Top Chef Texas To Debut 11/2: Uchiko + 24 Chefs Are Contestants

The buzz has been around all summer about the filming of Top Chef: Texas, the multi-city ninth season of the hit chef competition. The show announced today that the season premiere will be shown on Wednesday, November 2nd - and also listed the 29-chef field of participants...who will be trimmed to a group of 16 during the first couple of episodes.

Here's what we know: both Uchiko's Paul Qui (who also co-owns the East Side King food trucks) and 24 Diner's Drew Curren (a CIA graduate) were among the 29 audition tapes posted today. Spoiler alert: pictures posted by food nerds from Whole Foods shopping trips seem to confirm that Paul Qui did make the initial 16-chef cut...but we have no idea whether Chef Curren did. We'll know in a few weeks!

The competition takes place in three cities: San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. For those wondering why San Antonio got the nod over Houston, the presence of the newest CIA campus in the Pearl Brewing complex may well be the reason - it's a huge, state-of-the-art facility, so it may simply have been the most logical place to hold the competition. The chefs did do an Austin stop, but it didn't seem to be lengthy - during a long weekend this summer, judge Padma Lakshmi was spotted at La Condesa, while Top Chef Master Hugh Acheson stopped by Uchiko and Tom Colicchio and Emeril "Bam" Lagasse toured East 6th spots like East Side King and East Side Show Room.