Preston Nguyen’s culinary journey over the last few years has been nothing short of amazing.
Then came the call from celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s production company: Would he like to take his culinary chops to the next level?
Nguyen’s mind was officially blown. But it sounded too good to be true. Could this be a joke?
“It was funny because this happened to everybody [on the show], we all thought it was fake at first because it appeared in our spam folder,” Nguyen said. “Like would they really reach out to us of all people to try it?”
Well, it was no prank. The 19-year-old Arlington native is one of 18 cooks competing on the second season of Ramsay’s “Next Level Chef” television cooking show, premiering Sunday on FOX after Super Bowl LVII.
Nguyen’s journey to “Next Level Chef” came on the heels of his World Food Championships victory.
About two weeks after Nguyen won the WFC last May, an agent from Ramsay’s television production company — Studio Ramsay — reached out to him about the show. The agent cited Nguyen’s recent win as one of the reasons why the show came calling.
Nguyen was already a big fan of the show — having watched its first season — so he jumped at the opportunity, even if he was skeptical at first.
“[Gordon] started in the kitchen at the same age as me, so I feel like I kind of reminded him of the early days of his career,” Nguyen said. “He wanted to help me out a lot, teach me some of the things that he learned the hard way in the kitchen.”
Ramsay’s “Next Level Chef” sorts competitors into three teams who are each assigned a level on the three-story kitchen set. The top-level kitchen is equipped with state-of-the-art cookware, while the second has standard tools and the kitchen on the bottom, or “dungeon” as Nguyen puts it, holds low-quality utensils.
The 18 competitors are randomly broken up into teams and assigned a mentor and level of the kitchen. From there, each team cooks whatever the food theme of the episode happens to be.
Ingredients are lowered down from each kitchen level to the next. This leaves each team only 30 seconds to grab what they need before the food cart is lowered down to the next level.
The pressure is nothing new to Nguyen. He has cooked in competitive environments before. He won the World Food Championships in South Carolina last May with his parents — Peter and Emma Nguyen — at his side as his sous chefs.
But competing on a show hosted by one of the most famous chefs on the planet, and in this format, left Nguyen a little shell shocked.
“As much as you run it through your head you’re like, ‘Okay, I need to make sure I grab this, this and this’,” he said. “Those 30 seconds go by in a blink of an eye and it’s like, ‘Wait, is it already gone?.’ Then you look down at your ingredients and you’re like, “What did I just grab?’”
Interview to get on Gordon Ramsey’s show was familiar
Everything turned out to be legit and soon Nguyen was on a Zoom call conducting an interview with an agent from Studio Ramsay.
The interview process resembled how a cooking competition show normally plays out: Nguyen would cook a dish and then setup for an interview answering questions about the food and how he cooked it.
Nguyen also had to give reactions to hypothetical moments from the show and react to questions such as, “Gordon Ramsay just complemented you on your dish. How are you feeling?” And of course, all of his responses had to be energetic and with a smile because it was all for TV.
The interview process was off and on for weeks at a time, leaving Nguyen wondering if he would make the cut. Finally, around September, Nguyen got the call. He had made the show. Less than a week later he was on a plane bound for an undisclosed location.
“Nothing really sunk in for me until I actually got there,” he said. “Because I was like, ‘Sure this whole thing’s real.’ And then you actually get there and its all really real.”
Meeting Gordon Ramsey, the celebrity chef, was on his bucket list
Without spoiling the show, Nguyen can’t say much about what dishes he cooked or how he did. But he can share what it was like working with his childhood hero, Chef Ramsay.
Nguyen grew up watching Ramsay’s shows like “Master Chef” and “Hell’s Kitchen.” Meeting the celebrity chef was on his bucket list.
Now, Nguyen gets to meet the chef and cook with him during the competition. Win, win.
Ramsay is taller and bigger than how he looks on television and nowhere near as mean, Nguyen said. The celebrity chef has the reputation of being a hothead around the kitchen from the various shows he hosts and judges.
But for Nguyen, Ramsay was nothing but nice — someone who gave him good advice about life and the kitchen.
While Nguyen is used to cooking with the stakes high, this experience was next-level challenging.
For the World Food Championships, he worked the kitchen with his parents and cooked food with ingredients they brought themselves. In Ramsay’s show, the Arlington teen, along with five other chefs, had no clue what they were cooking and with what ingredients until the very last minute.
Each team had 30 seconds to pick ingredients and 45 minutes to cook and plate. And in the chaos, Nguyen said he had to be mindful of his movements because of all the cameras around the room.
“You see me kind of like hyper focused on the dish, so my face kind of looks a little angry half the time, but I was like, “Oh shoot, am I smiling? Am I looking alright?’,” he said.
Being on “Next Level Chef” was a dream come true for the young chef.
“The whole experience, while it was definitely stressful trying not to get eliminated, it was a really fun experience,” he said. “Good learning and good growth as a chef and as a person.”
The season 2 premiere of “Next Level Chef” airs Sunday after Super Bowl LVII on FOX.
