In the mid-1980s, Colicchio served as a sous-chef to
Thomas Keller at
Rakel in Manhattan. In July 1994, Colicchio and his partner
Danny Meyer opened the Gramercy Tavern in the
Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan. It was voted Most Popular Restaurant in New York City by the
Zagat Survey in 2003 and 2005. He sold his interest in 2006 and is no longer affiliated with the restaurant. In spring 2001, he opened the first Craft restaurant one block south of Gramercy Tavern. A year later, he opened the first Craftsteak at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. After the
September 11 attacks, Colicchio served food to rescue workers at Ground Zero. In 2013, he,
Jeff Bridges, and
Raj Patel appeared in the
documentary film A Place at the Table released in the U.S. on March 1, 2013. The movie was directed by his wife Lori Silverbush. Colicchio serves on the Food Council at
City Harvest and the Culinary Council at
Food Bank for New York City, two hunger-relief organizations. Colicchio has long been involved in food supply chain, restaurant and hunger relief issues. Colicchio has written three
cookbooks.
Television Colicchio has been involved with
Top Chef since its beginning in 2006, where he has served as head judge. He is also the main consulting producer on Bravo's
Top Chef spin-off series entitled
Top Chef Masters. He also won an
Emmy Award in 2010 for Outstanding Reality-Competition Programming as an executive producer of
Top Chef, on which he appears. Colicchio was the host of the reality series
Best New Restaurant (an adaptation of the British reality show ''
Ramsay's Best Restaurant'') in 2015. Colicchio appeared in the fifth episode of the first season of
HBO's
Treme as himself along with fellow chefs
Eric Ripert,
David Chang and
Wylie Dufresne. He made another cameo in Season 2 alongside Ripert. In 2011, he made cameos in the Season 23 premiere episode of
The Simpsons, "
The Falcon and the D'ohman," and
The Smurfs. Colicchio appeared as a chef in the fifth season of the
Showtime TV series
Billions, in the episode titled
Liberty. (S5.E10)
Podcasting In June 2020, Colicchio launched his podcast, "Citizen Chef" via the
iHeartRadio Podcast Network. The seasonal series deals with issues of food, politics, policy and citizenship.
Restaurants ;Craft •
New York City ;Craftsteak •
Las Vegas ;Small Batch •
Garden City, NY ;Temple Court (formerly known as Fowler & Wells) • New York City ; • New York City
Former restaurants • Beachcraft,
Miami Beach, closed • Craft,
Dallas, closed June 30, 2012 • Craft,
Los Angeles, closed • Craft and Craftbar,
Atlanta, closed • Craftbar, New York City, closed • Craftsteak, MGM Grand at Foxwoods, closed • Colicchio & Sons, New York City, closed •
Gramercy Tavern, New York City, no longer affiliated • Riverpark, New York City, no longer affiliated • Tom Colicchio's Heritage Steak, Las Vegas, The Mirage, no longer affiliated • Topping Rose House,
Bridgehampton, NY, no longer affiliated • ,
Las Vegas, closed • ,
San Francisco, closed ==Personal life==