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| Photo - Food Network |
Coquette is a part of the Urban Food Group, which has five restaurants in the North Carolina area. All five of the restaurants have chefs listed on the Urban Food Group website. An article from newsobserver.com said the Urban Food Group is also considering opening another restaurant in Tampa, Florida.
- Pippa Calland - who has been on Chopped and won and also on Chef Race U.K. vs. U.S. on BBC
- Michael Pedranti
- Michael Bryant - who worked at Mirabelle, which was also on Chef Wanted earlier this year. Michael was actually replaced by the winner Drew Ison at Mirabelle
- Mark Allen Catrambone
Also from that newsobserver article, it states, "The winner has been offered a job with Urban Food Group, though it wouldn’t likely be at Coquette, which already has an executive chef."
So it looks like although they shot the episode at Coquette, it doesn't seem like they actually needed a chef for that restaurant. I will update this with who won and if they are still there after the episode airs.
The chef who ended up winning this episode was Michael Bryant after Pippa Calland's disastrous service which was cut short.
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| Photo - LinkedIn |
From the Food Network update, it said that Michael has been unable to relocate to Raleigh, North Carolina since the show, but they are still trying to figure something out. The update was pretty much an advertisement for the restaurant by the owners, and Michael was nowhere to be seen. This one seems fishy.
UPDATE 4/17/2013 - Michael Bryant was actually on a new episode of Chopped last night. He survived to the dessert round, but was chopped at the end of the show.