Rick Bayless Wins Top Chef Masters

Rick Bayless won on the finale of Top Chef Masters Wednesday night, relying once again on his expertise in regional Mexican cuisine to come out on top in the Bravo TV cooking show.

Rick Bayless is chef and part owner of the Frontera Grill and Topolobampo in Chicago. He used his expertise in regional Mexican cooking to beat out his competitors on the show who specialized in such classic cuisines as French and Italian.

Top Chef Masters is a spinoff of the acclaimed Top Chef which shows chefs compete against each other with judges determining who moves on to the next round based on grading their dishes. Rick Bayless remained cool and confident throughout the series, creating such Mexican influenced staples as guacamole and unusual dishes like beef tongue tacos.

Rick Bayless prize money of $100,000 will be donated to a charity he helped found, the Frontera Farmer Foundation, which supports small Midwestern specialty food farms that are considered to be “sustainable.”