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Bravo broadcast the finals of Top Chef’s 18th season on Thursday evening, with Austin chef Gabe Erales crowning the winner and Texas chef Dawn Burrell from Houston and Shota Nakajima from Seattle finishing second. However, Erales’s win was quickly overshadowed as speculation began to circulate on social media about his recent firing from Comedor, a Mexican restaurant in Austin.
Erales was fired from his position as Head Chef for Comedor in December 2020, two months after filming for Top Chef was completed. The restaurant’s partner and chef de cuisine, Philip Speer, announced his resignation in vague but serious terms, saying Erales had been fired for “repeated violations of our policies and behavior that contradicts our values.”
Originally from El Paso, Erales is the first Mexican-American chef to win the Bravo competition series. Before Comedor, he opened the Taqueria of the butcher / restaurant Dai Due (now closed) under Jesse Griffiths. Previously, he also worked at the famous Noma in Copenhagen and Mexico City, as well as the Fonda San Miguel, La Condesa and Geraldine’s restaurants in Austin. It has been announced that Erales will be participating in this latest season of Top Chef in February 2021.
Under the direction of Erales and Speer, Comedor has become a critical favorite in the Austin food scene since opening in 2019 as a result of its focus on exquisite modern Mexican dishes and its attention to the nixtamalization of corn for tortillas and other dishes. The restaurant was named one of Esquire’s Best New Restaurants and Texas Monthly Best New Restaurant of 2020. Through Comedor, Speer is a vocal advocate of the well-being and mental health of service staff. He runs a popular running club for service workers to relax and connect with others. The restaurant also hosts the Austin meetings of Ben’s Friends, a national support group for service workers recovering from drug use.
Top boss Reddit boards and other anonymous online forums, meanwhile, paint a less rosy picture of Erales’s rumored behavior at Comedor. Although no one officially made specific allegations, people took to Twitter Thursday night to express their concern and dismay that Erales won. On the Friday morning after the episode aired, Statesman reported that Erales “agreed to have a consensual sexual relationship with an employee” in the summer of 2020. their working hours “according to their performance”, but “continues to communicate”[e] with her in an unprofessional way. ”He compared his actions to reprimand the employee as“ bad decisions ”that are“ discriminatory ”.
Top chief presenter Padma Lakshmi tweeted the comments on Erales on social media last night and wrote: “As someone who has been sexually harassed, this topic is a serious topic and deserves openness.” Claiming the show was unaware of the allegations against Erales, she calls on the show’s Bravo network to investigate what happened. She also noted that no sexual harassment allegations were recorded during the filming.
As someone who has been sexually harassed, this issue is serious and deserves openness.
We filmed Top Chef last October and were unaware of the allegations that are now surfacing about Gabe.
This should be investigated and the network should consider its best action.
– Padma Lakshmi (@PadmaLakshmi) July 2, 2021
To be clear, no one has accused Bravo / Top Chef of sexual harassment, and we judges had no evidence of inappropriate behavior by Gabe during his time on the set.
– Padma Lakshmi (@PadmaLakshmi) July 2, 2021
While Lakshmi says no one knew about Erales’ mistreatment of a staff member, some information was provided prior to the final broadcast. Last month, Speer told Statesman that Erales was fired specifically for “molesting women.” Erales declined to comment on anything beyond the Statesman piece with Eater. Eater has asked Speer for further comments and information.
An anonymous source from Top Chef told Statesman that the series never thought of re-shooting the season because “scrapping the entire season over against the other 14 chef candidates and a production team that endured the challenges of the pandemic, to produce the show wouldn’t be fair “. . ”Eater has also reached out to Bravo and Top Chefs production company Magical Elves to ask if an investigation will be conducted and, depending on the outcome, Erales may have his Top Chef win revoked. Again, no official allegations were made.
When Top Chef aired that season, Erales announced that he would be opening his own Mexican restaurant in partnership with Austin in the fall of 2022 Urban real estate and interiors. Bacalar will focus on regional dishes inspired by the Mexican state of Yucatan, which is where his family comes from. The upcoming restaurant is planned for the future 44 East Ave Residences residential complex in downtown Rainey.
The only other time a Texan chef won Top Chef was in 2012, when Austin chef Paul Qui, who was cooking at the Uchiko Japanese restaurant at the time, was named the winner. He opened several restaurants in 2013, including his namesake Qui. Qui was arrested in 2016 for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend and then several restaurants in Austin and Houston (including Qui) closed and opened. These criminal charges were discontinued in 2018.
Update, 12:27 p.m .: This article, originally published at 11:23 a.m., has been updated to reflect that Erales declined to comment directly to Eater beyond what he shared with Statesman.
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