Three Top Chef Champions Born in Asia
By Kelli Luu | 04 Jun, 2025

Chefs from Seoul, Guangdong, and Saigon shone in one of the U.S’s biggest food competitions while going from immigrant struggles to Michelin-level success.

Not only did these three Asian American chefs battle on Bravo’s Top Chef, they completely dominated their seasons. After coming out victorious, they are taking their childhood dishes and turning them into Michelin Star plates. 

Kristen Kish made her very first appearance on Top Chef as a head chef out of Boston and is now an industry legend. 

Born in Seoul, South Korea Kish was adopted at four months old and grew up in Kentwood, Michigan. In 2005 she obtained an AA in culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu in Chicago and by 2012, she was promoted to head chef at Stir, a culinary demonstration kitchen in Boston. 

That same year, Kish was invited to participate in Bravo’s 10th season of Top Chef. To get through the qualifying rounds, she was required to craft a signature soup, and that was the first moment Kish knew she was more than qualified. 

Throughout her season, Kish won four elimination challenges before being defeated in episode 11. Luckily, she won her way back into the main competition after proving her strength in the show’s “Last Chance Kitchen”.

With five wins in the “Last Chance Kitchen”, Kish made it to the final competition and was crowned Top Chef, making her the second female winner in the show’s history and the first woman of color to win the title. 

Since then, she has opened her own restaurant, Arlo Grey, in Austin, Texas and is now the new host of Top Chef, and has received nominations for Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Host and Best Reality Competition Series. 

Chinese-born American Mei Lin is another iconic chef who grew up in Michigan after moving from Guangdong, China at just three months old. 

She attended Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Michigan, where they are highly known for its culinary arts program. After receiving her credentials, Lin gained excellent experience, first as a cook for the Detroit Lions, and later on at Wolfgang Puck’s, Spago in Las Vegas. 

In 2014 Lin competed on the twelfth season of Top Chef and blew the judges away with a strawberry lime curd, which was noted as one of the best desserts the show has ever seen. 

Winning Top Chef was just a new beginning for Lin as she went to work as Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef before opening her own Los Angeles restaurant in 2019. 

Born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Hung Huynh has been mastering the art of food since he was 10 years old. With his mother’s guidance, Huynh helped out at his family’s restaurant and by the time he was a high school student, he was also a chef at the Wheatleigh Hotel, a prestigious property in Massachusetts. 

Huynh and his family were unable to pay for culinary school, so he accepted a job offer in Puerto Rico where he entertained customers as a teppanyaki chef. 

The work he put in secured him a position at the Ritz Carlton in San Juan, ultimately funding his education at the Culinary Institute of America where he graduated in 2002. 

In 2007 Huynh was named the winner of Top Chef season 3 after auditioning at an open casting. Up until 2020 he joined forces with Earl Enterprises to help establish Asian Fusion Concepts. 

Achieving Top Chef glory was just the beginning of these chef’s stories and they have continued to triumph, representing the Asian American community in the tastiest way possible.