Wolfgang Puck to Join Bravo’s 'Top Chef: Seattle'

Wolfgang Puck will be joining Bravo’s Top Chef: Seattle, as a judge for the series’ 10th season. The celebrity chef will be joining returning judges Tom Colicchio, Gail Simmons, Hugh Acheson and Emeril Lagasse, as well as host Padma LAKSHMI. 

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The 62 year-old chef’s $400-plus million empire, including 20 fine dining establishments and 80 fast-causal restaurants, makes him a big get for the Bravo favorite. The show -- this season’s cycle is Top Chef: Seatle --   premieres November. 7. This is not Puck’s first stab at TV as he was a guest judge on Top Chef season six and competed on an episode of Iron Chef in 2004 and won.

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Puck has been the go-to caterer for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ Governor’s Ball, the exclusive post Oscar bash, for 28 straight years where this year he introduced an Austrian chocolate cake that required the use of 3-D glasses to see an Oscar statue topper.

The “celebri-chef” is famous for opening the pioneering California-focused restaurant Spago in 1982, whose L.A. location has just been revamped by renowned interior designer Waldo Fernandez and which is having a soft opening this week, and launched a namesake restaurant last November at the Hotel Bel-Air.

Puck will help select, out of the 22 competing contestants, who will receive $125,000, a feature in Food & Wine magazine, a showcase at the Annual Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. You can catch Puck at the judges table Nov. 7 at10 PM ET/PT on Bravo.