It may be just the beginning for Top Chef Boston – but as viewers, we can tell you that thing’s are already heating up. If you didn’t tune in last night, here’s what you missed from the hit Bravo TV show:

Meet the notable chefs (so far):

Stacy Cogswell: “I’m a hometown girl, I’m here to win this for Boston.” With these words, our own Stacy Cogswell (executive chef at Reagle Beagle) emerged on Top Chef as a savvy contender and local favorite.

Doug Adams: Chef de Cuisine of Imperial and Portland Penny Diner in Portland, OR. Confesses to having a Napoleon complex (did I hear that correctly?). He’s originally from Texas.

Keriann Von Raesfeld: She’s executive chef and owner at Exposed Gastronomy in San Jose, CA.  She apparently won something called “World’s Greatest Young Chef.” Congratulations, we kiiinda hate you.

Joy Crump: Crump is chef and co-owner of a “small farm-to-table restaurant” called Foode in Fredericksburg, VA. She humbly admits to being “wildly under-qualified” even though her cooking quickly disqualifies that statement.

Gregory Gourdet: Executive chef of Departure Restaurant + Lounge in Portland, OR. He’s worked as sous chef at Jean-Georges but apparently, doesn’t know a thing about cutting mackerel.

Mei Lin: Sous Chef at ink, Chef Michael Voltaggio’s signature restaurant in Los Angeles. Legit.

George Pagonis: Executive chef and partner at Kapnos in Washington, DC. Notable because he’s also business partners with Top Chef alum Mike Isabella. We’re sorry that you will forever live in the shadow of Mike Isabella.

Adam Harvey: Skinny jean-wearing private chef from New York who used to work at Jean-Georges. He’ll tell you all about it.

Katsuji Tanabe: Chef and owner of Mexikosher Restaurant in Los Angeles. He’s Japanese/Mexican and owns a kosher restaurant. The food he cooks is as complicated as that last sentence.

There are other cheftestants, but we’ll leave at it that for now.

Sudden Death Quickfire

The season begins with a shellfish-centered sudden death quickfire. The chefs have 20 minutes to shuck, crack and (in Katsuji’s case) clang/bang local New England ingredients as fast as they can in teams of four. Kerriann and Adam fight over who can crack lobster (with their bare hands) the fastest. Kerriann eventually allows Adam to do the lobster cracking. The only problem is: He sucks at it. Meanwhile, Gregory and George fight it out for the mackerel.

Loser of the sudden death quickfire: George Pagonis

George then chooses to compete against Gregory – one-on-one – in another elimination challenge. George loses again, packs his knives and heads back to the arms of Mike Isabella.

Elimination Challenge

Now it’s on. The cheftestants are told they’ll be hosting the first-ever Top Chef Food Festival at the Museum of Science.  Each chef must prepare an updated dish of the first meal that they remember cooking.

Two words: Fried chicken

Everyone is cooking fried chicken. Okay, really it’s only like two or three chefs with a nostalgic fried chicken sob story. But it seems like more.

We should also mention that quite a few local celebrity chefs are present at this festival. There are appearances by (a seemingly sober) Todd English, Barbara Lynch, Ming Tsai, and Michael Schlow, among others.

The judges, Padma Lakshmi, Gail Simmons, Tom Colicchio and Richard Blaise, all taste the dishes. Padma dramatically spits out one of the cheftestants (Aaron Grissom’s) pork belly dish, stating that she can count on ONE hand the number of times she’s had to spit something out during a challenge.

She adds, “I’d love to see you clean up not only your act a little bit, but your station.” Tough love – we like it.

When all is said and done the top three cheftestants are: Mei, Gregory and Doug.

Winner of first elimination challenge: Mei

Loser: Michael Patlazhan – It was over before it really even began for Michael Patlazhan. The private chef prepared a corn soup with fish eggs on Top Chef. The judges couldn’t stop talking about how nasty it was. In the end, he blamed everyone but himself (read: sore loser) for his fishy dish, including Tom Colicchio.

To find out more about the chef competitors and to see clips from last night’s episode, go to Bravotv.com.