British Chef Gordan Ramsay must love Texas; not only did he relocate his restaurant headquarters to Dallas/Fort Worth, but his new cooking competition, Next Level Chef, features three Texas talents.
Home chefs Amber Rebold (Austin), Angie Ragan (Lubbock), and Mariah Scott, a professional chef from Houston, are all competing against other professional chefs, home cooks, and food truck owners to win $250,000 and the title of “Next Level Chef.”
Scott spoke with PaperCity about cooking for Ramsay and other mentors Nyesha Arrington and Richard Blais, as well as how living in Texas influenced her cooking style. Scott says she learned a lot about cooking by being in her grandmother’s kitchen. Her grandparents were from the South but relocated to California.
“I am originally from the Bay Area of California, but as a child, my mother moved my three brothers and me around a lot because my father was abusive,” Scott says. “As an adult, I moved to Houston after receiving a job offer to become an international flight attendant.” Scott’s travels reignited her love of food, and she was able to taste cuisine from over thirty countries.
Scott’s life changed after a car accident took her grandmother, pushing her to reevaluate her life. Scott quit her flight attendant job and enrolled in culinary school, where she earned a degree and quickly began teaching classes at William-Sonoma.
“Once the pandemic hit, that culinary job was no longer available. That’s when I became a full-time private chef and began working for one client in the Museum District,” says Scott.
When asked how she came to be on the Next Level Chef competition, Scott says a casting company contacted her about applying for the show, which Scott describes as “an intense and months-long process.” Scott stood out among the 50,000 applicants.
While some contestants get rattled when Chef Ramsay yells at them, Scott says she does not mind. “I have so much respect for him that I don’t mind him in my face yelling at me. I mean, he is freakin’ Gordon Ramsay,” exclaimed Scott.
The Next Level Chef consists of three different types of kitchens, one with all the bells and whistles, a second standard professional setup, and a third that is like a basement and provides the basics. Scott described her favorite kitchen saying, “the basement is the best place to shine because it shows innovation with limited resources.”
Scott says while she loves cooking for world-renowned chefs, things about the competition send her into panic mode. “The chase to the platform [where contestants have to grab their ingredients before going to their kitchen to cook] always had my heart pumping, and the adrenaline became addicting.”
Amber Rehold spoke with Fox 7 Austin about what it was like for her to be on Next Level Chef, saying, “It’s different, I know what I am doing when I am at home, but when there are cameras and Gordon Ramsay, everything changes, it’s not your kitchen and not your ingredients….”
The hardest thing for Lubbock caterer Angie Ragan was taking the leap of faith to try out for the show. “You can be 40-something, and you can change your life. You can have two or three careers. You can get your passion. You can get to a place in your life where you are like, ‘You know what, take some risks. Be courageous,'” she advises.
For Scott, quick thinking and not knowing what Ramsey will throw her way is challenging. Still, she is not letting her fears take her focus off what she plans to do if she wins the $250,000, “If I win Next Level Chef, I plan to finish my cookbook, start a travel food cooking show, and lifestyle product line.”
