Secret Chef cast: Who’s in the new Hulu cooking competition

Television lovers are blessed with a glut of cooking shows both on regular cable and streaming platforms. Once such new one is Secret Chef which premiere June 29 on Hulu. Seemingly every new cooking show needs to have a twist, something that will set it apart from the others in a unique and interesting way; Secret Chef has that in spades.

The ten participants in the show all have varying degrees of skill in the kitchen – some are professional chefs, some cook strictly at home, some are online influencers, so on and so forth. BUT, no one in the competition is aware of anyone else’s skill set – they are squared away in discreet, isolated kitchens so that anonymity can be maintained amongst the cast, and they all judge each other’s dishes blind, deciding whose is the best and who goes home based on presentation and flavor of the dish alone.

Who is behind Secret Chef?

American restauranteur David Chang serves as both executive producer of the Hulu original and appears on camera. He is a world-renowned chef himself, having trained at the International Culinary Center in NYC. He has opened a multitude of well received restaurants around the world, from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia, so you can thank his love for cooking for firing up his passion to create the show.

Chang clearly wants to make a new kind of cooking series, where the audience can see the chefs doing things they can’t regularly see on other competitions. As he stated in an interview with Mashed, “The food is not secondary per se, but it’s not as primary as people might expect us to do…we wanted to get a bunch of fun, interesting people from all walks of life with differing skill sets, and it was important that somebody that may not be super skillful could still win this game.”

Secret Chef cast

Alexa Santos of Fort Lauderdale, FL – According to Hulu’s biography of Alexa, she’s a “lifelong” foodie and moved to New York City to pursue a career in food media. She worked as a food editor at an online food publication until her personal account @alexawhatsfordinner took off and she could strike out on her own.

Anthony Bar of Los Angeles, CA – Executive chef Anthony is an “enterprising and highly-trained culinary professional” with more than a decade of cooking under his belt.

Sydney Buck, Queens, NY – Private chef Sydney is self taught and focuses on the sustainability of the food she uses in her work.

Stephenie Simmons, Seattle, WA – A private chef and caterer, Stephenie previously worked in social services and public education. During the pandemic, she shifted her focus to cooking and made it her new career.

Anthony Langston, Denton, TX – Anthony is a home cook and culinary director of a cheese shop in his hometown of Denton.

Danielle Harris, Washington, D.C. – Starting as a sous chef in her teens, Danielle worked in highly respected restaurants through college and now owns her own sandwich shop.

Poonam Ribadia, Brooklyn, NY – Poonan is a curriculum development manager at an EdTech company. Her family’s roots in India helped cultivate a love of cooking.

Leon Brunson, Tallahassee, FL – Leon is a private chef and owns a restaurant in Tallahassee. He was previously a competitor om T-Pain’s LG Homestyle Challenge on the streaming platform Twitch.

Joshua Walbolt, Union, NJ – Joshua is a private chef who attended the Culinary Institute of America in NYC and dropped out after 8 months. He has a passion for Southeast Asian cuisine.

Jazmin Tyler, Santa Monica, CA – Jazmin is a self-trained home cook with a huge following online. She loves the outdoors, camping and surfing.

With the differing experience levels amongst the cast, it’s going to be very interesting to see who is a true competitor. And since no other cast member will know who has cooked what dish, the personal dynamics between the chefs will perhaps be the most interesting part of the show. We hope it will be a tasty addition to all of the other cooking competitions out there.

All episodes of Secret Chef are streaming on Hulu.