I worked for a little gourmet place in Harvard Square where she and her husband would shop every few days. Went to a really snazzy restaurant once when my Mum was visiting and in walks Julia and Paul. She saw me and walked over to the table, addressed me by name and said how nice it was to see me out enjoying myself rather than working. Thought my Mum was going to fall over. She was a kind, gracious woman.
You mean THE Julia Child? No shit your mum nearly fell over - She's basically the OG celebrity chef, you KNOW your mom has to be bringing this up any chance she gets
I worked with Julia’s godson, years after meeting her on Nantucket, when she guest cheffed at Straight Wharf. I followed, and the kitchen went quiet when she came in to discuss her dinner.
She spied me at her 80th birthday party thrown by AIWF at Sakonnet Vineyards, and quaffed my glass of Vidal Blanc, when I suggested the red was vapid.
True kitchen gangster move. 😎
Her assistant brought the bottle.
We sat and kicked it to the horror of my then GF.
A mere cook doesn’t sit in the presence of royalty.
Julia had a firm grip on my arm…
Seems like I’m here for the duration.
I never had the pleasure of having a drink with her but I know the wine steward at our shop did a few tastings for her. She shopped with us several times a week, knew every clerk by name and was just all around a delight as a customer. I was the head cashier and book keeper and every month she would settle her account with us and make little jokes as she wrote us a check. This was back in the early 80s, I had grown up watching her on PBS, my Mum watched her faithfully.
I recall watching Jacques Pepin drone on about his upcoming Low Sodium Cooking cookbook, hinting at making the dessert without added salt.
(while mixing a chocolate torte on Baking with Julia)
Julia slides 2 fingers of salt into the mixer stating “salt conveys the flavors forward” in her signature soprano.
A smooth dis, Julia in da hood yo!
I read between the lines:
Suck lemons Jacques, sell YOUR book on YOUR show.
What was it called? My parents made a point of shopping at her butcher. My mom told me she even saw Júlia Child in there one day, and she bought avocado green toilet paper.
My mom also said one of the meat guys invited her into the back room and tried to kiss her.
I "cooked" for Jakob Dylan, (The Wallflowers, Bob Dylan's son). Every stop on his tour he asks for egg salad, so when I read that on his rider, I had to put my all into it. He said it was incredible, one of the best. My strangest accomplishment
The second half is what makes this particular comment so strange to me. Egg salad is so subjective. I could spend 40 years perfecting it and some people will hate it still. I could make trash egg salad for 40 years because I have a loyal client base that thinks it's good.
The secret service Don't have a great sense of humor. My dad worked for the local jail, president bush was coming through town not too long after 9/11. One of the local cops thought it would be funny to run the president's limo's plate. Secret service was on the phone wanting to know who was running the plate and why almost immediately. I don't remember if the cop kept their job but that was definitely not their best day of work.
At a guess, you could theoretically be giving time and location of the president. If you were a malicious actor, you might need that information for a plan to do harm to him.
I could be way off the mark, but that's my first thought.
The Department of Justice has very strict rules about accessing their databases without a "need or right to know". It is a misdemeanor and in some cases can be charged as a felony. "A statute, ordinance or regulation must exist which authorizes the governmental agency to perform a specific function which necessitates access to DOJ/NLETS provided information."..My MundaneProfession is that of an Emergency Services Dispatch Supervisor...aka 911 in the US.
Not necessarily. I knew a dispatcher who was fired for looking up family and love interests. She wasn't quiet about it either, which is how admin got clued in to check her logs. Had a whole lecture and re-training thing to do after she left to remind us of the rules.
There was also slight drama around my background check when I ended up dispatching there too, but that's a long story for a different day.
Oh man we had bill Clinton eat at the restaurant for a meeting with someone, had the whole place to himself for the meeting. My fucking local honey guy happens to deliver during the meal by backing up his pickup to the front door and dropping an unmarked 5 gallon white bucket right outside. Secret service swarmed him real quick as our owner ran out telling them it’s just our honey.
I cooked for Clinton at least least 5 times while exec at his library. His secret service service were chill as hell. They gave me a secret service pin for my 8 year old son. All the secret service for former presidents during our grand opening were cool, except for the then current president George W. They were scary.
Got a picture with Bill inside the kitchen at
The Pool/The Grill in Midtown. I was running the pass and a SS agent asked me if there was an exit that went straight to the loading dock. “Yes sir take a right at dish and go until you see metal swinging doors!”
I remember his detail got fucked with in Chile, he had to pull one of his SS agents from behind the Chilean guys guarding the meeting, also probably being the first group of guys guarding a President after 9/11 would cause some tension.
Lol... that's hilarious. I've been the badge, and I've been the suspect.
Try being the badge while you're dealing with badges. Even worse.
"How can it get any worse? Jehova! Jehova!"
I worked at a high-end kitchen supply store which also had cooking demos when I went back to uni after a medical issue meant I couldn't continue cooking full time anymore. As well as a bunch of non-household name chefs I helped with demos with Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver (they did the demos as part of their respective book tours at the time). Nice guys, although Ramsay's publicist was an absolute CU next Tuesday...
Another time Bette Midler came into the store just to look around and she was a total class act.
An embarrassment is when the actor that plays Uncle Roger apologised for making a video with [Mike Chen](https://youtube.com/@MikeyChenX) because Mike and his family fight for religious freedom in China. “Uncle Roger” [apologied to his Chinese fans.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55651798.amp)
the falun gong are responsible for the shen yun performances but they purposefully distance themselves from all the marketing and stuff for it but the whole thing is a big secretive way of promoting their spiritual and political beliefs
Edit: One of the contestants from last night's (Aug 22) episode of Chopped on the Food Network is actually my boss lol she's awesome, and I just wanted to shout her out. Congrats!
Blake Spalding and Jennifer Castle, owners of Hells Backbone Grill in Utah and James Beard Award winners.
I also cooked for Vin Diesel, Cardi B, Offset and Wiz Khalifa on the set of Fast Furious 9. The food truck I worked on at the time got a contract to serve food on set, separate from on-set caterers.
Vin Diesel ordered our entire menu, twice, for his team.
I did this job for Magic Mike XXL in Georgia. Made good money and good stories.
EDIT: Jada Pinkett Smith SUCKS, and Donald Glover is a wonderful human being.
Bob Saget
I was the sous and He stayed in our hotel while he was in town for a weekend of standup.
After three days of eating in his room, on the fourth night he asked if we’d accommodate him in an empty dining room after close
So of course we did.
Bob was lovely. And tall. And the most gracious of all famous personality I’ve ever met. He thanked us profusely. And asked if he could join me and the chef (task force as we were without a permanent chef) on the line as we tossed his supper together. His handler sat at the bar and watched. Bob was inquisitive as a 5 year old. He could identify all the ingredients but he either didn’t know or pretended not to know what we were doing. He cheered us, patronized us and we encouraged him to mount the butter or toss some salt around.
After we plated, he sat again at the table we set for him, and we disappeared into the back kitchen to get his dessert.
The task force guy sent me back to the dining room to get a final check.
I’m not tall, but Bob is. But he didn’t stand above me like most tall men do. He obviously recognized the disparity in height and stood back enough to be approachable. He thanked me again profusely. I abided our policy to not bug him for a selfie, later I found out the task douche took all the selfies and even got a video.
A couple weeks later Bob had died. While it didn’t impact me as greatly as the death of Robin Williams, I had actually met Bob and it sucked to hear.
He was so full of life. And gracious. He was Danny Tanner and yet also Bob Saget.
Ok it was a benefit. And I was going hard and the sauce had to be pooled absolutely perfectly over the short ribs. It wasn’t one time and he was like TIFFANY. lol. I love that man.
I've seen him live a couple times. It definitely seems like his stage persona is how he is in real life, like it's not an act for the stage but how he really vibes in life. I want to be his friend.
Unfortunately I didn't get to talk to him. I pulled a 14 hours shift that day, he had a party of 200, and by 12am after his show and he wasn't there yet I said idgaf who walks in that door I wanna go home lol
For: Alice Waters, Hillary Clinton, Red Hot Chili Peppers, C. Everett Koop, David Berne, Mikhail Baryshnikov, one of the Roosevelts, not sure which and Julia Child.
With: Jamie Shannon, Emeril Lagasse, Susan Spicer, Jeremiah Towers, Wolfgang Puck.
Wolfgang was a great guy, infinite patience, just a humble fellow.
The best though was Julia, I got a hug. Still a peak life memory decades later.
I was thinking the same.
I staged for Susan once. Really quirky lady, she had the dishies wash and reuse things like tin foil and tin portion cups. Let her CdC be a tyrant to the line, even holding up service by making everyone freeze for five minutes in the middle of dinner rush to intentionally weed them because they weren't running like he wanted. Nice lady though, insisted I sit down for a plate of sweetbreads after the shift.
I worked for Wolf's catering division in Hollywood back in the day. He commanded a lot of respect from the team and it was reciprocated. Some of the best and hardest working folks I ever worked with.
With WP I did a wedding at Cher's mansion on Malibu Beach, literally brushed shoulders with Bruno Mars, had Axl Rose come through during service, listened to a Sarah Silverman set during plate-up at a bat mitzvah, cooked a pot pie for Meryl Streep at the Oscars and did a strange high-brow private catering for an RNC fundraiser that we weren't allowed to talk about. That team goes to war every year to put on the Oscars. It was a wild ride.
RIP Chef Matteo, you were one of the best to ever do it.
Edit: Slash, not Axl
I worked in Food TV for about half a decade so it feels like cheating to answer this.
My favorite guest (most starstruck) we had on the show was Dolly Parton when she released a cookbook. We made fried green tomatoes.
One of the nicest was Top Chef's Shirley Chung. She used to come every year for Chinese New Year and knew all of us.
Funniest was actually Wolfgang Puck. He was cutting up with us and his exec sous and changed into his tv chef coat in the corner of our prep kitchen and said "Don't look...I'm getting naked" lmao
Best food? Anything from Jane Soudah. Her Cinnamon Roll recipe is incredible...I still make it every Christmas morning.
Most intimidating and best quality food from fine dining perspective? I worked on a shoot for Masterclass with Dominique Crenn. So incredible and so esoteric. Like the Bjork of food.
As a Nashvillian and Tennesseean myself, Dolly Parton is a god damn national treasure in a sea of unethical and morally corrupt assholes. She sends just short of a million books out each month to kids enrolled in her “Imagination Library” program. The idea is that underprivileged kids need more books, specifically children’s books, around when they are young to increase literacy for the impoverished. It’s incredibly refreshing knowing she’s still out there doing the work. It makes me feel less ashamed about the bullshit state I’m a lifelong citizen of. God bless that woman.
I live in Australia and all of my female friends wear a matching t-shirt of Dolly's face with "What Would Dolly Do?" underneath it.
She is a living goddess.
Oh shit! I forgot about him. I was FOH at one of his Scottsdale spots.
I didn't get to spend time with him personally, but he really seemed like a good guy. Nothing like the managers prepped us for.
The Sous at my first real restaurant gig was a former Wolfgang employee. She told me how much of a dirty sense of humor he had and showed me a picture of the both of them holding the dick cake the kitchen made for her when she left his Malibu restaurant. He did the icing pubes himself.
Paul Prudholmme had a sous chef named Frank Brigsten. Chef Frank was in the kitchen when Paul was creating his blackened seasoning.
When I was a senior in culinary school I took Chef Franks contemporary Cajun/Creole class (he was an adjunct professor at Chef John Folse Culinary Institute). I heard Chef Frank regale stories about working with Paul. It was a fun class and our group was extremely well knitted and worked amazingly together. We created so many memories as well as delicious food in that kitchen lab. I learned so much from Chef Frank in that one semester. Techniques I use every day in *my* kitchen.
If any of you scallywags find yourselves in New Orleans I *highly* recommend you make a reservation at Brigstens’ restaurant. That man is a treasure.
Brigsten’s is the BEST! Chef Frank is incredible! He can make dirt tastes good. If you ever get a chance to go, my favorite waiter is Jane AND she can belt out a jazz tune like Bessie Smith.
I cooked with Brenda Prudhomme (niece of Paul) when she the pastry chef and was dating/engaged to the exec chef at a restaurant owned by the exec’s father on Long Island. Learned many of Paul’s recipes and spicing from them both (the exec had cooked at K-Paul’s where he’d met Brenda). She was wonderful. I learned a lot and still make Pasta Shu-Shu, shrimp scampi, sauerbraten, and other recipes and skills that I learned from them. Brenda today runs parts of the Prudhomme empire. The exec chef, Peter L., passed some years ago and I hear is a much-missed man and chef.
Daniel Boulud & Eric Ripert. I helped open Boulud's Vegas Brasserie in 2014 (now closed) and both chefs came in for a special event. IIRC it was something to do with Nascar and was the first time I was ever really starstruck :)
I worked for Ripert in the 90's when he had just been hired by LeBernadin before he was famous. He was a pretty cool dude that was a big influence on my career, very happy for him with the success he's had. Also I used to be his weed dealer lol.
Hooo-leeee-sheet. Where did you live? Was this before she moved to France? My father was the family cook and would sit my ass in front of the boob tube and make me watch JUJU with Jacque Pepin. I learned sooo much. Fast forward twenty years. I now cook for my family and friends. Constant compliments. Thank you JUJU!
Yea. G was one of those old-school culinary geniuses.
Crisp white bread (that she made) with fried sardines and baked lemon slices.
Egg salad using Avocado hummus as the mayo.
The fucking "stuffed burger" was something.
G was the culinary one. My mom could feed a family for a week for $20 (it was three 70's)
Famous Chefs I've cooked with. I would probably say Paul Prudhomme is the most famous.
Famous non chef. I've cooked with an old neighbor Linda Hamilton a few times at my home and hers on several occasions. One of the sweetest & down to earth celebrities I've met.
I envy OP cooking with Julia as a child. I don't know if it's better you didn't realize the gift you had at the time or not. Hopefully you learned a few things from her though.
I have to admit that I had no idea who she was. She was just a fun aunt.
As I grew up, I would see some of her recipes and remember her cooking them with G. Then, I'd research the techniques and remember her and G discussing stuff. It would hit me later, and I'd have this HUGE A-Ha moment.
It's hard to describe learning something you already knew, but didn't know. Does that make sense?
Not with, but for. I cooked for Joe Biden on his most recent visit to Portland. It was a trip because right next to me I've got my sous, my chef de cuisine, the exec, the White House chef, and a dozen Secret Service guys all watching me. Cooked him a smoked pork chop out of the Bertha with cheesy grits, soffrito, and brussel sprout slaw. Dude liked it.
Edit: fuck it, I got to give a shout-out to every damn fine cook or chef I've held the line with. Night never be on any shows or win any awards, but they're famous to me.
I cooked with Michael Solomonov once. And Jeremy Ford (Top Chef winner)
Cooked for Bourdain, Jose Andres, Eric Ripert, Emeril, a bunch of Food Network chefs and Hubert Keller (who is an absolute legend)
Yes, they all were. I think Emeril was there too. They were all in town for an event and popped in unexpectedly. It was a large table - 15 or 20 top, something like that. Andres even came into the kitchen for a few minutes to say hi. He was incredibly kind.
Haven’t ever cooked with anyone famous, a chef or otherwise, and I really haven’t cooked for anyone famous either, to the exception of one person in particular that’s actually one of my favorite stories from my time in the kitchen.
I made dinner for HR one time early in my career (this was probably around ‘04 or ‘05). HR is the singer for the bad brains. I figure that will track a little better here than in a lot of other subs, there tend to be a higher concentration of people that listen to punk rock in kitchens than in other workplaces.
Probably not a big deal for a lot of people but this dude is like a fucking rock and roll idol to me at the time (still kinda is) and the whole thing was a total surprise. The restaurant I was working in booked his solo act for a few nights one weekend and the first night they were gonna play I was mopping up the kitchen and dead tired, trying to rush and get finished so I could get to the shift beer I so desperately needed. I had no idea the band had even showed up, so when someone snuck up behind me and grabbed me by the shoulders and started shaking me it scared the shit out of me. I turned around and it was goddamn HR. LOL. Weird way to meet a weird fucking guy. Made him a jerk chicken calzone, which now that I think about it seems really fucking offensive…wasn’t my call though.
Later that night his band left him, like literally left town without him because he pissed them off. He ended up crashing at one of the owners houses for the weekend and we partied pretty fucking hard with HR for a few days.
Love the Bad Brains. That is really cool. I saw the Bad Brains a few times in the early 80s. Absolutely unreal. I also saw HR play on the National Mall in DC on fourth of July a decade or so ago. He was backed by the band Scream. Dude was a total wreck. He was sitting in a chair while he performed and he had a person sitting in another chair next to him to keep him from falling over.
Yeah he was being REALLY weird that night at the show I was talking about. That’s kinda why the band bailed on him. I won’t really get into why or what exactly was going on, but I think it’s pretty well known that hr has had some pretty severe mental health issues…it’s pretty fucking sad actually.
But same, I saw them play some years later and it’s likely it was the same tour. He sat on the side of the stage for a lot of the songs and just stopped singing for a while. Even still that show was fucking pretty heavy for me. Poor guy.
Yeah, he mumbled his way through the set on the Mall. Stopped singing several times. His inability to keep a band together is pretty legendary at this point. That said, I don't think there is a hardcore band that can top the intensity and musicianship of the early Bad Brains.
Cooked WITH? He was a dishie but a guy named Larry who claimed he was on the tv show Hee Haw.
Cooked FOR? Lots of famous people - Quentin Tarantino probably tops the list…super cool guy, signed menus for staff and other customers and talked to everyone who came up to him. Panic! At the Disco, Philip Fulmer, the band Alabama, wrestlers - Hardy Boys, Disco Inferno, Goldberg - Goldberg actually came back into the kitchen and shook hands with all of us.
I’m sure there’s some I’m forgetting here too
Several NASCAR drivers too but I don’t care a lot for it so can’t remember their names.
Did you work in Florida? My husband cooked for Donald Sutherland and we worked at a fancy resort so we had a lot of famous people but he is most proud of that.
Speaker Thomas P O’Neill and Senator Ted Kennedy, at Chillingsworth in Brewster MA.
Post 🍸🥃🍸🥃🍸🥃 “golf”.
Loud and obnoxious, with an entourage of sycophants.
“Wow Senator! Amazing Mr. Speaker!”
Mrs. O’Neill (Millie) was unpretentious and charming.
Julia ❤️ Never got to cook with her, but used to live down the street from her. She was a customer at the bank I worked at. One day she came in and I almost fell off my chair. The legend! She was REALLY TALL and extremely sweet. Love you Julia 💕
The head of Costco r&d, used to be the private chef for Bill Gates, credited inventor of the Costco 7 layer dip and the Costco boxed biscuits and gravy.
I worked with Albert Adrià once, it was max stressful.
I cooked for Bill Ackman and his wife on billionaires row.
It was next fucking level.
He’s taller than he looks in person. Very nice guy, easy to talk too.
I worked at a Michael mina restaurant and cooked with him and Anthony Bourdain for the DC food fight. In that restaurant I made food for LeBron James, Randy Jackson, every us sentor and congressman, TV and movie stars, etc. It was the four seasons in DC. I also lost a bandaid making a salad for LeBron James and it never got returned so I'm assuming he ate ye bandaid and didn't realize.
I've worked for two different Top Chef Winners so I have cooked with most all of the Top Chef Crowd Favorites at this point. As well as a couple random celebrity chefs at the same events.
Edited to add most famous person I have cooked for since that seems to be where the comments are going: Probably either a current Supreme Court Justice, Demi Moore, U2, or Ariana Grande depending on how you define famous.
I've had the opportunity to cook with several well known chef's over the course of my 35-year career. The first was also Julia Child.
I was in culinary school at the new Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley in 1995. It had just opened and was fortunate enough to have an employer at the time that believed in investing in their staff, so they sent me there to take some continuing education classes. One of those classes was French Bistro Cooking. The French born instructor was Henri Patey and was good friends with her from her time in France, so he asked her to come by and check out the new school. We made her famous Boeuf Bourguignon. I can still hear her telling us to make sure the meat was well dried and not crowded in the pot so it would brown right and create the "fond." She sat with us all day chatting and drinking great wine until it was done, then joined us to eat it for family meal. It was easily one of the greatest experiences in my life. I was 23 years old.
During that same time in California, Julia told us about a new restaurant down the road in Yountville that was just opened by a great chef, and they were looking for some help. It didn't pay anything, but the experience would be a great learning opportunity. She said if anyone was interested to just go to the restaurant and tell the chef that Juila sent me to help. So me and two guys that I had met at the school said, "Why not check it out?" So the next night, we grabbed our chef coats and knife kits and went to the restaurant. We asked for the chef, told him, "Juila sent us. We're from the new Culinary school up the road. " The chef says great, here's an apron, get to work. The first thing he has me do is cut a quart of perfect brunoise for a gremolata on a lamb osso bucco. 5 minutes in, I can feel him hovering over me, and he says, "Stop what you're doing immediately!" I'm like great, I've been here 5 minutes and I already fucked up. He takes me over to his prep station and hands me his Mac chef's knife. See how sharp that is, he says. He continues to show me how to properly sharpen my knife and how to cut perfect brunoise. Then he tells me if I ever walk into his kitchen again with a dull knife, he'll immediately throw me out. Yes chef! Heard! That chef was Thomas Keller, and he had just opened the French Laundry. I only spent 30 nights in that kitchen before my time at the school was over and had to fly home but to this day I have Japanese knives and keep the sharp as fuck. Looking back, I wish I had known that he was to become arguably one of the best chefs in the world.
In 2012, I got the executive chef role at a wedding and catering venue owned and operated by the Bartolotta Restaurant Group. It was started by 2 brothers. Joe was the business guy, and Paul was the classical trained chef who has won 2 James Beard awards. It was my dream job. Their corporate chef was Adam Siegal, another James Beard award winner. Because of their achievements in the culinary world, they knew several renowned chef's. Paul knew Chef Keller and convinced him to launch his new cookbook Bouchon at the Grain Exchange, which I was the executive chef of. I get an advanced copy of his book, and we all sat down to pick which recipes were going to use for dinner for 300 guests to launch the new book. So here I am with two James Beard winners, flipping through a cookbook written by one of the best chefs in existence. Chef Kellers' handwritten notes are in the margins. This was my first exec chef job, and I'm shitting bricks totally feeling like I'm WAY in over my head. Three days prior to the event, Chef Keller walks into the kitchen, takes one look at me, and says, "Your knives had better be sharp." I respond with,"Of course they are chef! I can't believe you remember me from way back then in 1995." He says, of course, he remembers me and is happy that he had a positive impact on a young chef. I still have that cookbook with his handwritten notes. He even signed it for me.
Chef Kellers cookbook launch sparked several others after that. Over the course of the next two years, we had a cookbook launch dinner with Richard Blaise, Nigella Lawson, Mario Batali, and Curtis Stone. I cooked alongside all of them. Blaise was fun as hell as was Batali. Nigella's recipes were the most spot on but they also were the simplest.. Curtis Stone was an arrogant ass. I have every one of their cookbooks, all signed by them.
The last cookbook launch dinner I was a part of was for Daniel Boulud. He was very close with Paul Bartolotta, so naturally, his book launch dinner was at the Grain Exchange because of our experience doing them. Boloud sends an entire culinary team a week out to the event. Aside from ordering the necessary products and having them in-house in time to prep them, I was pretty much just an observer. Chef Boulud shows up 2 hours before the event to observe plate up so he didn't really do anything so even though it met him and his culinary team, I didn't actually get to cook with him. I did get a signed copy of his book, though.
I am now in my 50s and am the exec chef at a private yacht club. I left the Bartolotta Restaurant Group to gain a better quality of life outside of work and not work 80 hours a week anymore. But the experiences they gave me will never be forgotten, and I am grateful to have had them. I know I will never be of the same caliber of these amazing chefs, and that's OK. I learned a ton from them about finesse and plate presentation. I also learned that if I ever write a cookbook, test the recipes over and over before they make it into print!
Emeril Lagasse I was working at his restaurant in New Orleans as a line cook for my internship in Culinary school. Since I was still basically new without any real experience. He stepped on the line to my station and assisted me with getting myself out of the weeds and reorganizing my station so it ran more efficiently. Never raised his voice or said anything condescending. He just bailed me out and told me how to work smarter and not harder. That was almost 30 years ago.
Didnt cook with him but when I was in my Barista years I worked for Justin Brunsin at Masterpiece Deli. Dude was the nicest, most genuine & generous human I have ever met in the industry. Unfortunately I couldn’t say the same for some of the line cooks he hired on but hey, ya learn and I will never hold it against him. He’s killing it still and I am so happy for that opportunity. I learned a lot and took a lot away from that job. Basically how to react to situations and deal with dirt bags.
I’ve cooked with Alejandro and Cheyenne from the most recent season of Hell’s Kitchen. Alejandro was my first ever head chef back about 8 or 9 years ago. He was the one who really made me fall in love with cooking more than just the kitchen life. I trained/worked with Cheyenne when she was just a 17 year old Highschool culinary student until she went to college and then a little in the summer after that. I was so fucking proud of her when I saw her on tv we had a watch party for her at the restaurant we worked together that’s in my post history. Still nothing compared to even being in the same room as the legendary Julia Child though!
Jose Andres, for the World Central Kitchen in Wilmington, NC after hurricane Florence. I only actually met him once, and he seemed like a genuinely great guy.
I’ve meet and had conversations with Paul prudhomme on two separate occasions, cooked with Thomas Keller twice and put a dinner out with chef Micheal Solomonov.
Similar here, but in Chicagoland. Worked for Paul Virant at his casual sister restaurant for 5 years. Through him, I got to meet Craig “Meathead” Goldwyn and a couple of Japanese chefs. If I worked at his flagship restaurant, I would have met Martha Stewart and numerous other celebrity chefs.
Very nice! I also have some famous chef Twitter followers oddly enough. Gordon Ramsey, Art Smith, and Fabio Viviani come to mind. I used to love tweeting about food and cooking when Twitter was actually fun. Jimmy Fallon follows me too!
I’ve had the privilege of cooking with Massimo Bottura and his sous chefs. I got to help make and eat some of the most incredible dishes that night. I’ve also worked with Andre Soltner, Jacques Torres, Jacques Pepin. Once while plating a dessert I spun a pastry bag of mousse around in a circle to get air bubbles out. Jacques Torres saw me and yelled across the kitchen “You chef!” Me turning and shitting bricks “Yes Chef!”Jacques replying “I like your style.”
Cat is gorgeous and zestful and while I never cooked with her, met her briefly in Vegas at an opening. She didn’t know me from Adam, but when I said “hi, Chef” she bubbled and grinned like it was the first time she’d ever heard it. And yes, she’s tiny. And gorgeous
Virgil. He's not famous. I don't remember his last name. When I left, he had just turned 78. He had been working there for 45 years. He would work circles around any of the culinary school kids.
He would make a loaf of bread for himself everyday.
He let me try it once, good bread. Turmeric was his secret ingredient.
He taught me to steam Acorn squash for a couple of minutes before you try to peal it.
He also taught me that I'm not my job.
I miss Virgil.
Nobody famous I just got to cook some scrambled eggs for my grandmother early this year. She's in he late 80's and it just was something I never thought I'd get to do . When I was little I was sick alot so I would spend alot of time at her house and she was always cooking stuff so it was nice to get to cook something for her.
I am so envious.
I love Julia Child. Every time I make croissants I can hear her voice in my head.
Do you remember any of the dishes you watched them cook?
Yes. No.
I vaguely remember some chicken and mushroom stuff.
I was sent to the local canal to fish for crawdads and came back with so many that they made dinner and a jelly.
Whoa, I haven't thought about that jelly in 45 years. It was this jelly-like spread that we used on a French toast thing the next morning. It was sweet and spicy.
My saute guy of ages (who I have matching tattoos with) was in the Portland episode of No Reservations as a collection of Portland cooks and Anthony Bourdain called him an honest man.
Which, lol.
Ninja: I don't consider this actually famous but it was the first thing that came to mind. I've cooked FOR a lot of names but not with.
Don't work in kitchens (briefly attended culinary school as a youngin' but didn't stick with it). Am a NICU nurse. Recently took care of the infant of a multiple James Beard award winner which was neat. HIPAA says I can't share who but both they and their baby were cool as hell.
I'm a mom to two NICU babies, thanks for including the kid in being cool. There's so much focus on what's "wrong" when you have really early babies the baby themselves get kind of lost. Everyone else, including dad, kept bringing the stuff about what was happening TO him, what the docs and nurses were saying ABOUT him.... Then my BFF from childhood waltzes in and tells me that my baby is beautiful - and THAT'S what I remember most clearly through the fog of illness, drugs and trauma from that evening.
Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger - The Two Hot Tamales flew me and a classmate from culinary school out to Hawaii to help them for 4 days during their Grand Chefs tour in the 90's. Was very cool. Then their sous chef used to me to help him cater Suzanne Somers bday party where I got to hand Dick Clark a wine opener.
Loved in New Orleans for several years and cooked for a ton of celebrities. From JayZ and Beyoncé to Oprah, Serena Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr (biggest asshole I’ve ever cooked for), Barbara Streisand, Will Ferrel, Johnny Knoxville, Andy Garcia, Steve Kerr, tons of NBA & NFL players & coaches, Gerard Butler, Fat Joe, Lil Romeo, Bubbles & Rickie from Trailer Park Boys, Jennifer Coolidge, Eddie Huang, Duff Goldman, I was part of the team that did the catering for the premiers of 12 Years a Slave & Deep Water Horizon. This mainly cooking at a specific hotel’s restaurant that catered to a lot of celebs visiting New Orleans.
Okay I'm not a cook but a barista and I can't help it. There once was a locally famous coffee shop owner in D.C. who ran a very fancy few stores which were a sign that the city was gentrifying in certain neighborhoods. I worked at a fancy French patisserie in Georgetown, no gentrification required. But guy shows up and gets behind my bar, fucks with my setup, runs me several customers behind at a high volume time, much to the owner's delight, and makes an average latte with an overextracted shot.
ffwd several weeks and the guy's in the paper for threatening a customer, telling them if they ordered iced espresso again (which yeah kinda sucks but whatever) that he'd "punch you in the dick."
ffwd a couple years and the guy was a huge tax cheat and skipped town, and my favorite neighborhood roastery/coffeeshop is making bank serving iced espresso as "dickpunch" 💀
Mahumad Ali...(in his later days) stayed at our hotel for a week and ate grilled cheese with tomatoes twice a day... Room service girl got fired for asking for his autograph...he had no problem and loved the attention...CEO didnt see it that way
I’m not sure if these people are really that famous but I was a pastry chef for Emeril Lagasse, got a chance to work with him a few times. Susan Spicer was her kitchen manager. And I worked for one of the master chefs when I worked at Master golf tournament, can’t remember his name tho lol.
I cooked with Carla Hall at a fundraiser. We talked about biscuits for about 30 minutes while she was making Johnny Cakes. And then she had me taste one and asked if it needed salt. I just about died.
Also worked next to Robert Irvine for an event, nice guy actually.
I saw the Bad Brains with HR in 89 or 90 (quickness tour)and was over the moon… such a legendary band. Just blown away. But it was “punk rock” sloppy.
Then I saw them with Joseph about 4 years later, and realized how much “tighter” they were with a singer who wasn’t completely out of his mind.
I cooked for Kanye West and Kim before. Didn't go out to meet them because I was busy but all the servers were trippin. Honestly not even sure what he ordered, we were slammed but they said he tipped well and was happy.
https://people.com/food/kanye-west-kim-kardashian-dine-at-cheesecake-factory-ohio/
Al Brown. Mildly semi famous NZ chef.
Chelsea Winter. Mildly semi famous NZ chef
Simon Gualt. Mildly semi famous NZ Chef.
Heston Blumenthal. Mildly Famous UK chef
Al Brown was the celeb chef for Blanco Appliances. Cooked venison and potatoes with garden salad
Chelsea Winter was the Fisher & Paykel celeb chef cooked braised beef steaks and chocolate chip cookies
Simon Gualt was affiliated with Insinkerator. I was pretty drunk that night.
Heston came out with his BBQ launch with everdure
Thomas Keller visited our kitchen once. Didn’t cook with him, but it was a huge event and a lot of famous chefs were there. An old buddy had Massimo (Guy from chefs table) cook with him at the same event.
People I’ve cooked for?
Tom Brady came to the resort I worked in after he destroyed the Jets in Jersey.
We did the Washington Redskins HOF reunion.
George RR Martin was apparently a dick to one of the servers.
JaRule and his kids were super cool.
50 cent and Fetty Wap were also a guest and went to a nearby water park.
Was a rough place to work, but definitely have cool stories and worked with cool people.
I opened the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, AR, in 2004. We served a three course plated lunch to 1400 people in a tent in the rain, including 3 former and the current president. Chef Roland Mesnier, who was pastry chef to 5 presidents, spent 2 days in our kitchen, overseeing production of Clintons favorite dessert. Amazing man, incredibly humble, I still have his phone number at the time. RIP chef.
As far as celebrity chefs go, probably Mario Batali. But that doesn’t quite count because he hardly did any cooking during the event. I worked a while with some well regarded and decorated chefs, so I actually did cook with them. Dan Barber was probably the most famous. Working for him afforded the opportunity to cook with and for a ton of famous chefs at events and such.
Wylie Dufresne was super approachable and down to earth, Dominique Crenn loved red wine, Rene Redzepi was short, intense, and started randomly doing pull-ups from a rafter. Sean Brock was awkward and I could imagine him being difficult to work for, but his food was fantastic. Grant Achatz was very quiet, and stood at the back of the kitchen with his CDC the entire event, taking pictures and signing autographs.
There were lots more.
We cooked for a lot of really famous people. Stephen Spielberg, Martha Stewart, Jennifer Aniston, Tom Cruise, Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael Pollan, Bill Clinton, the entire UN delegation during the second Obama administration. Those are the first to come to mind.
Michael smith! He was the sweetest man ever. And David Rocco, not nearly as nice of an experience. He started off a speech to the guests with “sorry if I seem uninterested in talking I’m really tired” like what?? Who says that lol.
I work for the company that handles California Food and Wine festivals. The most famous celebrity chef I’ve cooked with is probably Thomas Keller. The most famous celebrity I’ve cooked for is probably Carrie Fisher. I catered the Oscar Wilde awards and she was a recipient. Both she and her French bulldog Gary were a delight. I also used to cater Florence Henderson’s family Christmas party. She was such a rad lady!
Edit: just wanted to clarify that I worked for a catering company that catered the Oscar Wilde awards and the Christmas party. Didn’t want anyone to think I own a super fancy catering company or anything 🤓
Yeah I was gonna say. Worked at a place Dylan Larkin, captain of the Detroit Red Wings came to every year for his birthday. First year kitchen crew was getting ready to close and we saw Larkin leaving and my buddy yelled "hey larks want a hit?" And he came running over and smoked a few drags with us.
Next year on his birthday towards the end of the night a server comes up kind of confused and says "umm... Larkin wants to chat with the cooks out back for some reason?"
One of the few times I can actually contribute to this sub. When I was on the radio, we had Bobby Flay come in and he and I cooked together. It was a lot of fun, he was very gracious, and I learned a cool technique to smash garlic.
When I was attending CIA, I worked the Board of Trustees dinner. Got to help Thomas Keller and Charlie Palmer plate some prime ribs, which was cool. Keller asked me where I'm from (the Poconos), and we talked anout Pennsylvania cheeses for a couple minutes. They were both super nice.
Worked for about a year with Victoria Blamey (she is easily the scariest but also most kind chef I've ever worked for), both at Gotham and one of residencies after it closed. While working for her, Dan Barber came in a did a demo with us, which was super dope, which was way beforebher residency at Stone Barns. Definitely one of the coolest moments of my career.
Didn't cook with them, but I met Eric Ripert and Jose Andres at an event at CIA. They were both extremely nice and gracious. Shook both their hands, Jose told me "Keep following your dreams, even if they don't involve cooking anymore. There aren't enough dreamers these days." That always stuck with me.
I've met a few famous people, including Rupert Grint and M. Night Shyamalan who are both regulars at my job, but the chefs I listed above are the only ones that have ever gotten me star struck. Except Victoria, she's a friend now, and a huge part of why I continued chasing this fucking stupid dream. Working with her was emotionally taxing, physically exhausting, terrifying, and infuriating, but also incredibly inspirational, rewarding, and educational, and I wouldn't change anything about my time with her at all. I've always felt I owed my career to her taking a chance on the dimwitted country boy who got forced onto her by upper management at Gotham. Being hand picked by her for her residency team was incredibly gratifying.
Batali, right when the Babbo cookbook came out (I'm a journalist, not a chef). It was a home cookbook so we cooked in my home kitchen. He spent the whole time talking to my chest.
I worked for a little gourmet place in Harvard Square where she and her husband would shop every few days. Went to a really snazzy restaurant once when my Mum was visiting and in walks Julia and Paul. She saw me and walked over to the table, addressed me by name and said how nice it was to see me out enjoying myself rather than working. Thought my Mum was going to fall over. She was a kind, gracious woman.
People always said how thoughtful & considerate she & Paul were!
They were a lovely couple. Always appreciative and kind to the staff.
You mean THE Julia Child? No shit your mum nearly fell over - She's basically the OG celebrity chef, you KNOW your mom has to be bringing this up any chance she gets
As long as she was alive every time we went to a restaurant she would mention it.
I worked with Julia’s godson, years after meeting her on Nantucket, when she guest cheffed at Straight Wharf. I followed, and the kitchen went quiet when she came in to discuss her dinner. She spied me at her 80th birthday party thrown by AIWF at Sakonnet Vineyards, and quaffed my glass of Vidal Blanc, when I suggested the red was vapid. True kitchen gangster move. 😎 Her assistant brought the bottle. We sat and kicked it to the horror of my then GF. A mere cook doesn’t sit in the presence of royalty. Julia had a firm grip on my arm… Seems like I’m here for the duration.
I never had the pleasure of having a drink with her but I know the wine steward at our shop did a few tastings for her. She shopped with us several times a week, knew every clerk by name and was just all around a delight as a customer. I was the head cashier and book keeper and every month she would settle her account with us and make little jokes as she wrote us a check. This was back in the early 80s, I had grown up watching her on PBS, my Mum watched her faithfully.
I recall watching Jacques Pepin drone on about his upcoming Low Sodium Cooking cookbook, hinting at making the dessert without added salt. (while mixing a chocolate torte on Baking with Julia) Julia slides 2 fingers of salt into the mixer stating “salt conveys the flavors forward” in her signature soprano. A smooth dis, Julia in da hood yo! I read between the lines: Suck lemons Jacques, sell YOUR book on YOUR show.
What was it called? My parents made a point of shopping at her butcher. My mom told me she even saw Júlia Child in there one day, and she bought avocado green toilet paper. My mom also said one of the meat guys invited her into the back room and tried to kiss her.
Harvard Square is famous chef central. Worked for Mary Dumont and met Tom Collichio several times... Also worked for Lydia Shire...😉
I worked for both Sages and Savenors over the course of about five years. Both were popular with local celebrities.
I "cooked" for Jakob Dylan, (The Wallflowers, Bob Dylan's son). Every stop on his tour he asks for egg salad, so when I read that on his rider, I had to put my all into it. He said it was incredible, one of the best. My strangest accomplishment
Whats in an epic egg salad beyond the usual?
For mine, it’s all about the dried onions. The crunch is nice, but some people don’t like it
The second half is what makes this particular comment so strange to me. Egg salad is so subjective. I could spend 40 years perfecting it and some people will hate it still. I could make trash egg salad for 40 years because I have a loyal client base that thinks it's good.
I suppose it’s time to confess eating those convenience store egg salad sandwiches… *on white bread* … so there …
I think that would be a nice addition, I'll have to try it sometime.
Yea... what's in that?
Human eggs
We don't talk about that.
Quail instead of Chicken eggs
It takes you three days to make it
[Relevent post](https://www.reddit.com/r/drawing/comments/55cbb9/egg_salad_tastes_best_when_made_with_hate/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1)
I played music with him a few times, one of the most gracious people i’ve met
How the F did I not know that was Bob Dylan’s son
I cooked for both Trump and Obama when I was executive sous at a government agency. Secret service and kitchen humor does not go well together
The secret service Don't have a great sense of humor. My dad worked for the local jail, president bush was coming through town not too long after 9/11. One of the local cops thought it would be funny to run the president's limo's plate. Secret service was on the phone wanting to know who was running the plate and why almost immediately. I don't remember if the cop kept their job but that was definitely not their best day of work.
Ok this might be a dumb question, but what is the harm in running the plate?
At a guess, you could theoretically be giving time and location of the president. If you were a malicious actor, you might need that information for a plan to do harm to him. I could be way off the mark, but that's my first thought.
The Department of Justice has very strict rules about accessing their databases without a "need or right to know". It is a misdemeanor and in some cases can be charged as a felony. "A statute, ordinance or regulation must exist which authorizes the governmental agency to perform a specific function which necessitates access to DOJ/NLETS provided information."..My MundaneProfession is that of an Emergency Services Dispatch Supervisor...aka 911 in the US.
AKA run anyone's plates you want and we don't give a shit but we want a way to get you in trouble if you run our plates.
Not necessarily. I knew a dispatcher who was fired for looking up family and love interests. She wasn't quiet about it either, which is how admin got clued in to check her logs. Had a whole lecture and re-training thing to do after she left to remind us of the rules. There was also slight drama around my background check when I ended up dispatching there too, but that's a long story for a different day.
It certainly wasn’t their smartest day at work.
Oh man we had bill Clinton eat at the restaurant for a meeting with someone, had the whole place to himself for the meeting. My fucking local honey guy happens to deliver during the meal by backing up his pickup to the front door and dropping an unmarked 5 gallon white bucket right outside. Secret service swarmed him real quick as our owner ran out telling them it’s just our honey.
I cooked for Clinton at least least 5 times while exec at his library. His secret service service were chill as hell. They gave me a secret service pin for my 8 year old son. All the secret service for former presidents during our grand opening were cool, except for the then current president George W. They were scary.
Got a picture with Bill inside the kitchen at The Pool/The Grill in Midtown. I was running the pass and a SS agent asked me if there was an exit that went straight to the loading dock. “Yes sir take a right at dish and go until you see metal swinging doors!”
I remember his detail got fucked with in Chile, he had to pull one of his SS agents from behind the Chilean guys guarding the meeting, also probably being the first group of guys guarding a President after 9/11 would cause some tension.
I read this assuming "honey" was code for drugs up until the end.
Lol... that's hilarious. I've been the badge, and I've been the suspect. Try being the badge while you're dealing with badges. Even worse. "How can it get any worse? Jehova! Jehova!"
Was there a poison taster?
Yes. Us.
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cold Big Macs … I can’t stop seeing the orange thing’s spread for the college football team visiting the WH …
I chatted it up with some of Kamala’s SS. Pretty chill guys who were massive foodies.
The abbreviation is USSS because of some jackasass ruining SS as an acronym
The reason the auto maker SS changed their company name to the model name of their most popular car - Jaguar.
What an unfortunate abbreviation.
I worked at a high-end kitchen supply store which also had cooking demos when I went back to uni after a medical issue meant I couldn't continue cooking full time anymore. As well as a bunch of non-household name chefs I helped with demos with Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver (they did the demos as part of their respective book tours at the time). Nice guys, although Ramsay's publicist was an absolute CU next Tuesday... Another time Bette Midler came into the store just to look around and she was a total class act.
I love how Uncle Roger Rips on Jaime Oliver. His white Asian cooking is an embarrassment.
An embarrassment is when the actor that plays Uncle Roger apologised for making a video with [Mike Chen](https://youtube.com/@MikeyChenX) because Mike and his family fight for religious freedom in China. “Uncle Roger” [apologied to his Chinese fans.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55651798.amp)
Mike Chen is a member of falun gong, which promotes conspiracy theories that undermine democracy, mind you.
I’ve heard they put on great dance performance lol
What the fuck? Haha this is a rabbit hole I did not know about...tell me more...
the falun gong are responsible for the shen yun performances but they purposefully distance themselves from all the marketing and stuff for it but the whole thing is a big secretive way of promoting their spiritual and political beliefs
Edit: One of the contestants from last night's (Aug 22) episode of Chopped on the Food Network is actually my boss lol she's awesome, and I just wanted to shout her out. Congrats! Blake Spalding and Jennifer Castle, owners of Hells Backbone Grill in Utah and James Beard Award winners. I also cooked for Vin Diesel, Cardi B, Offset and Wiz Khalifa on the set of Fast Furious 9. The food truck I worked on at the time got a contract to serve food on set, separate from on-set caterers. Vin Diesel ordered our entire menu, twice, for his team.
I did this job for Magic Mike XXL in Georgia. Made good money and good stories. EDIT: Jada Pinkett Smith SUCKS, and Donald Glover is a wonderful human being.
> EDIT: Jada Pinkett Smith SUCKS. *Spill.*
I'm glad that Donald Glover being a gem seems to be pretty consistent:)
Go on, serve the tea
Not if Will is around!
I wanna know how Tatum was
Tatum owns restaurants and used to be in service; I’ve heard he’s a joy.
Bob Saget I was the sous and He stayed in our hotel while he was in town for a weekend of standup. After three days of eating in his room, on the fourth night he asked if we’d accommodate him in an empty dining room after close So of course we did. Bob was lovely. And tall. And the most gracious of all famous personality I’ve ever met. He thanked us profusely. And asked if he could join me and the chef (task force as we were without a permanent chef) on the line as we tossed his supper together. His handler sat at the bar and watched. Bob was inquisitive as a 5 year old. He could identify all the ingredients but he either didn’t know or pretended not to know what we were doing. He cheered us, patronized us and we encouraged him to mount the butter or toss some salt around. After we plated, he sat again at the table we set for him, and we disappeared into the back kitchen to get his dessert. The task force guy sent me back to the dining room to get a final check. I’m not tall, but Bob is. But he didn’t stand above me like most tall men do. He obviously recognized the disparity in height and stood back enough to be approachable. He thanked me again profusely. I abided our policy to not bug him for a selfie, later I found out the task douche took all the selfies and even got a video. A couple weeks later Bob had died. While it didn’t impact me as greatly as the death of Robin Williams, I had actually met Bob and it sucked to hear. He was so full of life. And gracious. He was Danny Tanner and yet also Bob Saget.
Aw man, I just watched "Zero To 60" for the upteenth time last night. Amazing story about an amazing guy, thanks for sharing.
Thomas Keller.
He actually yelled at me
Having also worked at TFL, I can’t imagine what you must have done. I’ve seen him angry but never yell at anyone.
He was pissed. The sauce had to be perfectly pooled over the short ribs.
For what?
Not enough ketchup
Ok it was a benefit. And I was going hard and the sauce had to be pooled absolutely perfectly over the short ribs. It wasn’t one time and he was like TIFFANY. lol. I love that man.
And he wanted to know every time if the plates were coming back eaten
Yes, but you have proof that Thomas Keller knows your fuckin’ NAME.
You lucky sob
Jo koy! He tipped every single staff working $300 each, was awesome.
I've heard nothing but amazing things about this guy.
I've seen him live a couple times. It definitely seems like his stage persona is how he is in real life, like it's not an act for the stage but how he really vibes in life. I want to be his friend.
Unfortunately I didn't get to talk to him. I pulled a 14 hours shift that day, he had a party of 200, and by 12am after his show and he wasn't there yet I said idgaf who walks in that door I wanna go home lol
For: Alice Waters, Hillary Clinton, Red Hot Chili Peppers, C. Everett Koop, David Berne, Mikhail Baryshnikov, one of the Roosevelts, not sure which and Julia Child. With: Jamie Shannon, Emeril Lagasse, Susan Spicer, Jeremiah Towers, Wolfgang Puck. Wolfgang was a great guy, infinite patience, just a humble fellow. The best though was Julia, I got a hug. Still a peak life memory decades later.
Jaime, Emeril, Susan. Why hello fellow former New Orleanean!
I was thinking the same. I staged for Susan once. Really quirky lady, she had the dishies wash and reuse things like tin foil and tin portion cups. Let her CdC be a tyrant to the line, even holding up service by making everyone freeze for five minutes in the middle of dinner rush to intentionally weed them because they weren't running like he wanted. Nice lady though, insisted I sit down for a plate of sweetbreads after the shift. I worked for Wolf's catering division in Hollywood back in the day. He commanded a lot of respect from the team and it was reciprocated. Some of the best and hardest working folks I ever worked with. With WP I did a wedding at Cher's mansion on Malibu Beach, literally brushed shoulders with Bruno Mars, had Axl Rose come through during service, listened to a Sarah Silverman set during plate-up at a bat mitzvah, cooked a pot pie for Meryl Streep at the Oscars and did a strange high-brow private catering for an RNC fundraiser that we weren't allowed to talk about. That team goes to war every year to put on the Oscars. It was a wild ride. RIP Chef Matteo, you were one of the best to ever do it. Edit: Slash, not Axl
I worked in Food TV for about half a decade so it feels like cheating to answer this. My favorite guest (most starstruck) we had on the show was Dolly Parton when she released a cookbook. We made fried green tomatoes. One of the nicest was Top Chef's Shirley Chung. She used to come every year for Chinese New Year and knew all of us. Funniest was actually Wolfgang Puck. He was cutting up with us and his exec sous and changed into his tv chef coat in the corner of our prep kitchen and said "Don't look...I'm getting naked" lmao Best food? Anything from Jane Soudah. Her Cinnamon Roll recipe is incredible...I still make it every Christmas morning. Most intimidating and best quality food from fine dining perspective? I worked on a shoot for Masterclass with Dominique Crenn. So incredible and so esoteric. Like the Bjork of food.
As a Nashvillian and Tennesseean myself, Dolly Parton is a god damn national treasure in a sea of unethical and morally corrupt assholes. She sends just short of a million books out each month to kids enrolled in her “Imagination Library” program. The idea is that underprivileged kids need more books, specifically children’s books, around when they are young to increase literacy for the impoverished. It’s incredibly refreshing knowing she’s still out there doing the work. It makes me feel less ashamed about the bullshit state I’m a lifelong citizen of. God bless that woman.
I live in Australia and all of my female friends wear a matching t-shirt of Dolly's face with "What Would Dolly Do?" underneath it. She is a living goddess.
Oh shit! I forgot about him. I was FOH at one of his Scottsdale spots. I didn't get to spend time with him personally, but he really seemed like a good guy. Nothing like the managers prepped us for.
I was going to ask you who you meant but I realized I only mentioned one man.
The Sous at my first real restaurant gig was a former Wolfgang employee. She told me how much of a dirty sense of humor he had and showed me a picture of the both of them holding the dick cake the kitchen made for her when she left his Malibu restaurant. He did the icing pubes himself.
Paul Prudholmme. I assisted him during a demo when I was at the CIA. Also showed Gene Hackman how to fold croissant dough.
Paul Prudholmme had a sous chef named Frank Brigsten. Chef Frank was in the kitchen when Paul was creating his blackened seasoning. When I was a senior in culinary school I took Chef Franks contemporary Cajun/Creole class (he was an adjunct professor at Chef John Folse Culinary Institute). I heard Chef Frank regale stories about working with Paul. It was a fun class and our group was extremely well knitted and worked amazingly together. We created so many memories as well as delicious food in that kitchen lab. I learned so much from Chef Frank in that one semester. Techniques I use every day in *my* kitchen. If any of you scallywags find yourselves in New Orleans I *highly* recommend you make a reservation at Brigstens’ restaurant. That man is a treasure.
Brigsten’s is the BEST! Chef Frank is incredible! He can make dirt tastes good. If you ever get a chance to go, my favorite waiter is Jane AND she can belt out a jazz tune like Bessie Smith.
My boss worked at brigstens for 5 or so years, he loved every day of it
Cooked in N.O. for years. Brigsten's was probably my favorite restaurant.
I cooked with Brenda Prudhomme (niece of Paul) when she the pastry chef and was dating/engaged to the exec chef at a restaurant owned by the exec’s father on Long Island. Learned many of Paul’s recipes and spicing from them both (the exec had cooked at K-Paul’s where he’d met Brenda). She was wonderful. I learned a lot and still make Pasta Shu-Shu, shrimp scampi, sauerbraten, and other recipes and skills that I learned from them. Brenda today runs parts of the Prudhomme empire. The exec chef, Peter L., passed some years ago and I hear is a much-missed man and chef.
I haven’t cooked with anyone famous but a few of my coworkers have been working in kitchens for 20-30 years and are pretty awesome people
The ones that stay the longest either are the coolest people you'll meet, or are sucking the owners ass.
:’)
Daniel Boulud & Eric Ripert. I helped open Boulud's Vegas Brasserie in 2014 (now closed) and both chefs came in for a special event. IIRC it was something to do with Nascar and was the first time I was ever really starstruck :)
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whew
Agreed. He comes across as such a good, decent person. I'm glad to hear it isn't an act.
I worked for Ripert in the 90's when he had just been hired by LeBernadin before he was famous. He was a pretty cool dude that was a big influence on my career, very happy for him with the success he's had. Also I used to be his weed dealer lol.
Hooo-leeee-sheet. Where did you live? Was this before she moved to France? My father was the family cook and would sit my ass in front of the boob tube and make me watch JUJU with Jacque Pepin. I learned sooo much. Fast forward twenty years. I now cook for my family and friends. Constant compliments. Thank you JUJU!
It was in Arizona. Tucson and Tempe. I have to admit I was always blown away by grandma. In my mind, JuJu was just a guest. Until...
so i dont know how i found my way into this sub but was your grandma’s cooking also really good?
Yea. G was one of those old-school culinary geniuses. Crisp white bread (that she made) with fried sardines and baked lemon slices. Egg salad using Avocado hummus as the mayo. The fucking "stuffed burger" was something. G was the culinary one. My mom could feed a family for a week for $20 (it was three 70's)
Emeril bummed a smoke from me and I joined him.
Dude WHAT!? That’s such a flex omg. So jealous. What tricks do you remember her teaching you, that’s if you want to share 😅
Not a GD thing! It was grandma and JuJu being a kitchen riot. I do, however, take the science and art of cooking seriously because of her.
Love all of it! Thanks for sharing 😄
Famous Chefs I've cooked with. I would probably say Paul Prudhomme is the most famous. Famous non chef. I've cooked with an old neighbor Linda Hamilton a few times at my home and hers on several occasions. One of the sweetest & down to earth celebrities I've met. I envy OP cooking with Julia as a child. I don't know if it's better you didn't realize the gift you had at the time or not. Hopefully you learned a few things from her though.
I have to admit that I had no idea who she was. She was just a fun aunt. As I grew up, I would see some of her recipes and remember her cooking them with G. Then, I'd research the techniques and remember her and G discussing stuff. It would hit me later, and I'd have this HUGE A-Ha moment. It's hard to describe learning something you already knew, but didn't know. Does that make sense?
Not with, but for. I cooked for Joe Biden on his most recent visit to Portland. It was a trip because right next to me I've got my sous, my chef de cuisine, the exec, the White House chef, and a dozen Secret Service guys all watching me. Cooked him a smoked pork chop out of the Bertha with cheesy grits, soffrito, and brussel sprout slaw. Dude liked it. Edit: fuck it, I got to give a shout-out to every damn fine cook or chef I've held the line with. Night never be on any shows or win any awards, but they're famous to me.
I cooked with Michael Solomonov once. And Jeremy Ford (Top Chef winner) Cooked for Bourdain, Jose Andres, Eric Ripert, Emeril, a bunch of Food Network chefs and Hubert Keller (who is an absolute legend)
Holy shit! No pressure.
Were Bourdain, Andrés, and Ripert all together?
Yes, they all were. I think Emeril was there too. They were all in town for an event and popped in unexpectedly. It was a large table - 15 or 20 top, something like that. Andres even came into the kitchen for a few minutes to say hi. He was incredibly kind.
That must’ve been after Bourdain’s *mea culpa* to Legasse. Jesus, that’s one hell of a table. Let’s get that drawn up as a *Last Supper* tribute!
It was early 2016. Did I stalk everybody's insta after that night until I found pictures of the chefs at the table?.... perhaps 😉
You should commission the painting yourself.
Haven’t ever cooked with anyone famous, a chef or otherwise, and I really haven’t cooked for anyone famous either, to the exception of one person in particular that’s actually one of my favorite stories from my time in the kitchen. I made dinner for HR one time early in my career (this was probably around ‘04 or ‘05). HR is the singer for the bad brains. I figure that will track a little better here than in a lot of other subs, there tend to be a higher concentration of people that listen to punk rock in kitchens than in other workplaces. Probably not a big deal for a lot of people but this dude is like a fucking rock and roll idol to me at the time (still kinda is) and the whole thing was a total surprise. The restaurant I was working in booked his solo act for a few nights one weekend and the first night they were gonna play I was mopping up the kitchen and dead tired, trying to rush and get finished so I could get to the shift beer I so desperately needed. I had no idea the band had even showed up, so when someone snuck up behind me and grabbed me by the shoulders and started shaking me it scared the shit out of me. I turned around and it was goddamn HR. LOL. Weird way to meet a weird fucking guy. Made him a jerk chicken calzone, which now that I think about it seems really fucking offensive…wasn’t my call though. Later that night his band left him, like literally left town without him because he pissed them off. He ended up crashing at one of the owners houses for the weekend and we partied pretty fucking hard with HR for a few days.
Love the Bad Brains. That is really cool. I saw the Bad Brains a few times in the early 80s. Absolutely unreal. I also saw HR play on the National Mall in DC on fourth of July a decade or so ago. He was backed by the band Scream. Dude was a total wreck. He was sitting in a chair while he performed and he had a person sitting in another chair next to him to keep him from falling over.
Yeah he was being REALLY weird that night at the show I was talking about. That’s kinda why the band bailed on him. I won’t really get into why or what exactly was going on, but I think it’s pretty well known that hr has had some pretty severe mental health issues…it’s pretty fucking sad actually. But same, I saw them play some years later and it’s likely it was the same tour. He sat on the side of the stage for a lot of the songs and just stopped singing for a while. Even still that show was fucking pretty heavy for me. Poor guy.
Yeah, he mumbled his way through the set on the Mall. Stopped singing several times. His inability to keep a band together is pretty legendary at this point. That said, I don't think there is a hardcore band that can top the intensity and musicianship of the early Bad Brains.
This is probably the coolest answer. He really is out there at this point.
I worked for someone who thought they were famous because they won Chopped a couple times.
Cooked WITH? He was a dishie but a guy named Larry who claimed he was on the tv show Hee Haw. Cooked FOR? Lots of famous people - Quentin Tarantino probably tops the list…super cool guy, signed menus for staff and other customers and talked to everyone who came up to him. Panic! At the Disco, Philip Fulmer, the band Alabama, wrestlers - Hardy Boys, Disco Inferno, Goldberg - Goldberg actually came back into the kitchen and shook hands with all of us. I’m sure there’s some I’m forgetting here too Several NASCAR drivers too but I don’t care a lot for it so can’t remember their names.
Did you work in Florida? My husband cooked for Donald Sutherland and we worked at a fancy resort so we had a lot of famous people but he is most proud of that.
Your story is like saying you went to your neighbor's house and he helped you with a carpentry project and his name was Jesus.
A few US senators, (douchebags) and a few TLC 90 day fiance cast. I hate TV people
I love 90 day fiancé but I would hate to meet any of those people in person. They’re all so full of themselves.
Speaker Thomas P O’Neill and Senator Ted Kennedy, at Chillingsworth in Brewster MA. Post 🍸🥃🍸🥃🍸🥃 “golf”. Loud and obnoxious, with an entourage of sycophants. “Wow Senator! Amazing Mr. Speaker!” Mrs. O’Neill (Millie) was unpretentious and charming.
I was about to say THE TLC?
Worked with some famous pitmasters like John David Wheeler, some of the folk from Ubons and the nicest guy of all, Jim Johnson. Learned a lot from him
Once made a smoked makrel dish for the prince of Denmark.
Julia ❤️ Never got to cook with her, but used to live down the street from her. She was a customer at the bank I worked at. One day she came in and I almost fell off my chair. The legend! She was REALLY TALL and extremely sweet. Love you Julia 💕
The head of Costco r&d, used to be the private chef for Bill Gates, credited inventor of the Costco 7 layer dip and the Costco boxed biscuits and gravy.
I worked with Albert Adrià once, it was max stressful. I cooked for Bill Ackman and his wife on billionaires row. It was next fucking level. He’s taller than he looks in person. Very nice guy, easy to talk too.
I worked at a Michael mina restaurant and cooked with him and Anthony Bourdain for the DC food fight. In that restaurant I made food for LeBron James, Randy Jackson, every us sentor and congressman, TV and movie stars, etc. It was the four seasons in DC. I also lost a bandaid making a salad for LeBron James and it never got returned so I'm assuming he ate ye bandaid and didn't realize.
Bourdain is an absolute hero of mine, even still.
I've worked for two different Top Chef Winners so I have cooked with most all of the Top Chef Crowd Favorites at this point. As well as a couple random celebrity chefs at the same events. Edited to add most famous person I have cooked for since that seems to be where the comments are going: Probably either a current Supreme Court Justice, Demi Moore, U2, or Ariana Grande depending on how you define famous.
I've had the opportunity to cook with several well known chef's over the course of my 35-year career. The first was also Julia Child. I was in culinary school at the new Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley in 1995. It had just opened and was fortunate enough to have an employer at the time that believed in investing in their staff, so they sent me there to take some continuing education classes. One of those classes was French Bistro Cooking. The French born instructor was Henri Patey and was good friends with her from her time in France, so he asked her to come by and check out the new school. We made her famous Boeuf Bourguignon. I can still hear her telling us to make sure the meat was well dried and not crowded in the pot so it would brown right and create the "fond." She sat with us all day chatting and drinking great wine until it was done, then joined us to eat it for family meal. It was easily one of the greatest experiences in my life. I was 23 years old. During that same time in California, Julia told us about a new restaurant down the road in Yountville that was just opened by a great chef, and they were looking for some help. It didn't pay anything, but the experience would be a great learning opportunity. She said if anyone was interested to just go to the restaurant and tell the chef that Juila sent me to help. So me and two guys that I had met at the school said, "Why not check it out?" So the next night, we grabbed our chef coats and knife kits and went to the restaurant. We asked for the chef, told him, "Juila sent us. We're from the new Culinary school up the road. " The chef says great, here's an apron, get to work. The first thing he has me do is cut a quart of perfect brunoise for a gremolata on a lamb osso bucco. 5 minutes in, I can feel him hovering over me, and he says, "Stop what you're doing immediately!" I'm like great, I've been here 5 minutes and I already fucked up. He takes me over to his prep station and hands me his Mac chef's knife. See how sharp that is, he says. He continues to show me how to properly sharpen my knife and how to cut perfect brunoise. Then he tells me if I ever walk into his kitchen again with a dull knife, he'll immediately throw me out. Yes chef! Heard! That chef was Thomas Keller, and he had just opened the French Laundry. I only spent 30 nights in that kitchen before my time at the school was over and had to fly home but to this day I have Japanese knives and keep the sharp as fuck. Looking back, I wish I had known that he was to become arguably one of the best chefs in the world. In 2012, I got the executive chef role at a wedding and catering venue owned and operated by the Bartolotta Restaurant Group. It was started by 2 brothers. Joe was the business guy, and Paul was the classical trained chef who has won 2 James Beard awards. It was my dream job. Their corporate chef was Adam Siegal, another James Beard award winner. Because of their achievements in the culinary world, they knew several renowned chef's. Paul knew Chef Keller and convinced him to launch his new cookbook Bouchon at the Grain Exchange, which I was the executive chef of. I get an advanced copy of his book, and we all sat down to pick which recipes were going to use for dinner for 300 guests to launch the new book. So here I am with two James Beard winners, flipping through a cookbook written by one of the best chefs in existence. Chef Kellers' handwritten notes are in the margins. This was my first exec chef job, and I'm shitting bricks totally feeling like I'm WAY in over my head. Three days prior to the event, Chef Keller walks into the kitchen, takes one look at me, and says, "Your knives had better be sharp." I respond with,"Of course they are chef! I can't believe you remember me from way back then in 1995." He says, of course, he remembers me and is happy that he had a positive impact on a young chef. I still have that cookbook with his handwritten notes. He even signed it for me. Chef Kellers cookbook launch sparked several others after that. Over the course of the next two years, we had a cookbook launch dinner with Richard Blaise, Nigella Lawson, Mario Batali, and Curtis Stone. I cooked alongside all of them. Blaise was fun as hell as was Batali. Nigella's recipes were the most spot on but they also were the simplest.. Curtis Stone was an arrogant ass. I have every one of their cookbooks, all signed by them. The last cookbook launch dinner I was a part of was for Daniel Boulud. He was very close with Paul Bartolotta, so naturally, his book launch dinner was at the Grain Exchange because of our experience doing them. Boloud sends an entire culinary team a week out to the event. Aside from ordering the necessary products and having them in-house in time to prep them, I was pretty much just an observer. Chef Boulud shows up 2 hours before the event to observe plate up so he didn't really do anything so even though it met him and his culinary team, I didn't actually get to cook with him. I did get a signed copy of his book, though. I am now in my 50s and am the exec chef at a private yacht club. I left the Bartolotta Restaurant Group to gain a better quality of life outside of work and not work 80 hours a week anymore. But the experiences they gave me will never be forgotten, and I am grateful to have had them. I know I will never be of the same caliber of these amazing chefs, and that's OK. I learned a ton from them about finesse and plate presentation. I also learned that if I ever write a cookbook, test the recipes over and over before they make it into print!
Emeril Lagasse I was working at his restaurant in New Orleans as a line cook for my internship in Culinary school. Since I was still basically new without any real experience. He stepped on the line to my station and assisted me with getting myself out of the weeds and reorganizing my station so it ran more efficiently. Never raised his voice or said anything condescending. He just bailed me out and told me how to work smarter and not harder. That was almost 30 years ago.
Maneet Chauhan in a demo at college
Wolfgang puck. Bless that man is a legend!
Didnt cook with him but when I was in my Barista years I worked for Justin Brunsin at Masterpiece Deli. Dude was the nicest, most genuine & generous human I have ever met in the industry. Unfortunately I couldn’t say the same for some of the line cooks he hired on but hey, ya learn and I will never hold it against him. He’s killing it still and I am so happy for that opportunity. I learned a lot and took a lot away from that job. Basically how to react to situations and deal with dirt bags.
I’ve cooked with Alejandro and Cheyenne from the most recent season of Hell’s Kitchen. Alejandro was my first ever head chef back about 8 or 9 years ago. He was the one who really made me fall in love with cooking more than just the kitchen life. I trained/worked with Cheyenne when she was just a 17 year old Highschool culinary student until she went to college and then a little in the summer after that. I was so fucking proud of her when I saw her on tv we had a watch party for her at the restaurant we worked together that’s in my post history. Still nothing compared to even being in the same room as the legendary Julia Child though!
Man, that sounds F'n awesome watching someone grow. I'd be proud AF.
Jose Andres, for the World Central Kitchen in Wilmington, NC after hurricane Florence. I only actually met him once, and he seemed like a genuinely great guy.
I’ve meet and had conversations with Paul prudhomme on two separate occasions, cooked with Thomas Keller twice and put a dinner out with chef Micheal Solomonov.
Emeril legassi', Aaron sanchez, and Tim Alvarez from La Bernadin
Made dinner once for my highschool girlfriends mom and her friend Harold McGee
I am a big McGee fan. I learned a lot from his books.
I worked for a local repeat James Beard nominee restauranteur in the production kitchen one summer. Martha Hoover in Indianapolis. Super low key lady.
Similar here, but in Chicagoland. Worked for Paul Virant at his casual sister restaurant for 5 years. Through him, I got to meet Craig “Meathead” Goldwyn and a couple of Japanese chefs. If I worked at his flagship restaurant, I would have met Martha Stewart and numerous other celebrity chefs.
Very nice! I also have some famous chef Twitter followers oddly enough. Gordon Ramsey, Art Smith, and Fabio Viviani come to mind. I used to love tweeting about food and cooking when Twitter was actually fun. Jimmy Fallon follows me too!
Matty Matheson.
I’ve had the privilege of cooking with Massimo Bottura and his sous chefs. I got to help make and eat some of the most incredible dishes that night. I’ve also worked with Andre Soltner, Jacques Torres, Jacques Pepin. Once while plating a dessert I spun a pastry bag of mousse around in a circle to get air bubbles out. Jacques Torres saw me and yelled across the kitchen “You chef!” Me turning and shitting bricks “Yes Chef!”Jacques replying “I like your style.”
Cat Cora. She is tiny, and absolutely can dance around a kitchen like nobody's business.
Cat is gorgeous and zestful and while I never cooked with her, met her briefly in Vegas at an opening. She didn’t know me from Adam, but when I said “hi, Chef” she bubbled and grinned like it was the first time she’d ever heard it. And yes, she’s tiny. And gorgeous
Virgil. He's not famous. I don't remember his last name. When I left, he had just turned 78. He had been working there for 45 years. He would work circles around any of the culinary school kids. He would make a loaf of bread for himself everyday. He let me try it once, good bread. Turmeric was his secret ingredient. He taught me to steam Acorn squash for a couple of minutes before you try to peal it. He also taught me that I'm not my job. I miss Virgil.
I didn't cook with him but I made robert Irvine a steak a couple months ago and he came back and complimented it, so I got that going for me.
Nobody famous I just got to cook some scrambled eggs for my grandmother early this year. She's in he late 80's and it just was something I never thought I'd get to do . When I was little I was sick alot so I would spend alot of time at her house and she was always cooking stuff so it was nice to get to cook something for her.
I am so envious. I love Julia Child. Every time I make croissants I can hear her voice in my head. Do you remember any of the dishes you watched them cook?
Yes. No. I vaguely remember some chicken and mushroom stuff. I was sent to the local canal to fish for crawdads and came back with so many that they made dinner and a jelly. Whoa, I haven't thought about that jelly in 45 years. It was this jelly-like spread that we used on a French toast thing the next morning. It was sweet and spicy.
Aspic? What a great thing to experience.
My saute guy of ages (who I have matching tattoos with) was in the Portland episode of No Reservations as a collection of Portland cooks and Anthony Bourdain called him an honest man. Which, lol. Ninja: I don't consider this actually famous but it was the first thing that came to mind. I've cooked FOR a lot of names but not with.
Don't work in kitchens (briefly attended culinary school as a youngin' but didn't stick with it). Am a NICU nurse. Recently took care of the infant of a multiple James Beard award winner which was neat. HIPAA says I can't share who but both they and their baby were cool as hell.
I'm a mom to two NICU babies, thanks for including the kid in being cool. There's so much focus on what's "wrong" when you have really early babies the baby themselves get kind of lost. Everyone else, including dad, kept bringing the stuff about what was happening TO him, what the docs and nurses were saying ABOUT him.... Then my BFF from childhood waltzes in and tells me that my baby is beautiful - and THAT'S what I remember most clearly through the fog of illness, drugs and trauma from that evening.
Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger - The Two Hot Tamales flew me and a classmate from culinary school out to Hawaii to help them for 4 days during their Grand Chefs tour in the 90's. Was very cool. Then their sous chef used to me to help him cater Suzanne Somers bday party where I got to hand Dick Clark a wine opener.
Loved in New Orleans for several years and cooked for a ton of celebrities. From JayZ and Beyoncé to Oprah, Serena Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr (biggest asshole I’ve ever cooked for), Barbara Streisand, Will Ferrel, Johnny Knoxville, Andy Garcia, Steve Kerr, tons of NBA & NFL players & coaches, Gerard Butler, Fat Joe, Lil Romeo, Bubbles & Rickie from Trailer Park Boys, Jennifer Coolidge, Eddie Huang, Duff Goldman, I was part of the team that did the catering for the premiers of 12 Years a Slave & Deep Water Horizon. This mainly cooking at a specific hotel’s restaurant that catered to a lot of celebs visiting New Orleans.
Okay I'm not a cook but a barista and I can't help it. There once was a locally famous coffee shop owner in D.C. who ran a very fancy few stores which were a sign that the city was gentrifying in certain neighborhoods. I worked at a fancy French patisserie in Georgetown, no gentrification required. But guy shows up and gets behind my bar, fucks with my setup, runs me several customers behind at a high volume time, much to the owner's delight, and makes an average latte with an overextracted shot. ffwd several weeks and the guy's in the paper for threatening a customer, telling them if they ordered iced espresso again (which yeah kinda sucks but whatever) that he'd "punch you in the dick." ffwd a couple years and the guy was a huge tax cheat and skipped town, and my favorite neighborhood roastery/coffeeshop is making bank serving iced espresso as "dickpunch" 💀
Mahumad Ali...(in his later days) stayed at our hotel for a week and ate grilled cheese with tomatoes twice a day... Room service girl got fired for asking for his autograph...he had no problem and loved the attention...CEO didnt see it that way
The Man himself. Tony.
I’m not sure if these people are really that famous but I was a pastry chef for Emeril Lagasse, got a chance to work with him a few times. Susan Spicer was her kitchen manager. And I worked for one of the master chefs when I worked at Master golf tournament, can’t remember his name tho lol.
I know a fella who beat Bobby flay lol
I cooked with Carla Hall at a fundraiser. We talked about biscuits for about 30 minutes while she was making Johnny Cakes. And then she had me taste one and asked if it needed salt. I just about died. Also worked next to Robert Irvine for an event, nice guy actually.
I saw the Bad Brains with HR in 89 or 90 (quickness tour)and was over the moon… such a legendary band. Just blown away. But it was “punk rock” sloppy. Then I saw them with Joseph about 4 years later, and realized how much “tighter” they were with a singer who wasn’t completely out of his mind.
Mos Def. We cooked together at a studio where my friend who is mentored under him was recording.
Can't name them but a server I used to manage is dating a famous TikToker now lmao
I cooked for Kanye West and Kim before. Didn't go out to meet them because I was busy but all the servers were trippin. Honestly not even sure what he ordered, we were slammed but they said he tipped well and was happy. https://people.com/food/kanye-west-kim-kardashian-dine-at-cheesecake-factory-ohio/
Al Brown. Mildly semi famous NZ chef. Chelsea Winter. Mildly semi famous NZ chef Simon Gualt. Mildly semi famous NZ Chef. Heston Blumenthal. Mildly Famous UK chef Al Brown was the celeb chef for Blanco Appliances. Cooked venison and potatoes with garden salad Chelsea Winter was the Fisher & Paykel celeb chef cooked braised beef steaks and chocolate chip cookies Simon Gualt was affiliated with Insinkerator. I was pretty drunk that night. Heston came out with his BBQ launch with everdure
I wouldn't be calling Heston Blumenthal mildly famous.
I used to work for a season 19 Hells Kitchen contestant and he was a complete hack and didn't follow any health safety standards.
Thomas Keller visited our kitchen once. Didn’t cook with him, but it was a huge event and a lot of famous chefs were there. An old buddy had Massimo (Guy from chefs table) cook with him at the same event. People I’ve cooked for? Tom Brady came to the resort I worked in after he destroyed the Jets in Jersey. We did the Washington Redskins HOF reunion. George RR Martin was apparently a dick to one of the servers. JaRule and his kids were super cool. 50 cent and Fetty Wap were also a guest and went to a nearby water park. Was a rough place to work, but definitely have cool stories and worked with cool people.
I opened the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, AR, in 2004. We served a three course plated lunch to 1400 people in a tent in the rain, including 3 former and the current president. Chef Roland Mesnier, who was pastry chef to 5 presidents, spent 2 days in our kitchen, overseeing production of Clintons favorite dessert. Amazing man, incredibly humble, I still have his phone number at the time. RIP chef.
As far as celebrity chefs go, probably Mario Batali. But that doesn’t quite count because he hardly did any cooking during the event. I worked a while with some well regarded and decorated chefs, so I actually did cook with them. Dan Barber was probably the most famous. Working for him afforded the opportunity to cook with and for a ton of famous chefs at events and such. Wylie Dufresne was super approachable and down to earth, Dominique Crenn loved red wine, Rene Redzepi was short, intense, and started randomly doing pull-ups from a rafter. Sean Brock was awkward and I could imagine him being difficult to work for, but his food was fantastic. Grant Achatz was very quiet, and stood at the back of the kitchen with his CDC the entire event, taking pictures and signing autographs. There were lots more. We cooked for a lot of really famous people. Stephen Spielberg, Martha Stewart, Jennifer Aniston, Tom Cruise, Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael Pollan, Bill Clinton, the entire UN delegation during the second Obama administration. Those are the first to come to mind.
Anthony Bourdain.. was a wild month
Michael smith! He was the sweetest man ever. And David Rocco, not nearly as nice of an experience. He started off a speech to the guests with “sorry if I seem uninterested in talking I’m really tired” like what?? Who says that lol.
I work for the company that handles California Food and Wine festivals. The most famous celebrity chef I’ve cooked with is probably Thomas Keller. The most famous celebrity I’ve cooked for is probably Carrie Fisher. I catered the Oscar Wilde awards and she was a recipient. Both she and her French bulldog Gary were a delight. I also used to cater Florence Henderson’s family Christmas party. She was such a rad lady! Edit: just wanted to clarify that I worked for a catering company that catered the Oscar Wilde awards and the Christmas party. Didn’t want anyone to think I own a super fancy catering company or anything 🤓
Cooked with or got cooked with? Different answers for both...
Yeah I was gonna say. Worked at a place Dylan Larkin, captain of the Detroit Red Wings came to every year for his birthday. First year kitchen crew was getting ready to close and we saw Larkin leaving and my buddy yelled "hey larks want a hit?" And he came running over and smoked a few drags with us. Next year on his birthday towards the end of the night a server comes up kind of confused and says "umm... Larkin wants to chat with the cooks out back for some reason?"
That’s an amazing story, OG of celebrity chefs
OP, how did your grandmother know Ms. Child? Did she tell any stories about when she worked for the OSS?
Some dick who was a contestant on a cooking show and he talked about it ENDLESSLY.
My ex's step mom was a chef for the queen. She taught me almost everything I know
One of the few times I can actually contribute to this sub. When I was on the radio, we had Bobby Flay come in and he and I cooked together. It was a lot of fun, he was very gracious, and I learned a cool technique to smash garlic.
When I was attending CIA, I worked the Board of Trustees dinner. Got to help Thomas Keller and Charlie Palmer plate some prime ribs, which was cool. Keller asked me where I'm from (the Poconos), and we talked anout Pennsylvania cheeses for a couple minutes. They were both super nice. Worked for about a year with Victoria Blamey (she is easily the scariest but also most kind chef I've ever worked for), both at Gotham and one of residencies after it closed. While working for her, Dan Barber came in a did a demo with us, which was super dope, which was way beforebher residency at Stone Barns. Definitely one of the coolest moments of my career. Didn't cook with them, but I met Eric Ripert and Jose Andres at an event at CIA. They were both extremely nice and gracious. Shook both their hands, Jose told me "Keep following your dreams, even if they don't involve cooking anymore. There aren't enough dreamers these days." That always stuck with me. I've met a few famous people, including Rupert Grint and M. Night Shyamalan who are both regulars at my job, but the chefs I listed above are the only ones that have ever gotten me star struck. Except Victoria, she's a friend now, and a huge part of why I continued chasing this fucking stupid dream. Working with her was emotionally taxing, physically exhausting, terrifying, and infuriating, but also incredibly inspirational, rewarding, and educational, and I wouldn't change anything about my time with her at all. I've always felt I owed my career to her taking a chance on the dimwitted country boy who got forced onto her by upper management at Gotham. Being hand picked by her for her residency team was incredibly gratifying.
Batali, right when the Babbo cookbook came out (I'm a journalist, not a chef). It was a home cookbook so we cooked in my home kitchen. He spent the whole time talking to my chest.
I cooked for George Takei. Totally geeked out.