The Studio 89 teams know how to take care of their effects.
A few days before filming, this fall, we learned that two new chefs were joining the jury already made up of Hélène Darroze, Philippe Etchebest, Paul Pairet and Glenn Viel.
They are Dominique Crenn, the only three-starred woman in the United States, and Stéphanie Le Quellec, winner of season 2 and at the head of her two-starred restaurant in Paris.
That’s five new Michelin macaroons, bringing the number of jurors to six and the number of stars they hold overall to 19…
This Monday, February 5, the production and the channel reserved a new surprise for the observers gathered during the press conference to present this season 15 at the Georges V hotel in Paris.
A big surprise with the announcement of the entry into the competition of a gastronomy giant: Pierre Gagnaire.
A regular guest on the show, the man who currently has 13 Michelin stars will be the chef's surprise this season.
A surprise for everyone, the members of the jury and the candidates.
“When we saw that it was Pierre, we laughed less”
The hidden brigade that Hélène Darroze inaugurated last season is his.
Pierre Gagnaire will therefore lead, in parallel with the main competition, the secret competition in which those eliminated will compete one after the other in the greatest discretion.
There will only have to be one left who will make his return at some point in the competition alongside Pierre Gagnaire, to everyone's great surprise.
Surprise for the chef, this year the very starred Pierre Gagnaire led the famous hidden brigade of “Top Chef”.
“We suspected that something was up, but when we saw that it was Pierre, we laughed less,” said Hélène Darroze this Monday.
Throughout the filming, the secret had been so well kept!
“It was a real vaudeville,” laughed Stéphane Rotenberg, the historic host of the program, “with closed and slamming doors.
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As for the main competition, the question was how the mechanics would work out with six chefs now on the starting jury.
There will be two brigades initially, the orange and the gray.
And it will be the girls facing the boys, the chefs on one side and the chefs on the other.
This is also how they sat down during the press conference… “Ah well done, the girls on one side and the boys on the other, great example!
» exclaimed Dominique Crenn when the six members of the jury sat down at the start of the presentation.
A tasty complicity between chefs Etchebest, Pairet and Viel
“You settled in before,” underlined Philippe Etchebest in return.
It wasn't planned that way, it was done more out of affinity, the production tells us.
Last year, when Hélène Darroze put herself out of competition - which they believed at the time - the three chefs, Philippe Etchebest, Paul Pairet and Glenn Viel, got along well, developing a complicity tasty that had to be preserved.
The operation in two brigades will last until there are only six candidates left in the running out of the starting fifteen.
Everyone has their own brigade, then, for the final stretch before the final, with brigades which will then take the name of their leader.
On the menu of new features, moreover, the black box event is being relocated for the first time and is being installed under the dome of the large stables of Chantilly (Oise), the “Who can beat?”
» will be double, with, on one side, a team formed by Dominique Crenn and Stéphanie Le Quellec and on the other that of Paul Pairet and Glenn Viel, on the other... During the restaurant war, the candidates will have to cook for their families", the trompe-l'oeil becomes a trompe-palace, a test will take place on a train, and not just any train, on the Orient-Express, while the fifteen years of the program will be celebrated during a big gala bringing together fifty former candidates from the show.