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Christine Ha
First-Ever Blind Contestant & Winner of MasterChef
Christine Ha
First-Ever Blind Contestant & Winner of MasterChef
Biography
Christine Ha is the first-ever blind contestant and season 3 winner of the competitive amateur cooking television show MasterChef with Gordon Ramsay. She defeated over 30,000 home cooks across America to secure the coveted MasterChef title, a $250,000 cash prize, and a cookbook deal.
“The lady has an extraordinary palate, a palate of incredible finesse. She picks up hot ingredients, touches them, and she thinks about this image on the plate. She has the most disciplined execution on a plate that we’ve ever seen. But the palate is where it’s just extraordinary. And honestly, I know chefs with Michelin stars that don’t have palates like hers.” –Chef Gordon Ramsay, MasterChef judge
Ha holds a Master of Fine Arts from the nationally acclaimed Creative Writing Program at University of Houston, where she served as Fiction Editor for Gulf Coast literary journal, and a Bachelor of Business Administration from The University of Texas at Austin.
Ha’s first cookbook, Recipes From My Home Kitchen: Asian and American Comfort Food, was a New York Times best-seller. She has done several TEDx Talks, spoken about disability advocacy at the United Nations, and served as a culinary arts envoy overseas for the American Embassy as part of cultural diplomacy programs in Jordan, Serbia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Croatia, and Vietnam. Ha was a co-host on the Canadian cooking show Four Senses and a judge on MasterChef Vietnam. She also serves on the Board of Trustees for Helen Keller Int’l, a global non-profit that helps millions of people achieve clear vision, sound nutrition, and good health.
Ha received the 2014 Helen Keller Personal Achievement Award from the American Foundation for the Blind, a recognition formerly bestowed upon Ray Charles, Patty Duke, and Stevie Wonder among others. Ha’s first restaurant in Houston, The Blind Goat, was named a semi-finalist for 2020 Best New Restaurant in America by the James Beard Foundation. She was also named a James Beard finalist for Best Chef, Texas, in 2022 and a semi-finalist for Outstanding Chef in 2023 for her former restaurant, Xin Chào. Ha’s third concept, Stuffed Belly, opened in June 2023.
Speaker Videos
TEDTalk: How the Blind See the World
TEDTalk: Let's Cook By Eating First
Masterchef Highlight Intro
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