Kristen Kish Shares Advice for Startups at Summer Show

Kristen Kish, host of Top Chef, offered words of wisdom for emerging brands during the Summer Fancy Food Show, Monday.

“Professionally speaking there are so many things I could share, but before you get to that spot it starts with the personal things you need to work on,” she said. “In order for me to be good at my job, I first had to be okay with me. As soon as I started being me and came out and living my life truly and truly being me and feeling good about it, my professional life took off.”

Kish won the tenth season of Bravo's Top Chef in 2012 and currently hosts the series. She is also the host of 36 Hours on Travel Channel, a co-host of Fast Foodies on TruTV, a co-host of Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend, and host of National Geographic’s Restaurants at the End of the World.

She said that with her success has come the ability to travel.

“I travel with my stomach and I let my stomach lead the way,” she said. “If you’re an adoptee [like me] you know what it means to be chosen into a family and chosen by any family and wanting to travel [means imagining a life] that possibly could’ve been my own.”

Kish was born in South Korea and was adopted by a family in Kentwood, Michigan, at the age of four months.

She said that she doesn’t like trends since the personality and uniqueness of a dish can be lost once everyone is doing the same thing.

“The opposite of trends is when you see an individual story and a stamp on somebody that is different,” she said. “You just have to tap into you and that will be inherently different. Exceptional food comes with a story.”