Rockville Centre teen kitchen prodigy competing on 'Top Chef: Family Style'

Eva Kopelman has helped her mother in the kitchen since she was a little girl, but after her father suffered a stroke when she was 10, she was thrust into a new role: family chef.

Now Eva, who turns 15 on Oct. 30, and is a sophomore at South Side High School, has put her culinary skills to the ultimate test. She and her mother, Jenn Kopelman, are appearing on the inaugural season of “Top Chef: Family Style,” which airs on Thursdays on the NBC streaming service Peacock and is hosted by pop star Meghan Trainor and acclaimed chef Marcus Samuelsson. The show follows 13 teenagers and members of their families as they compete for $50,000 in an elimination-style contest. Each week another team is eliminated. As of press time, four episodes had aired.

“Being in this competition with my mom is … 100 percent one of the best experiences that I will have with her in my lifetime,” Eva said. “Just seeing her being there while I get to pursue my dreams as a chef, it really just was great to have her by my side, getting to experience the whole opportunity with me.”

Cooking became a passion for Eva at a young age. Every Thanksgiving she has helped Jenn in the kitchen. As she got older, she learned how to make simple pasta and chicken dishes. From there her culinary expertise blossomed, and after her father, David’s, health scare, she became the primary chef for her family’s nightly dinners, cooking for her parents as well as her older sister, Genna, 19, who also helped, and her twin brother, Matthew, 14.

As her confidence in the kitchen grew, Eva created Instagram, YouTube and TikTok accounts so she could post videos and encourage other young people to cook. As she generated thousands of followers, the Magical Elves casting agency took notice, and contacted her to audition for the new cooking show. For three months, Eva sent the agency cooking videos and sat for virtual interviews that tested her culinary knowledge, and out of thousands of entrants, she was among 27 teens who were asked to travel to Los Angeles for the final auditions in May.

Once there, Eva underwent three days of a “culinary boot camp” in which the contestants were evaluated on their knife skills, cooking techniques and culinary knowledge with a series of tests and exercises. Part of the audition involved quarantining in a hotel room for a week, during which participants were given a bucket of ingredients and had to cook them for judges on Zoom. Eva ended up making smothered pork chops with an apple slaw and smashed rosemary potatoes on her room’s two-burner electric stove, and was ultimately selected, along with her mother, to compete on the show against 12 other groups.

“When I found out I joined the show after the Covid bubble, on set, we were waiting in the holding room together for nearly an hour,” Eva recalled. “It was the most grueling 40 minutes of my life, and when they brought out the balloons and we made it, I broke down in tears and hugged my mom so hard. It was insane. Flying across the country to have the opportunity of a lifetime is honestly something I never expected.”

Eva described being on a Top Chef set as “surreal,” and said her “jaw hit the floor” when she saw the studio set in person.

Her mother said that while Eva had helped her in the kitchen and written in her fifth-grade yearbook that she wanted to be a chef when she grew up, she didn’t expect her daughter to pursue her dream all the way to national television.

“She got more involved, and all of a sudden we have this little girl who, I’m like, this girl can cook!” Jenn said. “Her seasonings and her temperatures were all perfect, it was just something that was just kind of innate.”

Jenn said the competition brought with it a whirlwind of emotions, as the two laughed, cried, sometimes argued and banded together over the course of the show. She said she couldn’t reveal how far they got in the competition, because it’s still airing. She added that she was proud of her daughter for overcoming bullying at a young age and following her dreams.

“On the show, we’re fighting a lot in the kitchen, loving a lot in the kitchen, and we’re generally emotional people,” Jenn said, “but the whole experience of being able to be with her and watch her just shine, what more can a parent really ask for? It was the most amazing experience. It was the experience of a lifetime.”

Eva said that while she is a well-rounded chef, she most enjoys cooking Asian cuisine, especially dumplings. In the future, she said, she hoped to attend the Culinary Institute of America and then own a chain of restaurants. She has already caught the attention of many companies, and is serving as a spokeswoman for the Sunny Delight drink.

The show, she said, was an emotional experience. “There were many emotions throughout the competition,” Eva said. “Definitely some upset, sad emotion, but definitely some exhilarating, happy emotion when we succeeded. I’m still here and I’m still cooking my heart out, and just being able to have the experience was just something that not many kids with a passion like mine get to do.”

To keep up with Eva’s cooking, follow @eatinwitheva on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.