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

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

,'' 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 contained within Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, New York (state), New York, on Long Island, which covers a peninsula on the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore and includes nine incorporated villages, among th ...

. His parents were both immigrants: his father from

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

, Scotland, and his mother from

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. Both his parents were from

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

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 The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) is a private culinary school with its main campus in Hyde Park, New York, and branch campuses in St. Helena and Napa, California; San Antonio, Texas; and Singapore. The college, which was the first to ...

(CIA).

Career

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

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. He had a rivalry with Marcel Vigneron 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 restauran
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 Places * Grand, Oklahoma, USA * Grand, Vosges, village and commune in France with Gallo-Roman amphitheatre * Grand County (disambiguation) ...

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 are armed with a knife.MacYoung, Marc, ''Winning A Street Knife Fight'', (Digital format, 70 min.), Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, ( ...

'', 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. Launched on October 1, 1998 as Style Network, a spin-off of E!, the channel initially consisted of fashion, d ...

for four seasons. The show ended in 2017 when

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and Trade name, doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media and Show business, entertainment conglomerate (comp ...

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 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 American restaurateurs Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American Jews Chefs from Los Angeles