Top Chef Winner Kristen Kish Named Host For Season 21

It looks like there's a new host for Bravo's "Top Chef."

As you might have heard, host Padma Lakshmi (who makes a mean ginger and turmeric margarita) has announced that she is leaving the long-running competitive reality show after 17 years and 20 seasons. Now, the channel has announced that chef Kristen Kish, winner of the show's tenth season, will be her replacement.

Born in South Korea, Kish was adopted by an American family from Michigan as an infant. After culinary school, she worked for Barbara Lynch, a prominent chef in Boston, becoming the chef de cuisine of Menton, Lynch's flagship location. She entered and won the tenth season of "Top Chef" in 2013, becoming the first woman of color and the second woman overall to be crowned the champion.

After winning "Top Chef," Kish started to pursue other food-related ventures. In 2017, she published a cookbook Kristen Kish Cooking: Recipes and Techniques, which she co-authored with Meredith Erickson. Next year, she opened her own restaurant, Arlo Grey, in Austin, Texas.

Even before becoming the newest host of "Top Chef," Kish is no stranger to hosting TV shows. In 2015, she co-hosted "36 Hours" for the Travel Channel, a series created in collaboration with The New York Times as a companion to a travel column of the same name. In 2021, she appeared in TruTV's "Fast Foodies" alongside fellow "Top Chef" winner Jeremy Ford (whose restaurant, the Stubborn Seed, received one of the first Michelin Stars awarded in Miami) and "Top Chef" alumni and "Iron Chef" winner Justin Sutherland.

Speaking of "Iron Chef," Kish is the host of "Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend," Netflix's version of the iconic Japanese cooking competition, alongside veteran host (and champion of Duke's mayonnaise) Alton Brown in 2022. In 2023, she hosted "Restaurants at the End of the World" on the National Geographic channel, showcasing extraordinary restaurants in remote locations worldwide.

Kish clearly has the culinary chops and personality to be a great host, and we can't wait to tune in to Season 21 in 2024.