pastry chefs

On last night's installment of Top Chef: Washington DC, award-winning pastry whiz Johnny Iuzzini judged the pie quickfire — and revealed he'll be head judge on the forthcoming Top Chef: Just Desserts.

Joining Iuzzini and Gail Simmons, the host of the new series, will be Hubert Keller (a runner-up on Top Chef Masters) and DailyCandy editor-at-large Dannielle Kyrillos.

I'm surprised with the lineup of judges yet, at the same time, not surprised at all. It remains to be seen what kind of insight they'll lend to the evaluation process. What do you think of the announcement? And what are your thoughts on last night's Top Chef 7 episode?

Photo courtesy of Bravo

A couple of months ago, Bravo announced yet another Top Chef spinoff: Top Chef: Just Desserts. The culinary competition, which has already held casting calls, will be a Top Chef-style show that features pastry chefs. Yesterday the network released the news that Food & Wine's Gail Simmons, a recurring judge on the regular Top Chef, will host Just Desserts. Via her Twitter account, Simmons confirmed, stating, "upping daily sugar consumption in preparation." I'm a huge Gail fan and am already looking forward to the premiere of Just Desserts. How about you? Are you excited to learn that Gail Simmons has her own show?