The list of Charm City chefs who have made it big on national television (think Duff Goldman, Bryan Voltaggio, and Jason Hisley) now includes 14-year-old Owen Pereira. The Mt. Washington teen took home the top prize on the finale of Universal Kids’ Top Chef Junior that aired Friday. 

“I have no clue how I did it,” Pereira tells us. “It still hasn’t sunk in.”

Pereira, an eighth-grader at the Baltimore Montessori Public Charter School, stood out among more than 200 young applicants from around the country, and was eventually chosen as one of the top 12 finalists to compete on the first season of Top Chef’s teen spinoff.

He continued to impress judges with his classic French techniques throughout the competition, and ultimately went head-to-head with 13-year-old California native Rahanna Bisseret Martinez for the final challenge—in which the two were tasked with creating dishes that represented their past, present, and future as chefs. 

Pereira won over chefs Curtis Stone, Gail Simmons, and Josiah Citrin (one of his top culinary idols) with his turnip soup and parmesan croquette, a duo of pork, and a braised short rib with a caramelized onion puree, pickled onions, mustard seed, and chanterelles. With his family by his side, Pereira was crowned the winner.

“I was surprised,” he says, reliving the moment. “I had convinced myself that Rahanna won, just so that I wouldn’t be disappointed if I lost.”

His mom, Susan Manning, was also admittedly shocked. While she had always believed in her son, she explains that she was surprised at the outcome because he had remained an underdog throughout the show’s filming.

“Rahanna had been dominating throughout most of the competition,” she says. “Owen was kind of a come-from-behind situation. It was exciting, but also bittersweet because I have a lot of respect for Rahanna and the other contestants. It was just so close, but I was really happy for him and proud of him—I still am.”

Though he is happy to be the reigning Top Chef Junior champion (the show’s second season will begin filming this summer), Pereira says that he’s excited to get back into his own kitchen. He has big plans to launch a pop-up with fellow contestant Henry Wieser in Chicago next month, and hopefully bring it to Baltimore this summer.

“Recently it’s been a lot of TV stuff, so I’m ready to finally be able to cook again,” he says. “I want to get my pop-ups going and hopefully have my restaurant up and running in the next four or five years.”

In the spirit of dreaming big, Pereira hopes to win other accolades like James Beard Awards and Michelin stars. Though he isn’t exactly sure how his $50,000 winnings (currently secured in a trust fund) will be utilized in the future, he is certain that the money won’t go toward paying college tuition.  

“Culinary school happens way too late,” he says. “If I want to start my career, I really don’t have the patience to wait until I’m 18.”

Manning has the show to thank for her son’s focused ambition. Above all, she is happy that Pereira had the opportunity to explore his passion with other young chefs.

“In this day and age, it’s hard for teenagers,” she says. “They’re between childhood and adulthood, and in a lot of cases, they don’t know what they want to do. It’s all so abstract, but this is concrete for Owen. He’s so fortunate to have a real sense of direction.”

Owen Pereira knew how to prepare full meals for himself by the time he was 5 years old, so when it came time for him to enroll in cooking classes as part of his school’s curriculum, the lessons were a breeze.

“Those classes were more like practice for me,” says Pereira, 14, now an eighth grader at the Baltimore Montessori Public Charter School. “I pretty much learned all of the basics from watching my mom in the kitchen, and then kind of taught myself the rest.”

The Mt. Washington prodigy—who mentions culinary idols like James Beard Award winners Thomas Keller and Daniel Humm—decided to put his skills to the test in 2016, when he auditioned and was chosen to compete on an episode of Food Network’s Chopped Junior. His appearance on that show later caught the attention of NBC’s Universal Kids, and the network invited Pereira to audition for the first season of Top Chef Junior in the spring of 2017.

Pereira stood out in a group of more than 200 teen applicants across the country, and was ultimately picked as one of the top 12 to compete for a $50,000 prize on the spinoff of Bravo’s long-running series Top Chef.

“I was really surprised that I made it that far,” says Pereira, who is now among the top three finalists on the show—which filmed in Los Angeles last summer and airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on Universal Kids. “I pretty much skyrocketed from there.”    

A loyal Top Chef fan, (he notes Maryland’s own Bryan and Michael Voltaggio as some of his all-time favorite competitors), Pereira had an idea of what to expect once filming began. The junior iteration mirrors the original version, with each episode featuring challenges that force competitors to whip up dishes with specific parameters while crunched for time.

So far, Pereira has impressed judges—including host Curtis Stone, MasterChef’s Graham Eliot, Emeril Lagasse, and the Voltaggio brothers—with his creative dishes like Philly cheesesteak nachos, battered coconut shrimp, and an elevated fish and chips.

“I knew Top Chef was legit, so I expected Top Chef Junior to be also,” Pereira says. “There were no pauses. Even if our mics fell out or we got injured, the clock didn’t stop under any circumstances. We were shooting six days per week, almost eight hours per day. And sometimes we would be sitting in the interview room for up to four hours at a time.”

While he admits that the process was sometimes exhausting, Pereira says he also had a lot of fun meeting celebrity chefs and making friends with some of the other teens. In fact, he and fellow contestant Henry Wieser of Illinois have big plans to open a restaurant together.

“Our cooking styles are really similar,” Pereira says, adding that both chefs are passionate about local sourcing, and take a modern approach to classic French techniques. The duo plans to launch their own pop-up in Chicago next month, and Pereira hopes to bring it to Baltimore this summer.

Locally, Pereira looks up to Charm City greats including chefs Doug Wetzel and John Shields of Gertrude’s at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and our own James Beard Award-winning sustainability champion Spike Gjerde. He names Gjerde’s Remington meat mecca Parts & Labor as his favorite local spot—estimating that he visits the restaurant’s butcher shop once every two weeks.

“It was great representing Baltimore on the show,” he says. “I didn’t get a chance to cook any true Baltimore foods like lake trout sandwiches or crab cakes, but I tried my best to represent the city as best as I could.”

Looking ahead, Pereira is dreaming big. He wants to open his first restaurant by the time he’s 18, make the World’s 50 Best Restaurants List by the time he turns 20, and win two Michelin stars. Culinary school, however, isn’t part of the plan.

“It’s kind of ambitious,” he says. “But culinary school happens way too late. I don’t have the patience to wait until I’m 18 for my career to actually take off.”