LOS ANGELES – Whether he's coaching "The Biggest Loser" contestants, filling in for Kathie Lee Gifford on "Today," co-hosting the Miss USA pageant or barbecuing for Oprah Winfrey, it seems like Curtis Stone is everywhere these days.
In his role on NBC's new reality TV eatery contest, he's adding a new title to his ever-growing resume: investor.
The lanky Australian chef is serving as a financial backer of the grand prize — a fast-casual restaurant chain with outposts in Los Angeles, New York and Minneapolis — on "America's Next Great Restaurant" (premiering Sunday at 8 p.m. EST) alongside celebrity chef Bobby Flay, Chipotle founder Steve Ells and Miami restaurateur Lorena Garcia.
"Normally, when NBC comes to you and wants you to do a show, you're like, 'Woo hoo! I just landed a new show,'" said Stone. "This was different because they actually wanted us to get our checkbooks out."
Stone wouldn't say how much the group is contributing to launch the winner's restaurant chain, but he insisted, "We're all equal investors in terms of our financial commitment to it, which means we get an equal say in how this is going to work." If it flops, Stone already has another gig lined up. He's the new host of Bravo's "Top Chef Masters."
"It's a dream job for me," he said earlier this month on the set of the Bravo cooking competition spin-off, where he's taken over Kelly Choi's spot for the third season. "When they first approached me, I told them they needed to mix it up and put all of the chefs together in one pool, and they told me that's exactly what they were doing."
That means the contest will play out more like a regular "Top Chef" season. Producers dumped the numerical scoring system in favor of having the experienced cheftestants eliminated one by one by the show's judges, critics James Oseland and Ruth Richel. Stone said he has learned more about his craft from sitting alongside the critics.
"I've loved all elements of it," said Stone. "I get to eat fantastic food every day. I think we have a dynamic balance with a chef at the table. It's been really interesting for me sitting there with the critics and watching how they analyze food because, as a chef, you're constantly trying to work out what critics like and don't like."
Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz, the "Top Chef Masters" and "America's Next Great Restaurant" executive producers at production company Magical Elves, point to Stone's combination of stunning good looks, exotic Aussie accent, culinary skills and entrepreneurial prowess as the reasons why it seems as though he's on every TV show these days except "Jersey Shore."
"There are people that are just naturals on television, and Curtis is one of them," said Cutforth, who first met Stone with Lipsitz two years ago. "We really don't like working with people who feel like they're adopting a persona or are too host-y, as we say. Curtis is someone who is always himself on camera and is always entertaining to watch."
Stone said he wasn't always a natural. Before he was crowned one of People magazine's Sexiest Men Alive in 2006 and applied to become "The Celebrity Apprentice" in 2010, he worked his way up acclaimed chef Marco Pierre White's restaurant empire in London. His first-ever TV appearance — a cooking segment on a BBC morning show — was "bloody hopeless," he said.
"I was looking down the whole time," he recalled. "I was making a complicated dish that no one would ever make at home. I wasn't having any fun. Somehow, I was asked back though. It's really like playing golf. If you hit enough balls, the better your swing will become. It's no different with television. The more you do, the more comfortable you become."
Stone hosted several cooking shows in the United Kingdom and Australia become coming to the United States in 2006 for TLC's dinner makeover series "Take Home Chef." It wasn't until after he competed with the likes of Cyndi Lauper and Bret Michaels on "Celebrity Apprentice" last year that he became NBC's exclusive go-to culinary dude.
The next title Stone wants to add to his resume has evaded him since he swapped kitchens for TV studios: restaurateur. He is currently working on opening his first eatery — located somewhere in Los Angeles — but first he'll be back on TV: Stone cameos as a pizza taste-tester in Sunday's fourth season premiere of "The Celebrity Apprentice."
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