Holy nerdgasm! Here's a preview video of next week's episode of Top Chef Masters in which the contestants have to prepare a three-course meal ("The Lost Supper") for the writers and producers of Lost, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse.

The chefs for this episode, Graham Elliot Bowles (Graham Elliot Restaurant), Wylie Dufresne (wd-50), Elizabeth Falkner (Orson), and Suzanne Tracht (Jar), have to cook a meal using ingredients found on the Lost island, like wild boar, tropical fruit, and fish — even Dharma Initiative-branded canned food.

The Lostpedia wiki entry for food is, as expected, frighteningly thorough in its catalog of all the food eaten on Lost, including a rundown of all the different kinds of Dharma Initiative canned food. Will they get Dharma Initiative Macaroni and Cheese Supper? Chocolate cream cookies?

We really, really hope that Jorge García, who plays Hugo "Hurley" Reyes on Lost, himself a budding gastrome, is a guest judge as well.

The video »

Photograph via guardian.co.uk

On June 10th Bravo will premiere Top Chef Masters, a cooking competition that pits celebrity chefs against each other in a battle to win a $100,000 donation to the charity of their choice. A decidedly more professional show than its predecessor (don’t hold your breath for any furtive chef on chef action between Wylie Dufrense and Anita Lo ) the producers have rolled out a new group of food professionals to make up the panel of judges: Saveur editor-in-chief James Oseland, former New York Magazine critic Gael Greene, and token Brit Jay Rayner. Wait, who?

We’ll start by setting your mind at ease. Jay Rayner is not Toby Young. He’s not Marco Pierre White. He’s definitely not Simon Cowell. He's a well balanced, if at times sarcastic and blunt, restaurant reviewer for the London Observer. In a recent interview with The Feedbag, Rayner said, “we all thought we were hired to be the bitchy one. But this is a different culture from Top Chef. On this show we’re dealing with people who have serious reputations. This isn’t a one-time thing; we want to do it a few times, and the chefs have to feel it’s worth their while. We don’t brutalize them.” But that doesn’t mean he’s a kitten of a judge.

But no, seriously, who is he? »

Hitting the inbox was a press release promoting Top Chef Masters, featuring well-known successful chefs (Bayless, Dufresne, Hubert Keller, Michael Schlow, etc.) — but what caught our eye was the show will have as guest stars and judges Neil Patrick Harris, Zooey Deschanel, and Lost writers and executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. Hipster indie cred!

The press release »