I just watched the latest Iron Chef America, Battle King Crab, and the challenger was Chef Amanda Freiteg of The Harisson in Manhattan. One of her sous chefs, however, was none other than Ariane Duarte who was last seen getting booted off of Top Chef for her lack of butchering skills. Ironic, then, in this Iron Chef, she was tasked to break down a rack of veal. She was fairly vocal during preparation (meaning she was actually mic’d and her comments made it through edits). Most sous chefs on that show rarely even speak. Of course, there was no mention of her appearance on that other network.
Last season’s Top Chef featured the work of Richard Blais (currently of Flip in Atlanta) , also a previous challenger chef on Iron Chef America, losing to Mario Batali. It seems that in this current era of rock star chefs, it pays to make rounds on the circuit of the multitude of “Reality Chef” shows across all the networks. Another cross-pollinator was Ralph Pagano, of Ralph’s Deli in Sag Harbor, who made it to Iron Chef America (losing to Bobby Flay), was runner-up on the first season of Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen, and finally landed his own show on MOJO’s Pressure Cook.
Appropriately, Ariane wound up losing her battle to Bobby Flay as well.
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