Chef Curtis Stone at a recent cooking demonstration at The Cook's Warehouse, courtesy The Cook's Warehouse

If you’ve been missing the “Top Chef” series, it returns tonight with “Top Chef Masters: Season 4,” set in Las Vegas. Twelve award-winning chefs will compete in this competitive culinary reality show to earn $100,000 for the charity of their choice.

Curtis Stone will return as judge and host this season just after wrapping up his hosting duties on the show “Around the World in 80 Plates.” James Oseland, editor-in-chief of Saveur, and Ruth Reichl, Editorial Advisor to Gilt Taste, also both return as judges this season. New to the judging panel are Francis Lam, an award-winning food writer and features editor for Gilt Taste, and Krista Simmons, food editor for the LAist.

This season, Atlanta will be represented by contestant Art Smith, of Southern Art & Bourbon Bar and by The Indigo Girls, who will join an episode as guest judges. Other guest judges this season include Sugar Ray Leonard, The B-52’s and Grub Street’s Alan Systsma.

Here’s a complete list of this season’s contestants and their selected charities:

• Chris Cosentino – Chef/ Partner Incanto Restaurant, San Francisco; Competing for Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinsons Research
• Clark Frasier – Owner of Arrows; Competing for Outright Lewiston/Auburn
• Mark Gaier – Owner of Arrows; Competing for Equality Maine Foundation
• Lorena Garcia – Owner of Lorena Garcia Cocina Restaurant; Competing for Alliance for a Healthier Generation, Inc
• Debbie Gold – Executive Chef of Kansas City’s The American Restaurant; Competing for Children’s TLC
• Kerry Heffernan – NYC Chef; Competing for City Harvest
• Thierry Rautureau – Chef/owner: Rover’s and Luc; Competing for Food Lifeline
• Missy Robbins – Executive Chef: A Voce Madison & A Voce Columbus; Competing for Grow to Learn NYC
• Art Smith – Executive Chef and co-owner: LYFE Kitchen and Southern Art Restaurants; Competing for Common Threads
• Sue Torres – Chef/Owner: Sueños;  Competing for Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
• Takashi Yagihashi – Owner: Takashi Restaurant and Slurping Turtle; Competing for the American Red Cross, benefitting the Japanese Tsunami Disaster Relief
• Patricia Yeo – Om Restaurant & Lounge/ Moksa Pan Asian Izakaya; Competing for Heifer Project International

Wednesdays, 10 p.m. on Bravo TV.

Will you be watching this season or are you Top-Chefed out? If so, any early predictions on the outcome?

Related story:

• Catching up with Hugh Acheson after “Top Chef Masters”

–by Jenny Turknett, Food and More blog