New York – The chef of a kosher Mexican restaurant in California is one of sixteen professionals chosen to compete in an award-winning cooking competition to air this fall on cable television.
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Chef Katsuji Tanabe, partial owner and the chef of Los Angeles’ Mexikosher, was one of an estimated 20,000 chefs who applied to compete in the twelfth season of Top Chef, which airs on Bravo.
Since its inception, Top Chef has featured a panel of professional chefs and prominent members of the food and wine industry, with competing cooks participating in weekly challenges. The weakest participant is eliminated each week.
Tanabe, who took home the top prize in the Food Network’s Chopped competition last year, spent seven years cooking kosher at Shiloh’s in Los Angeles before deciding to open a kosher restaurant of his own.
“I didn’t pick kosher, I think kosher picked me and I am grateful for that,” Tanabe told VIN News. “Thanks to cooking kosher I became a better chef, a more creative chef.”
Video below: Tanabe prepares a Kosher food mix in his Los Angeles Restaurant.
Tanabe, who is half Mexican and half Japanese, grew up in Mexico City and is Le Cordon Bleu educated, yet feels it was his time in the kosher restaurant business that has played a significant role in his evolution as both a chef and as a person.
“There is something mystical, something religious here, something great about this community that has made me a better person, a better family guy and more business oriented,” said Tanabe.
“When the opportunity came open my own restaurant, I chose to go kosher because thanks to kosher I became a better chef and I wanted to give back to the community,” said Tanabe.
The 33 year old Tanabe is a celebrity representatives for Jewish Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Los Angeles where he also serves as a personal mentor, offering his time and skills at fundraisers as well as working with children, educating them on both cooking and healthy eating habits.
This season of Top Chef, which begins on October 15th, will be taking place in Boston and participants will be challenged to serve food on the field in Fenway Park and to prepare items using only ingredients that would have been available at the first Thanksgiving meal.
Online: http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef
Mamash a Kiddush HaSh-m.
The actor playing the role of the “kosher mashgiach” in the photo above does not look like the kind of Chassideshe mashgiach that the rav hamachshir at the restaurant would look like. Bravo needs to do a better job of finding extras who look chassidish….this guy is definitely a litvish-type whose hashgacha is probably ok but not at the level that mehadrim in LA would demand.
The ‘unnamed actor’ in the first picture appears to be (the infamous) ‘Rabbi Rabbs’ character.
poking fun at the mashgiach my have negative effects on the kahrus of the restaurant. if this chef is serious about having a kosher eatery, what’s to be gained by turning it into a joke?
hope he cooks better than that latke recipe. that was so unappealing!