When most people think about trying to make it as a professional chef, things like broken tongs, plastic spoons, and shallow cake pans usually don’t come to mind. But for North Texas Chef, Preston Nguyen, these were a few of the obstacles he had to face during his run on Gordon Ramsay’s latest culinary-themed program, Next Level Chef Thursdays on FOX or streaming on Hulu. This cooking competition, which premiered on February 12, thrusts teams of chefs against each other in three different kitchens on separate levels. The top level is stocked with the best equipment, the middle level has everyday middle-of-the-road cookware, but the basement kitchen has utensils that most people would just throw away.
To make matters worse, a timed platform full of food is dropped to each kitchen level for contestants to choose from quickly. What isn’t picked then drops another level until the chefs in the basement fight over whatever is left. If this sounds daunting, that’s because it is. For Nguyen it was a proverbial trial by fire; one he came out of with a better understanding of the culinary industry. Spoiler alert, Nguyen isn’t the winner. In fact, he doesn’t even know who won the competition. This is partly due to the fact that the show is still running, and partly because he says he wanted to be surprised with everyone else during the finale.
Fort Worth Magazine recently had a chance to chat with the young chef about his passion for food, working with the legendary Gordon Ramsay, and his plans for the future.
FW: Where are you currently working?
PN: I am working part-time at Prince Lebanese Grill in Arlington and doing my own catering and Instagram cooking videos right now. But I am about to start traveling a bunch for different apprenticeships across the world.
FW: When did your culinary journey begin?
PN: Professionally, it started about two years ago when I was in high school. But in terms of actual cooking, I think I was around 7 years old when I started cooking with my family. My parents are in the culinary field unprofessionally, but they are passionate about food. They’ve taught me so much. Some of my favorite dishes they taught me are made with very simple ingredients like an instant mashed potato handmade gnocchi. I like this because most people look at it from the outside and think, ‘Oh this is just a basic ingredient,’ but you can turn them into something that is pretty gourmet. Pairing that up with like a lamb rump as well as a lamb moonshine sauce, that was one of the more famous dishes that I’ve been able to do, after learning it from my dad. From there, I just kept trying things and learning.
FW: Have you been in any other cooking competitions before entering the world of Next Level Chef?
PN: When I was 18, I entered and won the chef category in the World Food Championships, so that kind of jump-started my competition career and that’s when I was like, ‘Oh maybe I can start cooking professionally in the competition circuit.’ And then later on I ended up taking the title of World Food Champion actually a year ago today (May 2, 2022). I was actually in the middle of making the one-year post. Basically, in the World Food Champions, it takes thousands of chefs from all across the world, and it boils down to the top ten people. At the last event, we were able to win that, which was the $100,000 prize over in South Carolina. Those were the two major ones and then recently we also competed in the steak competition of World Food Championships again, which we made it to the finals in that one. I am gearing up to do a couple more. Some are like competitions, and some are like festivals.
FW: Have you been asked to speak and give a lot of food-related presentations since your stint on television?
PN: I’ve been invited on a couple of podcasts, a few shows, and some of the news outlets as well. I’ve also been asked to fly out to London to be part of the Taste of London Food Festival. I’ve been asked to be a speaker there and do a couple of cooking demos. I am preparing to head out there soon.
FW: How do you prep for these competitions and how do you handle your nerves when you are amid a timed cook?
PN: If you know what you are going to be cooking ahead of time there’s always a chance to do practice runs. Me and my parents are very thorough with how we practice. This means we set up timelines, and we label things. That was one of the biggest comments we got at the World Food Championships is that all of our pans, tools, and everything were labeled with tape. We wanted to make sure that every single finite detail was planned. This leaves very little room for error. This allows us to execute at a much higher level than say people who didn’t really practice their routine all that much. We also like to look up where the competition is going to be and do some research about the people that are there. For instance, for South Carolina, we did a lot of research about South Carolina cuisine and some of the history of the place. This way you get a better insight into the food and immersive yourself with the style of cooking that they’re looking for.
FW: Were you able to do any of this research for the food you would be cooking on Next Level Chef?
PN: We were just pretty much thrown into the fire with this one. The only way I really could practice is, I would have my parents just buy random ingredients at the store and do a 45-minute timer and just give me the ingredients and say, ‘All right make something, go,’ (laughs). For the show, you’re not really told anything. Most of the time you’re told the day of, like ten minutes before you get into the elevator and start cooking. On top of that, you have to figure out how to make something out of whatever you grab from the platform. You don’t have any time to plan out your dish. Pretty much everything is very spontaneous. That’s probably why I picked canned meat in the first episode because the platform grab was a new experience. I like to be very thorough with my practice, but since this was a new experience, I had to learn to adapt to this style of competition. After the first episode, I got relatively good at the platform grab.
FW: What was the process for you to get picked for Next Level Chef?
PN: After I won the world food championships, I was reached out to by the talent agency from Studio Ramsay. They asked me if I would like to audition for Next Level Chef. It’s funny because at first, I thought it was a spam call because it went to my junk mail, which made me question its authenticity. But after reaching out to them and realizing the request was legit, I thought I would give it a shot. I’d never really been on TV before then and so I felt like this would be an amazing opportunity to hop onto.
FW: What was it like behind the scenes of the show?
PN: There is a crew of people there that help take care of you. Like they do your laundry daily, both on the set and off the set. As far as daily schedules go, they would like us to be awake from around 5:45 a.m. to 6 a.m. and the shoots would last pretty much all day. We would get back to the hotel around 8 p.m. So, it was like a good 14 to 15-hour day. During our downtime, we had to do a lot of busy work, like doing interviews and always having to make sure you were not too comfortable because you have to make sure hair, make-up, and wardrobe still looked pretty fresh for the shoots.
FW: Do you still keep in touch with the other contestants?
PN: Yes, absolutely. All of the contestants still talk to each other every single day and I’ve even been able to visit a few of them outside of the show and catch up with them in person. We try to help each other’s careers out a lot. So, any time we can give each other a plug, we do.
FW: What was it like working with star chef Gordon Ramsay?
PN: If you mess up, he’ll let you know. But he loves to mentor and teach people. There’s a lot going into this show that I was relatively new to but by the time I left the show, he gave me a lot of wisdom and experience that I will never forget. Like I did my first flambe with Gordon. There were a lot of experiences they didn’t really show, but it’s still really cool to say, ‘I got to learn this from Gordon Ramsay.’ Even after the show, some of the advice he has given me I was able to apply to my life and I was able to grow as a chef way, way more than where I was last year.
FW: What are your immediate plans for the future?
PN: I do have a lot planned. I’ve reserved the whole month of June for my trip to Europe and then hopefully in July, I will be in New York staging at Shaun Hergatt’s restaurant Vestry. I’m hoping to do some one-on-one training with him. We also have the World Food Championships again in November, so I’ll be practicing with my parents for that competition as well. In between all that we are going to be doing some stages (apprenticeships) at different restaurants. That’s basically my new college experience. Hopefully, this will help me be like a jack of all trades in the culinary world and make me more well-rounded.
