North Charleston chef takes culinary talent to national stage by appearing on Bravo’s ‘Top Chef’

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – A celebrated local chef is bringing his culinary talent to the national stage this month by appearing on season 22 of Bravo’s ‘Top Chef.’

Chef Shuai Wang, owner of two Charleston area favorites, Jackrabbit Filly, and King BBQ, will compete against 14 other cooking pros from around the country while on location in Canada. 

The first episode of ‘Top Chef: Destination Canada’ will air March 13 at 9 p.m. Eastern on Bravo.

This year’s winner will be rewarded $250,000, an appearance at Aspen’s Food & Wine Classic, and the opportunity to host an exclusive dinner at the James Beard House, among other things.

Initially, Shuai was invited to apply for a role in the long-running competition, but he hesitated at first. 

“I was unsure because I’m not a competitive person in nature, so I was like, “Oh, do I want to do this,” Shuai explained. “But then I thought about all the different opportunities ‘Top Chef’ would bring to me personally and our businesses and I thought this is such a great opportunity and cannot be missed.”

Despite Shuai not being naturally competitive, he has become a decorated chef, being named an Eater Young Gun in 2016 and Best New Chef the same year.

Short Grain, a food truck formerly run by Shuai and his wife Corrie, was designated by Bon Appetit as one of America’s Top 50 Best New Restaurants in 2016.

The following year, Shuai was nominated for a prestigious James Beard Award in the ‘Rising Star Chef’ category.

Shuai’s success led him to open Jackrabbit Filly, a place that blends heritage drive Chinese cuisine with American fare, and later King BBQ, self-described as ‘Chinatown BBQ with Southern smoke.’

The BBQ fusion spot was designated as one of the Top 10 Best New BBQ Restaurants of 2024 by Southern Living Magazine and one of the 2024 Top 20 Best New Restaurants by Bon Appetit. 

‘Top Chef’ season 22 was filmed last year, with the team traveling to places like Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, Canmore, and Prince Edward Island.

Before joining the show, Shuai said he had grown ‘stale’ as a chef, cooking the same food daily. But the idea of winning a hugely popular cooking competition was reinvigorating.

“I just felt like I was rejuvenated and just like my brain was turning again,” he explained. “Afterwards, I felt so inspired coming back, and I wanted to cook new things.”

As soon as Shuai arrived home, it was back to business. Jackrabbit Filly was opening at a new location with a new menu.

With his mind spinning, Shuai added dishes to the new menu that he previously thought he couldn’t pull off.

“Instead of the same old thing we’d been cooking for the past, I don’t know, five years, we came up with all these new menu items that, you know, I didn’t think I was able to do,” he said.

Some Jackrabbit menu items include the krab rangoon cheese ball, soy garlic karaage-don with Japanese fried chicken, soft egg, and honey garlic soy sauce, and the Sichuan seafood wonton soup. 

Who wouldn’t be inspired when learning from eight-time James Beard Award winner Tom Colicchio, season 10 ‘Top Chef’ winner Kristen Kish, and culinary expert Gail Simmons?

“Kristen was probably who I was most intimidated by because you know she’s been on Top Chef, she’s went to the bottom, she fought her way, back all the way to the top,” Shuai said.

The culinary industry has been known to be a cut-throat and challenging environment, as seen in popular television shows like ‘The Bear’ and ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ which highlight how intense the food world can be. Having that spotlight on the industry has led to change throughout the years, though.

“Going into ‘Top Chef,’ I had that mindset of “Oh, everyone’s going to be butting heads, everyone’s going to be competing,” but you know, I think because the industry has changed so much that it wasn’t so much that,” Shuai explained. “There’s still a competition; we’re still competing, and we’re still going against each other, but I just feel like, as chefs now, we get along much better than we used to.”

That often ruthless environment is part of the reason Shuai decided to make the move to Charleston. He grew up in Queens and spent a large chunk of his adult life cooking in Brooklyn.

Once Shuai graduated high school, he went straight to culinary school and has been in the kitchen ever since.

The number of restaurants throughout the city, not to mention the diversity of those spots and the intensity of the competition in New York, is part of the reason Shuai believes he made it to where he is in his career. He was challenged at an elite level.

But that high pressure, day in and day out, led Shuai to something many of us experience: burnout.

“I was just very unhappy. It was too much work and my work and life balance, there was no balance,” Shuai explained. “So I looked into moving away because I felt like if I kept working like the way I was working in New York, I was going to get super burned out and just leave the industry completely.”

During that time, Shuai’s friend was trying to open a restaurant in Charleston, and he reached out to Shuai for help with the opening.

Shuai decided to make the jump and move, thinking he would be here only for a short time to help his friend.

As with most things in life, the plan did not go accordingly.

The friend’s restaurant was delayed indefinitely, so Shuai and Corrie returned to square one and decided to invest in themselves.

From there, the idea for Short Grain was born. The business exploded and turned into continued success with Jackrabbit and King BBQ.

“You know, now I’m in the South. I’ve been here for almost eleven years now, and I love love North Charleston,” Shuai said. It just feels like home.”

A large part of the continued success is due to Corrie, who Shuai called the “backbone” of their restaurants.

When Shuai decided to take on the ‘Top Chef’ contestant role, he had to commit to a minimum of four to six weeks of filming in Canada. Of course, the farther you make it in the competition, the longer you stay and are away from home.

“I left for ‘Top Chef’ for a very long time for filming…throughout that time, she [Corrie] was here running both restaurants by herself while building out this new space [the new Jackrabbit location],” Shuai said.

“It takes two really hard-working people to run these things, and she’s pretty amazing,” he continued.

Not only do the Wangs love the area and its food scene, but they also support it.

More than 25% of both restaurants’ menus are sourced locally, including vegetables, seafood, grains, dairy, and proteins from local farms.

“It’s very important for me to do that,” Shuai said. “You know, living in a small community, it’s important for me to support the small families that are farmers that are here.”

“Also, when I first moved down, the first time I had a local shrimp, I have never wanted to eat any other shrimp ever again,” he added.

As a 2025 South Carolina chef ambassador, a large part of Shuai’s ambassadorship involves promoting local food while representing the state at events like the recent Charleston Food and Wine Festival, where Shuai hosted Sunday hangover brunch at Jackrabbit.

Another way Shuai supports the local food industry is by eating local! Some of his favorite restaurants in the area are Vern’s, The Glass Onion and Bintu Atelier.

You can support Shuai by watching him on Bravo’s ‘Top Chef’ every Thursday or streaming it the next day on Peacock.