If you tuned into the premiere of Top Chef season 23 last night, you caught two DC-area chefs vying for the title in North Carolina. Anthony Jones, hailing from Sunderland, Maryland, is the executive chef of Marcus DC, the new Union Market restaurant from celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson (winner of Top Chef Masters). Meanwhile, Sterling native Jonathan Dearden is corporate chef of Knead Hospitality + Design, whose restaurants include Mi Vida, Succotash, and others. Dearden is also set to rival his twin brother and fellow contestant Brandon Dearden in what he says will be a “sibling rivalry on steroids.” We chatted with both of them about preparing for the show, keeping the filming a secret, and what’s next. Jonathan Dearden competed on Top Chef with his identical brother. Photograph by Paul Cheney/BRAVO. Welcome to Top Chef! Why did you want to be on the show? Dearden: What made me apply was 100 percent [my brother] Brandon. He’s like, ‘Hey, you want to do this?’ And I’m like, ‘Absolutely, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.’ It just felt right. We’ve both been busy separately in our careers, and if you’d asked me five years ago, I probably would have said no, just because I was focusing on building my career. Once I got to a point where I’m at a corporate level, my schedule is a little bit more flexible, so I kind of wanted to prove myself. Jones: I’ve been watching Top Chef since season 1, when Harold [Dieterle] won. It’s always been something that I watched, especially when I went to culinary school. It was a nice challenge for me. It’s a very serious competition. It’s nothing that we normally handle on a regular basis. There are elements of course that correlate with regular restaurant life, but Top Chef takes it even further. Chefs Anthony Jones and Jonathan Dearden. Photograph by Sasha Israel/BRAVO. Why do you think you were picked to be on the show? Dearden: If I had to guess or speculate, I would say that because Brandon has such a big social presence, and there is another person just like him that is also a chef. It’s been a long time since the Voltaggio brothers were on, so it’s a nice reference point of like, oh wait, this has happened before, but wait, these two are actually identical. There’s not a single person in the world that I’m nervous competing against, with the exception of my brother, because he knows me better than anybody else. I know his weaknesses. He knows my strengths. I know his strengths. So it’s gonna be a good time. Jones: I think my skill set, my personality, and all that helps a good part of being selected to compete for season 23. I have a little bit of history with the Carolinas as well. I went to Johnson Wales University in 2009, graduated in 2011, 2012 I think. The Charlotte I [experienced] the first time around was completely different than what I got to witness competing for Top Chef. It’s good to see growth of course in the city, but the nightlife I got [used] to while I was there for college, is a little bit different now that I’m older. Did you get any advice from former contestants? Dearden: One of the knowledge nuggets that chef Edward Lee dropped on me that really, really helped me out [was to] just remember to have fun. Even in a regular kitchen environment, I still make sure we’re all having fun because at the end of the day it’s just food, and happy chefs cook happy food. They give you a notebook where you can write all your recipes that you memorized, but I wrote in there, ‘Just have fun. Cook the best food you possibly can cook.’ Jones: The main advice I was able to receive from other contestants was: make sure you stay true to yourself, have fun, enjoy it. And the best piece of advice was to always have a backup plan, because you never know what’s going to happen. In a competition such as this, you need to have an open mindset and be able to pivot when need be. I naturally know a few of the Top Chef contestants, such as Jeremy Ford, Gregory Gourdet, Damarr Brown, Tristen Epps, and Nina Compton. It was good to pick their brains about what life is like before, during, and after the competition. Did you have any lucky charms? Dearden: I specifically brought pictures of my family.  I’ve been through tough stuff, but I knew being away from my family would be probably the hardest thing that I’ve ever done in my life. To make it very fair in the competition, you don’t have access to a cell phone, and you have a lot of alone time. I had like five or six pictures of my kids and my wife. At the end of the day, my goal is to do this for them. Of course, I want to kick my brother’s ass, but that’s my brother, right? But what motivated me more was to have my kids say, Oh my gosh, this is so cool, look what my dad did.’ Jones: Before I left, my teacher gave me a golden charm, it’s a horn, I think, that made it over the waters with her family, like a family heirloom. I was able to keep it in my pocket for most of the competition. She was one of my culinary instructors in high school back in Calvert County. How did you prepare for this season? Dearden: I’m going to be completely honest with you, there’s nothing you can do to prepare yourself for what they have in store for you. For example, if I have a wedding for 150 people—I’ve done this plenty of times in my career—I know that preparation needs to be done starting out five days in advance, getting all my things that I can done prior to the wedding day. Top Chef is a different world. So truly the true best way to prepare is what you do on a daily basis in your normal life. Jones: I don’t think there’s much preparation you can honestly do for a show like Top Chef. The challenges are almost always different, there’s no way to really know what’s going on. Once you know where the city is located, you want to learn as much as you can about the city, about that scene. If anything, the quickest way for a chef to fall is during the dessert, so we all had something in our back pocket. But it would be like trying to prepare for a million different options. Contestants have to be tight-lipped about their whereabouts during filming. Where did you tell people you were going? Dearden: I told only close friends, family, and Jason [Berry] and Michael [Reginbogin], [owners of] Knead Hospitality + Design. Everybody else, I didn’t say anything. I just dipped out and, unfortunately, just fell off the face of the earth for an extended period of time and then just popped back up like a fever dream. Jones: I told the core team, and the higher ups, and Marcus [Samuelsson] of course. If a guest came to the restaurant asking about me, the staff knew like “oh he’s on vacation” or “oh he’s offsite at an event.” We had a few ways of keeping people guessing a bit. My team completely understood. How did growing up in the DC-area inspire your culinary tastes or career? Dearden: I grew up in Sterling, Virginia, and traveled to Florida, Saint Lucia, New York, and then back to my hometown. It was one of my dreams to always come back to DC and be successful in the city. The amount of restaurants are incredible and the amount of diversity. If you want great Ethiopian food, you can get it. If you want great Mediterranean food, Indian food, Japanese, Chinese, you name it, it’s here and it’s authentic. José Andrés came through and really put forth some great restaurant concepts, and he’s one of my idols for sure. I’ve done great work with him in World Central Kitchen, but to see him grow and change the food scene in the city has just been fantastic, and it influences the way that I cook. Jones: [I was] born and raised in southern Maryland, right next to the Bay, so some of those southern ideas are definitely rooted in me. A love for seafood, of course. And when I started living and working in DC, being exposed to so many more different cultures—Asian, African, Indian, West Indian, and Latin—I had so many different positive experiences and view points to learn and evolve from. I think it definitely expanded my cooking a lot more than the fundamentals we all come out with from culinary school. What are your goals after the show? Dearden: I’m going to just embrace everything I possibly can. This is kind of a new thing, obviously, for me. I’ve never been on such a recognized national platform, but I also never would have expected to be on that platform with my twin brother. I get mistaken for him when I post videos. So I’m excited to see the dynamic when people start watching the show and they see both of us and then they reach out to us on social media and they get confused. I’m going to embrace those moments where people get us confused. In the first episode, [judge] Kristen Kish got us confused at the judge’s table, and I was like, ‘Got you!’ Jones: My goals are still the same, I want to keep cooking amazing food here in the restaurant, support my staff, push them to grow even more. I would like to think that at least one of my cooks is going to leave me in two to three years and eventually be a sous-chef somewhere, nominated for an award, or on a cooking show. I want to keep paying it forward. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.The post Meet the DC-Area Chefs Competing on Top Chef Season 23 first appeared on Washingtonian. ...read more read less