Ilan D. Hall is an American chef, television personality, and restaurateur. He won second season of ''

Top Chef ''Top Chef'' is an American reality competition television series which premiered on Bravo on March 8, 2006. The show features chefs competing against each other in culinary challenges. The contestants are judged by a panel of professional che ...

,'' and is owner-chef of Ramen Hood in Los Angeles.

Early life and education

Hall is a native of

Great Neck, New York Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kings Point, and Russell Gardens, and a number of unincorpo ...

. His parents were both immigrants: his father from

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

, Scotland, and his mother from

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. Both his parents were from Jewish families. As a teenager, Hall worked at Marine Fishery, a seafood store in his hometown of Great Neck and was later trained at Italy's Lorenzo de' Medici Apicus Program, and at the

Culinary Institute of America Culinary arts are the cuisine arts of food preparation, cooking and presentation of food, usually in the form of meals. People working in this field – especially in establishments such as restaurants – are commonly called chefs or ...

(CIA).

Career

In 2007, Hall won season two of ''Top Chef'', second season. Ilan was a line cook at Casa Mono, a Spanish restaurant in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. He had a rivalry with

Marcel Vigneron Marcel Vigneron is an American celebrity chef best known for his award-winning restaurant and catering company, Wolf, in Los Angeles. Marcel was also the runner-up of the second season of ''Top Chef'', which aired in 2006–2007. In 2011, he ha ...

during the show, with whom he attended culinary school simultaneously. Bravo ranked "The Head Shaving Incident" involving Hall and Vigneron as "probably the biggest scandal in Top Chef history." In August 2009, he opened his first restaurant, ''The Gorbals'', in downtown Los Angeles. Less than a week after opening, The county health department shut down the Gorbals because of an inadequate water heater. It reopened on October 23, 2009, but then permanently closed in 2014. In 2014, Hall opened a second iteration of The Gorbals restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He redesigned the menu with an Israeli Barbecue concept in 2015 and renamed the restaurant ''ESH'', the Hebrew word for fire. ESH closed in September 2016. Hall opened Ramen Hood in Los Angeles at

Grand Central Market Grand may refer to: People with the name * Grand (surname) * Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor * Grand Mixer DXT, American turntablist * Grand Puba (born 1966), American rapper Places * Grand, Oklahoma * Grand, Vosges, village and comm ...

in 2015. Hall hosted ''

Knife Fight A knife fight is a violent physical confrontation between two or more combatants in which one or more participants is armed with a knife.MacYoung, Marc, ''Winning A Street Knife Fight'', (Digital format, 70 min.), Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, (J ...

'', a cooking competition show on the

Esquire Network Esquire Network was an American pay television network that was a 50/50 joint venture between NBCUniversal and the Hearst Corporation. The network carried programs aimed at a metrosexual audience centering on travel, cooking, sports and fashion ...

for four seasons. The show ended in 2017 when

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primar ...

announced it was shutting down the Esquire Network cable channel.

References

External links

Bio at the Top Chef websiteBravo’s New Top Chef Tells All
Review at the

Food & Wine ''Food & Wine'' is an American monthly magazine published by Dotdash Meredith. It was founded in 1978 by Ariane and Michael Batterberry. It features recipes, cooking tips, travel information, restaurant reviews, chefs, wine pairings and sea ...

website
Ilan Hall beats Marcel Vigneron to become 'Top Chef 2' champion
Article at Realitytvworld.com
Great Neck to Great Chef?
Article at Newsday.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Ilan Top Chef winners Living people American male chefs American chefs Chefs from New York (state) American people of Scottish-Jewish descent American people of Israeli descent Culinary Institute of America alumni People from Great Neck, New York Jewish American chefs Chefs from California American restaurateurs Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American Jews Chefs from Los Angeles