What is Antonia Lofaso's Net Worth?
Antonia Lofaso is a celebrity chef and restaurateur who has a net worth of $5 million. Antonia Lofaso appeared on such reality television cooking competition shows as "Top Chef," "Chopped," "Cutthroat Kitchen," and "Guy's Grocery Games," beginning as a contestant and later becoming a judge. As a restaurateur, she co-owns the Los Angeles-based restaurants Black Market Liquor Bar, Scopa – Italian Roots, and DAMA. Among her other endeavors, Lofaso founded the fashion-forward chef apparel brand Chefletics.
Early Life and Education
Antonia Lofaso was born in 1976 in Long Island, New York. She has Italian and Jewish ancestry. When she was eight years old, Lofaso moved with her parents to the Northridge area of Los Angeles, California. Skilled in the art of cooking, she attended the elite French Culinary Institute in New York City as a young adult. During her time there, Lofaso worked as a manager at rapper and record producer Sean Combs's restaurant Justin.
Restaurateur Career
Early in her career, Lofaso apprenticed under various culinary legends. She worked for a while as a chef at Wolfgang Puck's Spago in Los Angeles, and subsequently took her skills to a number of other high-profile kitchens throughout the city. In 2011, Lofaso partnered with Mario Guddemi and Sal Aurora to open her first restaurant, Black Market Liquor Bar. Located in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles, it offers an eclectic range of American cuisine and craft cocktails. In 2013, Lofaso opened her second restaurant, Scopa – Italian Roots, in L.A.'s Venice area; it showcases her interpretation of traditional Italian food. Her third restaurant, DAMA, opened in Downtown Los Angeles in 2018. A Latin-inspired eatery and bar, DAMA features deco-tropical designs across an indoor lounge, three private terraces, and an outdoor patio. Lofaso also has her own catering company, which offers such services as personalized meals, cocktail parties, seated dinners, chef stations, and full staffing.
(Photo by Rick Kern/WireImage)
Television Career
Lofaso began her prolific television career in 2008 as a contestant on the fourth season of the Bravo reality cooking competition series "Top Chef," called "Top Chef: Chicago." She ultimately finished in fourth place. Lofaso later competed on "Top Chef: All-Stars" from 2010 to 2011, and came in third place. After that, she appeared on the short-lived Game Show Network program "Beat the Chefs," where she was one of three professional chefs the amateur chef contestants had to compete against. Lofaso had a longer-running role on the Food Network cooking competition show "Cutthroat Kitchen," which ran from 2013 to 2017. On that show, she was one of the regular judges, along with Jet Tila and Simon Majumdar. Meanwhile, in 2015 and 2016, Lofaso served as a restaurant culinary consultant on the CNBC food competition series "Restaurant Startup." She also competed on the Food Network show "Chopped" in 2015.
Among her other television appearances, Lofaso has served as a judge on Guy Fieri's reality-based cooking game show "Guy's Grocery Games." She later appeared in the Fieri-produced documentaries "Restaurant Hustle 2020: All On the Line" and "Restaurant Hustle 2021: Back in Business," which examined the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the restaurant industry. Also in 2020, Lofaso made an appearance in the first season of Selena Gomez's cooking show "Selena + Chef." In early 2022, she reunited with Guy Fieri to serve as the lead judge on his show "Guy's Chance of a Lifetime." Later that year, Lofaso was the head judge on "The Julia Child Challenge" and the host of "Beachside Brawl," both cooking competition series on the Food Network. She returned to host "Beachside Brawl" in the summer of 2023.
Other Endeavors
Among her other endeavors, Lofaso founded the fashion-forward chef apparel line Chefletics, which marries classic chef attire with more modern styles. The apparel features ChefDry fabric technology with moisture wicking and stain resistance. Elsewhere, Lofaso published "The Busy Mom's Cookbook: 100 Recipes for Quick, Delicious, Home-cooked Meals."
Personal Life
Lofaso was previously in a longterm relationship with the late rapper and record producer Heavy D. In 2000, the couple had a daughter named Xea. The pair remained together until Heavy D's sudden death from a pulmonary embolism in late 2011.
