To Hell and Back: Christina Machamer’s Trek from Red Lobster to Gordon Ramsay to Napa Valley

Christina Machamer’s crazy food journey started years ago in Ballwin, where she toiled at a Red Lobster. At the time, lost in a world of cheddar biscuits and all-you-can-eat shrimp scampi, she had no idea she wanted to work in food. She set off to study law at UMSL, and it was there that her fate announced itself like one of those vibrating, light-up “your-table-is-ready” coasters: She decided to abandon law and signed up for culinary-track classes at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park. THEN she scored an apprenticeship with the renowned Larry Forgione at the late, lamented An American Place. THEN she enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. THEN, right before graduation, she was chosen to compete in Season Four of “Hell’s Kitchen,” a TV show in which Chef Gordon Ramsay tries to make people pee themselves in shame before teaching them how to properly use stove and oven. THEN she won the competition! THEN while waiting for the world to learn of her victory, she worked as a line cook for her mentor, Cary McDowell, at the late, lamented Revival. THEN she accepted her prize, a high-paying job at Gordon Ramsay (yes, the restaurant is simply the man’s name) at a swanky L.A. hotel. THEN she moved over to another L.A. restaurant run by a celebrity chef, Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bistro. THEN she got the wine bug and became a certified sommelier. NOW, she is crafting a slate of food/wine experiences for Napa Valley artisanal winery B. Cellars. Also, she would like to add, an early experience eating the eyeball of a fish made her the woman she is today.

Is getting so into wine something new for you?

It’s not something new. I was always dialed into it. My family has a farm in Augusta, so I would spend a lot of time at Montelle and Mount Pleasant.  So it’s not necessarily a new jump; B Cellars is allowing me to throw more polish on what I knew before. When I was at law school at UMSL, we would go out to the vineyards and listen to music and drink wine and come home and cook. I guess I should have known then!

What are you doing food-wise at B Cellars?

Usually in Napa Valley you stand at a tasting bar. We’re completely different. We’re up in Calistoga where things go a little bit slower. Guests sit at these little tables, and they’re waited on like in a restaurant. We don’t have a formal kitchen yet. It’s on my agenda. We do give everyone “B Bites,” which includes several seasonal things, like local cheeses, some charcuterie, some imported Italian olives. As the summer progresses, it changes according to our tasting menu and what’s new at the farmers’ market.

Is this the first time you have been the big cheese in a kitchen?

Not necessarily. This is the first role where instead of being in charge of production or other cooks as a sous chef, I get to take an educational role. The cook—not just the sommelier—must know about wine now. Everyone has to have a working knowledge of wine.

What is your typical day like at B Cellars?

Busy. I work the tasting area, interact with guests, and show people what we do. I also do a lot of vineyard walks. I knew from the restaurant culture what happens to wine after it goes in the bottle, but now I see it from bud-break to harvest. It’s fascinating. I wanted to go into the wine business, but not to give up my blue apron. [Owners] Jim [Borsack] and Duffy [Keys] really wanted to create wine that went well with food, and serendipitously, we found each other on my second day here in the Valley.

Tell me about the blends B Cellars creates.

B cellars isn’t reinventing the wheel–people have been making wine blends for years. Typically we use two to four varietals, and we have a flavor goal for a specific cuisine that the wine must reach to. The wines are all named by numbers. The B in B Cellars stands for brix, which is the measure of sugar content before harvest. We actually name the wines with numbers, from 23 to 26, for the Brix value. Our white wine, blend 23, is light and acidic, half Chardonnay blended with Sauv Blanc and Viognier. Blend 24, our version of a Super Tuscan, is mostly Cab with Sangiovese, which is the main ingredient in Chianti, and Petite Syrah. Blend 25 is B Cellars’ go-to barbeque wine – big, fruit-forward, peppery. It’s a Cab and Petite Syrah blend. Blend 26 is 100 percent Cab but a blend of different vineyards. Those are our flagship wines. We are a very small winery — 5 to 6,000 cases total. We also have several winery exclusives of about 100 cases. We have a 100 percent Sangiovese, a 100 percent Petite Syrah, and some others.

Has it been a big change to go from L.A. to Napa Valley?

It’s definitely different. Northern California is really food- and wine-centric, and it’s really nice to be in an environment where people enjoy what you do. Giving up the night life of L.A. was just fine. Out here we talk about food and wine and gardening, and being from Missouri, it’s a little more my speed.

You’ll be married soon, I hear – and your fiancé, Robert Hohmann, is a former UFC ultimate fighter?

Yes, he did that for a while. He was also a Navy Seal before he got injured, then he turned to cooking, which is lucky for all of us, because he’s a good cook. He’s the chef de cuisine for Michael Chiarello at Bottega, one of the busiest restaurants in Napa.

Like everyone else on “Hell’s Kitchen,” you got yelled by Gordon Ramsay, but you’ve said it toughened you up?

Absolutely. In that kind of environment you build up a thicker skin and learn how to stay calm in stressful situations, and it plays into every part of your life. It helps you to deal, to delegate, and to find calm. I’ve also got some great comebacks now. (Laughs)

So is Gordon really a teddy bear?

Oh yeah, definitely, and I think that’s true of most chefs. Work is work and play is play. After service ends, they’re real people.

After winning Season Four of “Hell’s Kitchen,” you had the choice of accepting $250,000 in prize money at once, or earning it as a paycheck for working a year at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant. Was it a hard decision to make?

I don’t think that was a hard decision. It was a springboard. Taking that job opened some doors. It was my responsibility to keep them open, though. It paved the way for me to work for Thomas Keller, and then I met my husband, and that led me here. So it wasn’t a hard decision and it really paid off.

Are you still in touch with Gordon Ramsay?

Not really. I know he was in the States for a while. He was recently in Napa and we just missed each other. He’s a busy man.

Do you still watch “Hell’s Kitchen”?

I don’t. Like, when you drive a bus for a living, you don’t want to come home and watch a show about someone else driving a bus. (Laughs)

Do you cuss in the kitchen?

Goodness, I wouldn’t even know how to answer that! Being in a kitchen is very serious. Even in the winery, with the forklift being used, it can be a dangerous environment. There are a lot of events and guests everywhere, so it has to be taken seriously, so there can be some cussing. I’m marrying a Sicilian man, so I’m getting pretty good at defusing those kinds of situations, though. “I completely understand.” “I’m so sorry.” “Let me fix that for you, chef.” (Laughs) I’ve learned that if you fix your mistake, it’s hard for people to keep yelling at you.

What do you miss about working at Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood, and your last position at Bouchon?

Thomas is super-clean and organized, I definitely miss that structure. I miss the camaraderie of being with my guys on the line. But you know, the B cellars staff, last Saturday, left to jump on the line with Michael Chiarello and the staff at Meadowood, to cook an outdoor dinner for 602 guests with two inches of the rain on the grounds. There’s definitely an adrenaline rush there. We did it in two-and-a-half hours, too; we were cranking.

And Gordon Ramsay was definitely where I gained a lot of finesse in my cooking and learned how to plate properly, like an artist. After that, I was able to turn out beautiful plates. I miss working with people from all over the world, too. We had people there from Japan, Spain, England. There was a globalization within that kitchen that was a lot of fun, learning all those new techniques and skills. But another thing we just did out here, something right up my alley…we just got through the Auction Napa Valley, and it was amazing. We were chosen to cook for the dinner tribute to Andy Beckstoffer and for some of the auction bidders and the media from Wine Enthusiast. The challenge was that we didn’t have a kitchen. We rented a commercial convection oven, a wood-burning oven, and a mobile kitchen, and we did it all under a tent, in the rain! We did cowboy steaks and roasted bone marrow and this really amazing beet salad that I learned at Gordon Ramsay, and chocolate banana breads served in Mason jars.

What did you like to eat growing up? I saw an interview with you online where you said you had some unusual influences?

I grew up in a household where we ate everything. I have a little brother, and we would challenge and dare each other to eat the gross parts, like the eyes out of the fish. So now, as an adult, sweetbreads, veal brains…these things are normal.

Maybe you should have been on “Fear Factor”!

I don’t do bugs.

What restaurants or foods do you like to have when you’re back in the StL?

All of the people that I grew up with–waiting and bussing with as a hostess and dishwasher– are running restaurants as executive chefs now. I worked for Jimmy Fiala, and I still love to go Acero, The Crossing, and Terrace View. I miss Imo’s Pizza! I grew up two miles from the Smokehouse in Chesterfield, and I miss the simplicity of their food. For Lou Rook to be the chef for two decades is just unreal!

What do you cook for dinner for yourself these days?

All sorts of things. It finally got nice here in California, it’s been raining since I’ve been here. Everything I cook goes on the grill these days. We just did sockeye salmon on cedar planks with veggies. Last night we got invited to someone’s house, and they were grilling hamburgers. Sometimes it’s hard for me to just step back and watch; I have to step in. I said, “You see how your burgers have no defined shape and mine are nice and round? Let me show you how to do that.” (laughs)