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Alton Brown, the host of Cutthroat Kitchen.
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Chef Adam Althnether, partner in Craft Restaurants Ltd (Niche, Brasserie by Niche, Taste, and Pastaria).
This past Sunday’s episode of the Food Network’s Cutthroat Kitchen featured four chefs, one of whom was Craft Restaurants Ltd.’s co-owner Adam Altnether. The show revolves around the idea that the chefs are all assigned to prepare the same dish but are also given $25,000 each that can be used to bid on items that sabotage the success of their opponents' final dishes.
Naturally curious, we asked Altnether some questions about what it was like having to be in makeup by 5 am, dealing with the stress of cooking on camera...and being sabotaged by three gravy boats.
Your challenge was to prepare biscuits and gravy using nothing but three gravy boats. Everything about that seems difficult, but what was most difficult about it, from a professional cook's standpoint?
This was a challenge from hell for me to begin with. Not only am I not a fan of breakfast, but baking is definitely not my forté. The hardest thing was that it was absolutely all that I could use: I had to mix, cook, and bake my entire dish in the three small gravy boats! So doing all the mixing of biscuits in something that size was nearly impossible.
Is it sort of an honor to be thrown a roadblock? Did the other chef see you as that much of a threat that he used the gravy boat defense against you?
I think it was pretty clear that they saw me as a threat when I told them about myself. Plus, being sabotaged multiple times in both rounds [he thinks that part may have been edited out of the aired show], it seemed like they were throwing everything possible at me.
Had you NOT been given the gravy boats, would you have kicked that biscuits and gravy's ass?
If my biscuit turned out, I definitely am confident in saying that I would have gone through because that chorizo gravy seriously turned out awesome.
What was it like being on the show?
The whole process is a little wild. You literally have to wake up at 4 am and be at the show by five, go through quick make-up and hair, and you are on stage around 5:30 or 6. It's interesting getting to see the inner workings of a television show, and how it all gets produced to deliver the best product to the viewer. I learned a lot and would definitely give it another shot if they gave me a ring again.
Cooking in, managing, and owning places of Craft Restaurants Ltd.'s caliber must stress you out, but how is the stress of being on a TV show different?
All of my days of work are definitely packed with an overwhelming amount of stress and expectations, but being thrown cooking challenges in a kitchen that you have never been in, with four producers and six camera guys circling you the entire time definitely makes you feel like a fish out of water. It's hard to get over all that and act like yourself and cook like yourself under those circumstances.
Not that you'll ever again have to prepare biscuits and gravy in gravy boats, but was there something you learned from this experience that can positively impact your own approach to the restaurant business?
When I'm not in my comfort zone, and hanging out with people I know, I actually become very shy. This was exponentially increased when I was being judged on something that I do for a living, and being told to do and say different things nonstop by the producers hidden behind the scenes. So something that I need to work on is becoming less shy.
And when you aren’t being named a “30 Under 30” by Forbes or playing as a contestant on cooking shows, what are you up to these days?
Right now I am spending most of my work time at Niche and Pastaria. We are working on new menu items, one of which is gluten free products, like pasta and pizza dough. And we are always trying to evolve and make this huge team function at its highest possible level.
Altnether’s episode of Cutthroat Kitchen, Anything But a Cake Walk, will air again on the Food Network on July 19th at 4pm CST.
