Seattle Magazine
Seattle chefs finally get their chance to shine on a national (reality show) stage when Top Chef Season 6 debuts August 26th. Those two chefs? Ashley Merriman, a rising-star chef praised for her finessed cooking . Before heading the kitchen at Branzino, Merriman worked with Maria Hines at Tilth, and at Butter in NYC prior to that. Robin Leventhal, whose refined comfort food at Crave (which closed last October) kept Capitol Hill’s brunch crowd sated for years. Leventhal, a cancer survivor, is self-taught; in fact, she holds an MFA from the University of Michigan and was an artist before she caught the cooking bug.