The Truth About Ashleigh Shanti From Top Chef Season 19

This Season 19 lineup on "Top Chef" will definitely make episodes heated and full of competition. Ashleigh Shanti is one of the most recent arrivals on the show's set in Houston. According to Bravo, the Virginia native traveled from her current home in North Carolina to compete on this season of the cooking show.

Food has always been a big part of Shanti's life, and she has been in the kitchen since she was very young: The chef "stripped collard greens before she could walk." Shanti also comes from both a marketing and culinary background. She earned her undergraduate degree at Hampton University and then pursued an education at Culinary Arts at Baltimore International Institute. Now, she is a chef and the owner of Good Hot Fish, a pop-up fish fry in Asheville, North Carolina (via Citizen Times). Shanti's delicious business serves up everything from oysters to cornmeal catfish sandwiches, which foodies can find on its Instagram account, @goodhotfish.

"Top Chef" host, Padma Lakshmi, introduced Houston as, "one of the most diverse cities in the nation" (via Bravo). Though it may hold the title of being the city with the most Wendy's locations, it is also home to a very rich and multicultural food scene. This cultural aspect will be largely incorporated into this season's challenges, including designing dishes to feature at an Asian Night Market and diving into the region's Tex-Mex scene.

Ashleigh Shanti has worked preparing a wide variety of cuisines, including Northern Italian style cooking, classic French fare, and Southern Appalachian food, which she notes as her favorite (via Bravo). On her Instagram account, @foodordeath_, she frequently posts pictures of her culinary creations, from frog legs to all different types of seafood. Her knowledge and skills of working with lots of different types of food will hopefully prove to be useful in Season 19 of Bravo's "Top Chef."