Boot camp conjures up images of a staff sergeant screaming curses in recruits' faces to whip them into shape. Yet on Food Network's Chef Boot Camp, premiering Thursday, April 8, a chef radiates calm competence as he gently but firmly helps eager participants. The series offers as much philosophical as gastronomical guidance, and proves that, like everything in life, so much comes down to attitude.
"When I am speaking to a chef or a sous chef or a dishwasher, the moment you start cursing everything you try to say is null and void," chef Cliff Crooks, the show's mentor and host, tells MediaVillage in an exclusive interview. "I have definitely cursed the situation; I am not infallible, and cursing people is something I do not do. That is a very outdated, unfortunate habit of kitchens and restaurants in general."
Crooks, the culinary director of BLT Restaurant Group, is the lifeline for three cooks whose jobs are on the line. Restaurant owners, disappointed for various reasons, have dispatched their chefs for a three-day boot camp. As a culinary director, Crooks understands the many facets of the restaurant business and knows food only improves when chefs are knowledgeable and cooperative. The three spotlighted each week are given assignments on deadline, with Crooks as the arbiter. It's done without crazy-making pressure, separating this from many food contest programs.
"Everyone loves the competition format," Crooks says. "[But] this show is not a competition. It's about taking people who have been identified by those who are paying them [as] being worthy of a chance [and sending them] to boot camp. Everything is very, very transparent. Look, you are here because the alternative is someone could have let you go. But instead, they are giving you the opportunity to change yourself or your techniques or your attitude specifically. Some are good cooks but have horrible attitudes. I remind them it is not about how fast you can do something. And, you are competing against yourself, whether personal or culinary."
He's one of those chefs who can walk by someone at the stove and instantly know the broth being added to the risotto is the wrong temperature. Crooks' stints on other such shows include Top Chef, Worst Cooks in America, and Hell's Kitchen. Chef Boot Camp, however, is the first show where he is the lead.
Given the travel restrictions of the pandemic, all the cooks in the pilot are from the New York City metro area, where Crooks is also based.
Shakilah Mayo works with her mom, Carolyn Thompson, at Carolyn's Cuisine in East Meadow, New York. Thompson wants Mayo to follow her established recipes. Mayo wants to make her mom happy, but it's clear to all -- and especially to Crooks -- that she has other aspirations.
The second cook, Frank Bernardo, deep-fries a lot of fish at Westville Seafood in New Haven, Connecticut, where his boss, David Austin, is a lifelong friend. Initially, Bernardo is less than receptive to criticism. During one exercise in the first episode, the cooks hustle in a busy restaurant during dinner. Crooks trashes entrée after entrée that Bernardo prepares. Incidentally, Crooks stays true to his calm ways, and does not trash talk; he simply checks the food, explains why it can't be served and tosses it in the trash.
Andrew Seeley, head chef at Tara Inn in Port Jefferson, New York, is the most eager to please. He works for sisters who inherited the tavern, and they mention fighting the reputation of being a dive bar for 44 years. Seeley is tasked with invigorating the menu.
To gauge their competence, Crooks has contestants make their restaurants' signature dishes, then offers suggestions. He finds himself coughing from the amount of pepper Mayo uses, but she argues that her food is seasoned right. Crooks also tells her that her mac and cheese "is missing the creaminess and lusciousness that is mac and cheese."
Crooks approaches each person with a clarity of purpose, intent on helping them, but they must be willing to do the work. Not all are. His goal, he explains, is "to touch as many chefs and owners as possible and to make people better."
Having worked his way up through the ranks, Crooks is keenly aware of the relentless labor that goes on behind-the-scenes in restaurants. He did not attend culinary school but instead learned the trade the old-fashioned way.
"Years ago, when God was a boy, I came up in the very old-school regime where you went and worked for free," Crooks shares. "I worked for free for very many years and kept my head down and mouth shut and asked a lot of questions."
He recalled offering his services in kitchens on days off from other jobs. In doing so, Crooks soaked up the knowledge of the many aspects of running restaurants. Even before the pandemic, a shocking 80 percent of restaurants failed within the first five years. This series should help more establishments succeed.
Although he oversees a global brand of steak houses, with tempting dishes available to him, Crooks acknowledges what he'll likely eat for dinner on the evening he's chatting with MediaVillage.
"I stop in the kitchen, and I try not to eat late at night," Crooks says. "My wife is a teacher, so she gets up fairly early, and inevitably I find myself eating peanut butter and jelly on 7-grain bread as I stand in the kitchen over the sink and open the mail. That is not the populist thinking of what chefs do, but it is the reality of what happens."
Chef Boot Camp will be premiere Thursday, April 8, at 10 p.m. on Food Network.
Click the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleagues.
The opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author and/or subject(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage.com/MyersBizNet, Inc. management or associated writers.