Who

Colicchio is the founder of the Craft restaurant empire, and the voice of reason on Bravo's Top Chef.

Backstory

Jersey-born Colicchio was raised in Elizabeth by a mom who managed a high school cafeteria and a corrections officer dad. As a teenager, he taught himself to cook using Jacques Pepin's French cooking manual La Technique (he says his father brought the book home from the jail library); he landed his first restaurant gig at age 17, at Evelyn's Seafood Restaurant in Elizabeth. After a stint as the night chef at the Secaucus Hilton and the upscale Jersey eatery 40 Main, Colicchio took a position at Alfred Portale's Gotham Bar & Grill. He only lasted a week: When Barry Wine of Quilted Giraffe offered him a job, Colicchio jumped ship. A three-month detour to France and a gig at Rakel (where he worked under Thomas Keller) followed, before Colicchio earned his first executive chef position at the Midtown spot Mondrian at the age of 26. The restaurant thrived for a spell—Colicchio's work won him a spot on Food & Wine's "Best New Chefs" list in 1991—but ultimately closed its doors after financial difficulties.

Colicchio's fortunes changed in 1994 when he teamed up with Danny Meyer to open the Gramercy Tavern, which quickly became a New York institution. While nominally remaining in charge of Gramercy, Colicchio struck out on his own and in 2001 opened Craft, a reverent if gimmicky homage to seasonal cooking; foodies flooded the spot and in 2002 Colicchio unveiled the first of many sequels, Craftbar.

Of note

Colicchio has his hands full these days with his rapidly proliferating Craft empire. Following the success of Craft and Craftbar, he opened Craftsteak at the MGM Grand in 2002, later importing the concept back to New York. His original Craft has since spouted iterations in Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta; there's also 'wichcraft, the upscale sandwich chain Colicchio launched in 2003, which now has eight locations scattered across New York, Las Vegas, and San Francisco.

The engine propelling much of this expansion, of course, is the notoriety that comes from serving as head judge on Bravo's exceedingly popular Top Chef, where Colicchio can be found sitting alongside the permanently dazed Padma Lakshmi. Over the past four seasons, Colicchio has turned himself into an unlikely cable star, perfecting the art of calmly—but firmly—explaining to contestants that their cooking tastes like dog food.

In print

Colicchio has released two cookbooks, the first of which was 2000's Think Like a Chef, which covered the culinary basics. In 2003, he published Craft of Cooking and he'll soon be releasing a sandwich-focused cookbook inspired by 'wichcraft.

Namedrop

Colicchio is no longer affiliated with Gramercy Tavern—he severed his ties with the restaurant in 2006—but the kitchen he piloted served as the incubator for a long line of dining world hotshots: Per Se's Jonathan Benno, Nick Mautone, Akhtar Nawab, Marco Conora of Hearth and Insieme, and pastry chef Claudia Fleming.

Personal

The teddy bear-ish Colicchio met his current wife, Lori Silverbush, in 1994 when she was waitressing at Gramercy Tavern. He proposed when they were waiting in line for pastrami sandwiches at the Second Avenue Deli. The couple married in 2001, on a sheep farm on Martha's Vineyard. Colicchio has a son, Dante, from a previous marriage. He and Silverbush live at 95 Horatio and have a summer home in Mattituck, NY.