soul Food when Lazarus was Jtran Photos. View this photo on Instagram.

Joel Houghtby. Tyler Darden.