[HOT]Top Chef All-Stars

Bravo has confirmed Top Chef's next season will be an all-stars edition and revealed the identities of the competition's 18 returning contestants. 

Dubbed Top Chef All-Stars and filmed in New York City, the eighth edition will feature contestants who "nearly won" during their original Top Chef seasons and premiere Wednesday, December 1 at 10PM ET/PT.

Padma Lakshmi will host Top Chef All-Stars, with Tom Colicchio, Gail Simmons, and best-selling author, chef and No Reservations star Anthony Bourdain serving as its judges.

While reports of the competition's cast had emerged since the show began filming late last month, Bravo executive Andy Cohen formally announced Top Chef All-Stars' cast during Wednesday night's broadcast of Top Chef D.C.'s reunion special.

"It's an interesting line-up, because most of the chefs either were in the finale [of their original season] or could have very easily made it to the finale," Colicchio said after Cohen announced the cast. "Some of them got tripped up early on. I mean Tiffany [Faison] wins Season 1 if she does one menu as opposed to two [in the finale]. It's a tough group, I expect all of them to be very competitive."

"If I had to handpick the cast myself, I would have picked these exact same people," Simmons added.

The 18 Top Chef All-Stars "chef'testants" are:

- Elia Aboumrad (Season 2 second runner-up)

- Stephen Asprinio (Season 1 fourth runner-up)

- Richard Blais (Season 4 runner-up)

- Jennifer Carroll (Season 6 third runner-up)

- Tiffany Derry (Season 7 fourth runner-up)

- Tiffani Faison (Season 1 runner-up)

- Carla Hall (Season 5 runner-up)

- Mike Isabella (Season 6 sixth runner-up)

- Jamie Lauren (Season 5, sixth runner-up)

- Dale Levitski (Season 3 runner-up)

- Antonia Lofaso (Season 4, third runner-up)

- Spike Mendelsohn (Season 4, fourth runner-up)

- Angelo Sosa (Season 7 runner-up)

- Dale Talde (Season 4, fifth runner-up)

- Casey Thompson (Season 3 runner-up)

- Marcel Vigneron (Season 2 runner-up)

- Fabio Viviani (Season 5 third runner-up)

- Tre Wilcox (Season 3 seventh runner-up)