The show begins airing on NBC’s Peacock on September 9. The Bethesda, MD teenager is a TikTok star and the number two ranked player on “Magic Online.”
After making waves on the popular card game ‘Magic: The Gathering’, Indian-American child prodigy Milan Bhayana is donning the apron on a cooking reality TV show with his journalist mother by his side.
The 15-year-old sophomore from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland two years ago became one of the youngest players to join the professional “Magic” circuit, created by mathematician Richard Garfield.
And now that he’s trying his hand at cooking with a dozen other young chefs from across the country, he’s taking part in the Peacock “Top Chef Family Style” series.
Read: Meet Milan Bhayana, the 13-year-old Indian American child prodigy who qualified for the ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Pro Tour (May 17, 2019)
The show pairs each young contestant with an adult family member. He was joined by his mother Chandrani Ghosh. The first episode of the series will air on Thursday, September 9.
“It was a privilege and an experience that I will forever remember to participate in ‘Top Chef Family Style’ with my mother,” Milan, son of Ghosh and entrepreneur Rohit Bhayana, told American Bazaar in a interview.
“It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” he said, recalling meeting celebrity hosts Meghan Trainor and Marcus Samuelson. “These people I watched on TV, heard their songs, saw them cook and now I was cooking for them, it was a really special experience.”
The tenth grader, who is currently ranked number two on ‘Magic Online’, has maintained his passion for the card game and is currently vying for that number one slot.
Read: Secrets of India’s extraordinary tastes (July 23, 2021)
“I’m working hard to try and qualify as the youngest player to ever appear in Magic Online’s champion showcase,” says Milan, who wants to “be the best at everything I love.”
“When I started baking, I wanted to make the best donuts, the best cookies, the best pizza, and in Magic I wanted to play against the best,” he says. Adding with a big smile: “I wanted to meet the best, I wanted to beat the best!
“I’m also driven by the desire to share my passion with people, which is why I teach magic to young kids in the neighborhood and why I love doing TikTok so much.”
Milan is a social influencer with over 700,000 followers on TikTok. That’s a big number and even more impressive when you realize he’s built this audience in less than 9 months.
Milan recalled how he and his sister Malaika started this journey when she randomly posted a video of him preparing beef Wellington for the family Thanksgiving meal last year. She posted a 15-second video to her TikTok account, challenging celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay to give his reaction. The Beef Wellington video has attracted over 2 million views.
Read: 5 Indian cooking shows to whet your appetite (July 19, 2021)
The brother-sister duo then began making weekly videos. Posting videos of him making everything from his grandmother’s recipe for a pressure cooker lamb chop (not sure she’d be happy for him to share her secret recipe with the world) to butter chicken and lemon bars. Several of their videos have over 5 million views, with the most popular video, which shows him making elaborate lasagna, having 10 million views.
A few months after making TikTok videos to his disbelief, he received an email from Top Chef. “Why would Top Chef email a random child?” Milan wondered if it was a prank email. It was the real deal and he ended up applying for the show. It was a long application process, and after many rounds of Zoom-based testing, it was flown to Burbank, California.
“The shooting lasted several weeks. It was a long process, we were basically working 6 days a week while doing school online too, but it was a lot of fun. I’ve met amazing young chefs from across the country. There were children from Louisiana to Alaska to Hawaii.
“My mom was my sous-chef during the show,” says Milan, noting that the show’s unique format of putting an adult member of the family with the kids put a “really interesting twist on the classic dynamic because it doesn’t It wasn’t just kids against kids.” there in the kitchen. You had to deal with family dramas too!
Read: ‘Top Chef’ host Padma Lakshmi to receive 2016 Ellis Island Medal of Honor (May 3, 2016)
The mother-son team “cooked a lot of different dishes – we cooked a lot from our Indian heritage but also a lot of modern American dishes that I like to eat.”
“One thing that the show really reminded me of was the importance of family and how close I’ve come to my mother through the show,” Milan says.
Magic continues to be a Milan passion. “When I have free time outside of magic, cooking and school, I like to do taekwondo,” he says. “I have a black belt. Before Covid, I was an assistant teacher in my taekwondo studio. And I’m 15 so obviously I like spending time with my friends.
Milan’s mum Ghosh said: “I think he got into cooking because he likes good food and knows what he wants to eat. And he’s ready to put in the hours of work necessary to produce exactly what he wants to eat.
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