Former BHS student appears in a cook-off on Bravo network.

From a sailboat on Puget Sound, Marcel Vigneron was plucked and placed into a new reality – television, that is.

Vigneron – who attended Bainbridge High School and is now a chef at Joel Robuchon restaurant in Las Vegas, Nev. – was cutting through the waters off Bainbridge on a summer afternoon when his cellphone rang.

He answered.

On the other end was a representative of the Bravo television network, telling Vigneron he would soon appear on the second season of “Top Chef,” the channel’s culinary competition show.

“It was surreal,” he said of the conversation. “I was excited about the opportunity to showcase what I love to do.”

The weekly series premiered this past week and airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m.

The show pits 15 chefs against one another as they complete different cooking challenges.

Contes­tants are judged on their performance, with one chef being eliminated each week until a winner is chosen.

After the phone call, Vigneron was both excited and worried. Appearing on the show would require him to miss a month of work and, because of the show’s tight timeline, he was only able to give three days’ notice.

Fortunately, his employer understood and in August the 26-year-old Vigneron packed his knives and headed west to Los Angeles to tape the show.

What he found when he got there surprised him.

“I’ll never look at reality television the same way,” he said. “It will be funny for my friends back home to see me.”

Vigneron said he acted a “little bit different” than he might have under normal circumstances. That, he said, along with the way footage was edited, will make for interesting viewing.

Nerves were a factor at first, but after a while Vigneron said he lost track of the cameras.

He survived the show’s first episode, with 29-year-old New York chef Sujai Steinhauer being the first contestant booted from the Top Chef kitchen.

Vigneron did however raise the eyebrows of his fellow contestants through his confident – and some said cocky – demeanor.

Still, he stands behind his food and his actions and remains friends with many of the other contestants.

After all, he said, the most important thing is a commitment to one’s craft.

“Cooking isn’t about competition,” he said. “Food is my mission. I want to be the best cook I can be and make the most delicious food I can possibly make.”

Someday, he said, he’d like to do both on Bainbridge Island.

He’s considering opening a restaurant here, maybe even sooner than later, but wouldn’t reveal whether that meant he was successful on the show – filming for the last episode has yet to take place and contestants are sworn to secrecy.

Instead, like a seasoned television star, he borrowed the network’s tagline: “Watch what happens.”