Season four contestant Dale Talde decamped New York City for Tarrytown, where he opened Goosefeather under his Food Crush Hospitality company. The Westchester spot focuses on Hong Kong cuisine, serving dishes like bao, crab rangoon scallion pancakes, and hot and sour rice cakes. But before, in New York, he had run restaurants like his namesake Talde, Massoni, and Rice & Gold, plus places in Florida and New Jersey, all of which have closed.

Top Chef season 13 contestant, Bronx native, and D.C.-based chef Kwame Onwuachi ventured out with his first New York City spot, fine dining Afro Caribbean restaurant Tatiana at Lincoln Center. The cool and hard-to-book reservation spot’s dishes are steeped with NYC and African diaspora roots — look no further than the suya-spiced wagyu short rib pastrami served with coco bread.

Naturally, a lot of talented chefs have made their way through acclaimed Midtown French seafood restaurant Le Bernardin. This includes current chef de cuisine and Top Chef season 10 contestant Anthony Gray, who has been there for quite some time.

Top Chef season 19 contestant Jae Jung opened her own spot leaning into what she knows best. The result is this fun Korean Cajun restaurant Kjun in Midtown, where she marries her Korean background to her time spent working and learning from the legendary late chef Leah Chase in New Orleans, shown through prix fixe and tasting menu options and takeout.

Top Chef season five contestant Leah Cohen runs not one but three New York City restaurants. Her second is the casual pan-Asian street food spot Piggyback by Pig & Khao in between Chelsea and Koreatown. Think: steak frites with Isan sauce; Korean honey butter chicken wings; and eggplant and cabbage pancakes. She also runs Pig & Khao with two locations.

Top Chef season 21 winner Danny Garcia helms Flatiron seafood restaurant Time and Tide, which opened under the Kent Hospitality Group soon after its restaurateur, Jamal James Kent, died in the summer of 2024. The menu has described itself as a steakhouse but with seafood: from cacio e pepe squid to those Goldfish cracker dupes that have become synonymous with the restaurant.

Top Chef season 13 contestant chef Phillip Frankland Lee expanded his growing sushi omakase chain from Los Angeles into New York in September 2024. The restaurant leans into a speakeasy format, with an unmarked door, lounge, and intimate and showy omakase counter. This is the group’s overall tenth location.

Top Chef season seven runner-up Ed Cotton’s first New York City dining business is this West Village New American restaurant Jack & Charlie’s No. 118. The kitchen is anchored by its wood-fired oven, churning out dishes like huge tomahawk rib steaks, prime pork chops, and branzino. He’s got a second one in Murray Hill, Leonetta.

This is Top Chef season five contestant Leah Cohen’s first New York City restaurant that she opened in 2012 in the Lower East Side. The casual trendy pan-Southeast Asian restaurant offers an array of dishes from kare kare brisket dumplings, the crab foo young, and cocktail tastings with options like the Kentucky Pig made with a curry leaf and ginger. Pig & Khao recently expanded into the Upper West Side in December 2024, too; Cohen also runs Piggyback.

Top Chef season 12 contestant George Pagonis opened Greek fine-dining restaurant Paros with his brother Nicholas Pagonis in 2023 in Tribeca. The Grecian menu spans grilled whole fishes, fancy filet mignon kebabs, and, of course, all sorts of dips with pita. And yes, the Taylor Swift has dined there.

Top Chef season 20 winner Buddha Lo relocated and reopened his luxury-dining restaurant after a fire at the original UES location in 2023. Huso 2.0 opened in February 2025, now in Tribeca, with more seats spread across two floors, a $265 12-course tasting menu, add-ons, and caviar.

Season 12 finalist Portland chef Gregory Gourdet was tagged to lead the five dining and drinking spots in Paris luxury department store Printemps’s first-ever New York location. These include Café Jalu, cocktail lounge the Red Room Bar, and raw bar Salon Vert — all of which are set to open on Friday, March 21; fine-dining restaurant Masion Passerelle will open later on Thursday, April 17.

Top Chef season 12 contestant Michael Patlazhan runs this very casual Bushwick pizzeria Whim where he focuses on sourdough wood-fired pizza for takeout and delivery only. Find pies with topping combinations like the vegan mushrooms and garlic confit; and then there are sides such as dips like sweet potato labneh and muhammara.

Top Chef season three contestant Sara Nguyen meshes Southern and East Asian food and flavors with fast-casual takeout restaurant Wangs in Park Slope. This means, per the name, Korean-style chicken wings in spicy or not-spicy sauces, along with fried chicken, popcorn chicken, fried chicken sandwiches, and Southern-style sides.

This is the second of two spots from Top Chef season 14 contestant Silvia Barban, the Crown Heights modern Italian restaurant Briscola Trattoria. The neighborhood restaurant’s menu is a classic Italian one, full of pastas, meats, seafood, breads, and rich desserts (there’s a dessert cart). Barban and her business partners also operate Fort Greene restaurant LaRina Pastificio & Vino.

Top Chef season 16 contestant David Viana heads up this Portuguese-leaning prix fixe menu spot with his partner Neilly Robinson. Go for the crispy rice paellas, sourdough pão, rissóis de camarão, Spanish meatballs, and fideo with many items cooked in an open hearth. Don’t miss the cocktails, or plan on hitting the next-door cocktail bar, La Otra, Thursday through Saturday. And if you’d rather graze than feast, sit at the bar for a la carte.