A new cooking competition airing on primetime television starting Wednesday features a contestant who has spent the last several years turning heads in Denver with his refined Mexican cuisine.
Michael Diaz de Leon, currently chef at taqueria Molino Chido in Aurora’s Stanley Marketplace, is one of 16 participants in “America’s Culinary Cup.” The show premieres on CBS at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday with an extended episode introducing the contestants who are vying for a $1 million cash prize.
This is De Leon’s first experience on television, he said in a phone interview Tuesday, calling from New York City where he was promoting the show. In 2022, he had auditioned for “Top Chef,” the long-running reality series on Bravo previously hosted by Padma Lakshmi, but was not selected.
“I was pretty sour about it,” de Leon said, thinking his TV career had fizzled before it even started.
So he hunkered down in the kitchen at BRUTO, the gourmet small-plates restaurant where he worked at the time. The following year, he was a James Beard finalist and BRUTO received a star in the inaugural Michelin Guide in Colorado.
Around the same time that De Leon signed a lease with restaurant operator Tommy Lee for the Molino Chido property in the spring, he got a call from the producers of “America’s Culinary Cup” asking if he wanted to participate in the series, he said. Lakshmi, whose company was putting on the production, would be the host, and the grand prize was the largest for a food competition in television history, the producers told him.
They got his attention. De Leon and the other competing chefs met with Lakshmi and the show’s judges in September, filming the show from New York City studios.
“It was harder than I expected it to be, to be fair,” De Leon, 37, said, keeping mum on the show details. “It pushed me, made me grow and I found out a lot about myself as a chef and person.”
The premise of each episode revolves around the chefs’ approach to one of “10 culinary commandments,” including meat, vegetables, sauces, sustainability, consistency and culinary science. It also includes segments focused on the backgrounds of the chefs.
Also among the contestants is Malyna Si, a chef and food and beverage consultant in Jackson, Wyo. Her previous experience includes leading the kitchen at Capa, a Michelin-starred restaurant at the Four Seasons Resort Orlando in Florida.
