The Bravo's Top Chef Season 15 Family Held a Beautiful Memorial for the Late Fatima Ali

Padma Lakshmi reunited with the Cheftestants to honor the late Season 15 Fan Favorite winner.

By Laura Rosenfeld May 3, 2019, 11:52 AM ET

Celebrating the Life of Bravo's Top Chef Alum Fatima Ali

The Bravo's Top Chef Season 15 family came together to celebrate the life and legacy of Fatima Ali, who passed away after a battle with Ewing's sarcoma, a type of bone and soft tissue cancer, in January.

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Several of Season 15's Cheftestants, including Joe Flamm, Brother Luck, Adrienne Cheatham, Carrie Baird, Joe Sasto, Chris Scott, Melissa Perfit, Tyler Anderson, Tanya Holland, Bruce Kalman, and Claudette Zepeda-Wilkins, reunited in Brooklyn, New York on April 28 to honor their late friend. Padma Lakshmi also attended the memorial, along with her daughter.

Bruce shared a heartwarming photo from the memorial on Instagram. "It was a really beautiful way for us honor the life of @cheffati surrounded by our @bravotopchef family, Fati’s family, friends, nurses and [doctors] that cared for her," he wrote.

Chef Fatima Ali Posthumously Wins a James Beard Award: "She Belonged in That Room"

The Top Chef alums continued to share the love while enjoying a family meal. "Spending time with these guys is always good for the spirit, sharing laughs, love, and great food!" Adrienne captioned a photo of the crew at Hometown Bar B Que in Brooklyn.

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A post shared by Adrienne Cheatham (@chefadriennecheatham) on Apr 29, 2019 at 5:19am PDT

A few days prior to the memorial, Rogelio Garcia paid tribute to Fatima by sharing a memory from Season 15 of Top Chef on Instagram. "Cooking has brought me to meet some of the most talented and amazing people. We miss you Fatima," he wrote in the post.

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Cooking has brought me to meet some of the most talented and amazing people. We miss you Fatima @cheffati #friendsthatbecamefamily. @bravotopchef
A post shared by ChefRogelioGarcia (@chefrogeliogarcia) on Apr 22, 2019 at 12:15pm PDT

After the memorial, Padma continued to reflect on the celebration and how difficult it has been dealing with Fatima's passing over the past few months. "Last Sunday friends and family got together for the memorial of our dear departed friend @cheffati," she shared on Instagram on May 2. "While it was so comforting to be with her family, it brought back all of the raw feelings that I had just very recently managed to somewhat put away."

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Last Sunday friends and family got together for the memorial of our dear departed friend @cheffati. While it was so comforting to be with her family, it brought back all of the raw feelings that I had just very recently managed to somewhat put away. â£ â£ Iâm extremely proud that Fatimaâs writing won her a posthumous @beardfoundation award last week. Her brother sat elbow to elbow with the likes of @davidchang and @ciaosamin and talked to me about how much she would have loved being there.â£â£ â£ Fatima was a quick learner and ambitious as hell. On the show, I laid into her about not choosing between cooking delicious Pakistani street food or doing Western haute cuisine- that the two could exist together and in fact that would be the most exciting food that she could do. She took that critique, absorbed it, and immediately in the next challenge did a version of that. â£ â£ As a brown woman in professional life, but especially in the male-dominated field of food, we both connected over feeling like outsiders at times. After last weekâs ceremony there is no doubt that there was a place for Fatima at the table. I couldnât be more proud of you, grasshopper. #tbt #fatimaali #topchef
A post shared by Padma Lakshmi (@padmalakshmi) on May 2, 2019 at 3:49pm PDT

Padma also expressed how proud she is of everything Fatima was able to accomplish during her time on Top Chef and beyond, including her recent posthumous James Beard Award win. "I’m extremely proud that Fatima’s writing won her a posthumous @beardfoundation award last week," Padma shared. "Her brother sat elbow to elbow with the likes of @davidchang and @ciaosamin [Samin Nosrat] and talked to me about how much she would have loved being there.⁣⁣"