Top Chef Season 17 Headshot Karen Acunowicz

Karen Akunowicz

Current Residency: Boston, MA
Occupation: Chef/Owner Fox & the Knife

Top Chef Season 13 frontrunner Karen Akunowicz is the chef and owner of Fox & the Knife enoteca in Boston, which was named one of 2019’s best new restaurants in America by FOOD & WINE magazine, Eater National, Condé Nast Traveler, and Thrillist. Since competing on the California season, Karen won a 2018 James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Northeast and was named Boston Magazine’s Best Chef. With degrees from the University of Massachusetts and Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, she gained international work experience as the chef at L’Avian Blu in Modena, Italy. A year later, she returned home to Massachusetts, where she worked alongside James Beard Award-winning chef Ana Sortun at Oleana. In 2011, Karen led the kitchen at Myers+Chang as executive chef, creating dishes that earned her both local and national praise, including a four-star review in The Boston Globe. In 2017, she co-authored The Myers+Chang at Home Cookbook. Karen is proud to be a No Kid Hungry Chef, working with the organization, Share our Strength, to eradicate childhood hunger. She is currently at work on her second cookbook.