Bravo will premiere Season 11 of “Top Chef” on Wednesday, October 2, at 10:00 p.m. ET, with this season taking place in the foodie city of New Orleans.

“Top Chef” and its spin-off “Top Chef Masters,” airing now – have been innovators in integrating brands with both the television series and its digital companions, such as “Top Chef’s” Emmy-nominated Last Chance Kitchen, sponsored by Toyota, and “Top Chef Masters’” Battle of the Sous Chefs, sponsored by Lexus.

This season, “Top Chef” will also include the new pre-premiere digital video series, “Padma’s Picks,” which will be sponsored by Cigna Health Insurance. In that web series, which launches Wednesday, August 14, “Top Chef” Host Padma Lakshmi will tour New Orleans’ finest eating establishments – and there are many – to find 10 of the city’s best and brightest and give them a chance to cook their way on to the show.

Those chefs will then battle head-to-head to make it to the “Cigna GO YOU Challenge,” with the ultimate winner earning a spot in this season’s cast.

This season’s cast will be revealed each day this week, starting with six contestants from the Northeast, through Wednesday with the launch of Padma’s Picks.

In “Top Chef,” “chef’testants” fight for $125,000 furnished by Healthy Choice, a feature in “Food & Wine” magazine, a showcase at the annual “Food & Wine” Classic in Aspen, Colo., and, of course, the title of Top Chef.

Brief Take: “Top Chef” has long been masterful at blending integrated branding with riveting reality TV, and now they are successfully extending those brands to Bravo’s digital platforms. “Top Chef” and “Top Chef Masters” are one of the few shows that manage to drive fans from the TV show to the web and back again.

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