229 Parks chef on season 15 of Bravo’s ‘Top Chef’

To cope with the dark, cold, long Alaska winter nights usually requires some form of distraction. And if you’re living out at Denali National Park during those months when few visitors dare to visit, that need for an outlet is compounded, and for Laura Cole, a native of the Detroit area, who’s opened the 229 Parks restaurant, the Bravo show ‘Top Chef’ was her go-to.

As fate and her own perseverance would have it, Cole, the head chef at 229 Parks, was chosen to be one of the 15chefs from around the country selected to be part of the show’s 15th season, which debuts Dec. 6.

“I’ve been a huge fan of the show since day one — I raised my kids watching the show,” Cole, 45, who’s now spent more than half her life in the Alaska interior said. “It was in the heart of darkness of winter last year I found out I’d been chosen. I thought my staff was playing a joke on me.”

Season 15 features Colorado as its backdrop as the chefs — or ‘chefstestants’ — live together, work together, and ultimately compete against one another for the honor of Top Chef, which comes with a prize of $125,000.

“The opportunity was so amazing to me, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for such a long time,” Cole said. “The collaboration with cheftestants from all over the Lower 48 has widened my circle of chefs I can call on for help and inspiration. Being in Alaska, I haven’t been able to have that in-state.”

Contractually, Cole can’t comment on any of the results of the competition, but she said the friendships she made along the way were priceless.

“I walked away with 14 of the best new chef friends,” Cole said. “All the feelings — the highs, the lows, the laughs, the cries — at the end of the day the benefits are incredible. It’s a great group of talented friends and chefs.”

According to the Bravo Network press release, season 15 has cheftestants, “traveling to Denver, Boulder, Telluride and Aspen. From deconstructing the Denver Omelet and preparing Rocky Mountain Oysters to tailgating with the Broncos, the level of competition for these 15 talented chefs is going to be a mile high. With the judges looking for the chefs’ peak performances, the challenges will test the competitors’ culinary abilities in picturesque locales including a food festival in Larimer Square, a blizzard infused campfire cook-off, and cauldron cooking at the FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen.”

A longtime fan of the show, Cole wasn’t naïve about the show’s producers play in crafting storylines.

“I know there’s a lot done editorially, and what not,” she said. “But there’s so many highs and lows, so many moments that bring to you to tears or bring you to laughter… In this time of strife and turmoil and the rest, it’s good to be able to know this kind of creativity is all there for all of us to exist in and that door is always going to be open.”

Cole said shooting the show in the spring, did wind up pushing back the first day of the season at 229 Parks — named for the milepost along the long, quiet highway — but it was well worth the delay.

She’ll be spending this winter watching the Top Chef season she lived, and preparing for tourist season in June. Beyond that, she’s looking to use her reality TV experience to help define a quintessentially Alaska cuisine.

“I was looking to kind of push myself further — I’m in kind of a remote culinary situation,” Cole said. “My first 11 years were in wilderness lodges only accessible by very remote roads. I opened the restaurant 13 years ago, but I’m still four hours from the closest grocery store, so I have to push very hard. I’m doubling down my efforts to define what Alaska cuisine is in the interior, coastally, heritage ranching — really trying to identify what Alaska has to offer.”