“The Next Level Chef emphasis is getting to the next level, and so, in many ways, we’ve got these three incredible kitchens, three‑stories high, 85,000 tons of steel, erecting some of the most sought‑after, competitive kitchens on the planet,” Ramsay said. “We start with the basement. Then we have a middle kitchen. Then the top‑flight kitchen is just an absolute dream.” The bottom level is a no-frills kitchen with none of the bells and whistles that are on the top level, which is a one-of-a-kind, state-of-the art kitchen, and the middle level is in between. And then, each contestant at each level will have 15 seconds to pick the ingredients they will be cooking with, as a platform travels from highest level to the lower basement, so the ingredients will match the level of the kitchen because Ramsay believes the true test of a great chef is not only what they can do in the best of circumstances, but what kind of magic they can create in the worst! “Good food comes out of the basement, and more importantly, it gets you seriously creative when you have to think fast on your feet,” he said. To find the 15 contestants, Ramsay, along with the show’s two other mentors Nyesha Arrington and Richard Blais, scoured the country looking at the very best line cooks, home chefs, social media stars and food truck owners to find the best chefs to compete. “I am competitive, as you know, and it’s the first time in nearly 16 years that I put myself out there and am getting incredibly competitive alongside Richard and Nyesha, who are incredibly fierce,” Ramsay added.
Who won season one of Next Level Chef?
Stephanie “Pyet” Despain from Kansas City, Kansas, walked away with the $250,000 grand prize, a one-year mentorship from all three chef mentors, and the season one title of Next Level Chef. Originally a member of Team Nyesha, Pyet won over the mentors with her menu of pork and sweet potato empanadas, seared striped bass with spiced sweet potato purée and roasted rack of lamb with fingerling potatoes, prosciutto wrapped green beans and a red wine reduction! Pyet beat out Mariah Scott from Santa Clara, Calif., and Reuel Vincent from Trinidad & Tobago. All three chefs were given 90 minutes to dish up three showstopping courses: an appetizer from the basement kitchen, a fish course from the middle level, and a meat dish from the top kitchen.
How can I audition for season two of Next Level Chef?
If you’re a future Next Level Chef, apply online now at NextLevelChefCasting.com!
Next Level Chef contestants
Social Media Chefs
Ae Southammavong Age: 31 Current City: San Diego, CA Home Country: Laos Gary MarandolaAge: 33 Current City: Woonsocket, RI Hometown: Johnston, RI Roice Bethel Age: 29 Current City and Hometown: Corona, CA Stephanie “Pyet” DespainAge: 30 Current City: Los Angeles, CA Hometown: Kansas City, KS Tricia WangAge: 27 Current City: Fullerton, CA Hometown: Houston, TX
Home Cooks
Amber Rebold Age: 33 Current City: Austin, TX Hometown: San Antonio, TX Angie Ragan Age: 47 Current City and Hometown: Lubbock, TX Courtney Brown Age: 48 Current City: Atlanta, GA Hometown: Cincinnati, OH Devonnie Black Age: 30 Current City: Seattle, WA Hometown: Bronx, NY Jonathan Harrison Age: 29 Current City and Hometown: Columbiana, AL
Professional Chefs
Kenny Everett Age: 34 Current City: Atlanta, GA Hometown: St. Louis, MO Mariah ScottAge: 37 Current City: Houston, TX Hometown: Santa Clara, CA Reuel Vincent Age: 34 Current City: Brooklyn, NY Home Country: Trinidad and Tobago Sergio SteeleAge: 26 Current City: West Palm Beach, FL Home Country: Trinidad and Tobago Zachary Adams Age: 27 Current City: Milwaukee, WI Hometown: Manila, Philippines
When does Next Level Chef premiere?
Next Level Chef premieres on Sunday, Jan. 2 following the NFL On FOX doubleheader and The OT in all time zones: 8 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. CT / 6 p.m. MT / 5 p.m. PT before moving to its regular time period on Wednesday, Jan 5 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
What network is Next Level Chef on?
Next Level Chef will air on FOX.
Watch a trailer for Next Level Chef
How is this different than other cooking competitions?
What we were striving to create was something that was a little bit more unique. I was insistent on no training. To be honest, every top cookery show is training its contestants. So this is something quite vulnerable and exciting to watch a live cookoff unfold, the drama, the tension, the level of creativity, and then you rush up against the clock. Then we have the second [ingredient] drop where that lift platform comes down across those three kitchens, within 15 or 20 minutes halfway across that cook. It could be collard greens. It could be corn. But they have to incorporate that. So, we saw a lot more creativity from the spontaneous cooking that they were doing as opposed to the premeditated rehash of what they were doing the day before training. So training was banned. Casting was extraordinary. Thousands of applicants took up the idea of entering. We had to whittle that down to 15, and that was a hard call. But for me having nearly a thousand hours under my belt with FOX over the last 16 years, I wanted the rawness in this competition. And 15 seconds to stand and stare at ingredients as they are passing through your fingertips on a platform is not a long time. In our world as pros, it’s a dream, but grabbing three or four ingredients and turning it into something magical, that’s where the empathy came in, and that’s where the mentors then worked hard at bringing the best out of them, taking them out of their comfort zone, and them becoming comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. Next Level Chef provided all of those antics to make it very exciting. Richard and Nyesha, after the 45‑minute cook, would go down to the end of those stairs and go, “Did that happen? Did you see what she did? Did you see what Tricia Wong put up?” We had a young girl competing that was embarrassed to tell her parents that she was desperate to become a chef even to the fact that this competitor was ignored by her family because she pursued her career in kitchens. And the prolificness coming from this young girl was exceptional. It brought us all to a standstill. But I banned training because I want them to be vulnerable. I don’t want them to be corrective, and that pushed us as mentors to get the best out of them.
How do the home chefs or social media chefs compare to the professionals?
It’s very majestic the way the competition works because once we’ve got our three teams, three mentors, the contestants then go off on a lift, and unbeknownst to them, it’s up and down constantly, and so they have got no idea what floor they are going to cook on. But the objective is to get to the very top and to cook an outstanding dish to save your team from elimination. It’s as simple as that. But I want to reiterate something that’s really important to us because of what’s happened in this industry over the last two years – the hospitality section has never seen such a drastic downturn with this pandemic ‑‑ it’s gotten so much more creative. And, so, what has it done? It’s actually cooked up a storm because it’s the first time that we’ve ever put social media chefs, amateur chefs, and professional chefs into the same arena. After our first big challenge, one of the professional chefs, a phenomenal young cook out of New York, turned around and said, “I have a new‑found respect for social media chefs.” Gone are the days that you think they are just creating pictures that no one is tasting. And that’s when the penny dropped, when you saw the prolificness of this social media phenomenon that was literally kicking the a$$ of a professional chef, it was a big eye‑opener for everybody in that competition.
In your life, what was the most difficult time in a kitchen early in your career in a lower‑level situation?
For me, when I first started training in Paris, I couldn’t speak fluent French. So, I got stuck downstairs in the basement, turning sorbets, literally 15 sorbet machines turning six or seven hours a day, creating the most amazing sorbet. So, that’s where I learned to speak French. That’s where I was desperate to get up to that next level and run the fish section for Guy Savoy. I also want to mention the fact that in our basement kitchen, it wasn’t just being in the basement. There was the depleted equipment, fridge and freezers that weren’t working, stoves that weren’t getting up to temperature, blunt knives, no peelers, no mixers. So, honestly, it took me back to when I was working alongside my mom at Stratford-upon-Avon when she got her head‑cook’s job. I used to go there after soccer practice and help her prep, literally peeling with blunt knives, blunt instruments, no chopping boards. I enjoyed it most down in the basement because wait until you see what we create from there. A great chef never wastes anything, whatever level you are looking at. I never grew up with anything glamorous. I remember the embarrassing moments at school where we had food stamps, and you were called out on the first assembly line every Monday, giving you food stamps lasting the week, and that puts quite a reflection on you in a way that you are embarrassed because your school had to pay for your meals. And, so, I’m a big stickler that Next Level Chef was all about creativity and doing what you can with cans, tin foods, bruised tomatoes, cheap cuts, and that’s where the creative comes in.
In theory Next Level chefs at the top could grab virtually everything, leaving the bottom kitchen with nothing. So what rules were in place?
Our juxtaposition was: Do they go for the most expensive in the top‑flight kitchen, or do they go for the cheap ingredients to shine in a top‑flight kitchen? It was a combination of both. We saw cuts that they’d never seen before left to the bottom. We saw grounds of proteins taken from the top and maybe the top‑flight kitchen, but I want to give you the tastiest Bolognese, Ragouts in 45 minutes. And then some of the ingredients were unheard of. Some of the ingredients, they hadn’t seen. Some of it was indigenous to certain areas across the U.S., and we were really focusing on showing them stuff that they hadn’t seen before. And, so, we made them cook it and taste it before they even made it across the dish.
What is the prize?
I’ve never been turned on with cash, and there is a huge check for the winner, $250,000, but above all of that, there’s a 12‑month, first‑of‑its‑kind mentorship where whoever wins this competition, Richard, Nyesha and I are taking this individual under our wings. So, that’s quite a rare opportunity and something that we very rarely give out. Next, MasterChef: Legends Winner Kelsey Murphy Reveals Her Plan for Becoming the Next Gordon Ramsa
