‘Next Level Chef’s’ Richard Blais on Season 3 feuds with Gordon Ramsay and Nyesha Arrington: ‘It gets a little heated this year’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“Next Level Chef” returns for Season 3 on Sunday, January 28 immediately following the NFC championship game on FOX. The cooking competition will air live across the country at 10:00 p.m. ET/8:00 p.m. PT. Mentors Gordon Ramsay, Richard Blais and Nyesha Arrington return to draft teams as they seek out America’s next culinary superstar. Watch our exclusive interview about the upcoming season with Blais above.
New this season, “Next Level Chef” features three audition rounds, challenging three groups of eight chefs with experience that ranges from professional chef to home cook to social media culinary superstar. “I’m very excited to have a number of our contestants come in and sort of whittle them down to be drafted by Gordon, Nyesha and myself,” says Blais. “The audition process starts the tension right off the bat with a number of people vying to be on one of our teams. It’s the auditions that’s got me the most excited about Season 3 so far.”
“Each of the first three episodes will introduce chefs from different genres,” he explains. “We feature home cooks, pro cooks and social media chefs. They’ll compete to be the representatives from that genre. Then we’ll go into a draft. The great thing about it is that Gordon, Nyesha and myself get to see everyone cook so we know a little bit more about how they’re going to perform in the ‘Next Level Chef’ kitchens. Then we’ll go into our heated draft, which, spoiler alert, gets a little heated this year.”
Blais is a successful chef, restaurateur, James Beard Award-nominated cookbook author and TV personality. Recognized as the first winner of Bravo’s cooking series “Top Chef All-Stars,” Blais is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and trained at The French Laundry, Daniel, Chez Panisse and El Bulli.
The accomplished chef began his culinary journey working at McDonald’s as a teenager. “There’s a lot of things to learn about doing volume at that level,” he explains. “Teamwork, of course. There are a ton of things I learned from those early fast food days that I probably don’t realize until I’m doing it — but structure and organization, for sure.” And what was his favorite thing on the menu? “I worked for nuggets, just to be clear.”