Milwaukee Egg & Flour chef is along for the new ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ season
When temperamental chef Gordon Ramsay returns this week with a new season of the “Hell’s Kitchen” cooking competition on Fox — where he dishes out compliments along with heaping helpings of scorn — Milwaukee chef Adam Pawlak will be there for it.
Pawlak, the owner of two Egg & Flour Pasta Bar locations and the new E&F Pizzeria, will be a contestant on the show, which debuts at 7 p.m. Thursday and repeats at 7 p.m. Saturday, locally on WITI-TV (Channel 6).
The chef still seems incredulous that he’s on a show that he’s watched “every season from Day 1” since its debut in 2005, and muses about going back in time to tell his past self he’d be cooking there someday.
“It’s just crazy to be able to experience it, and live and learn,” Pawlak said.
Pawlak’s agreement with the show keeps him from spilling many details, but there isn’t much that will be held back once the show airs.
“You have at least one camera on you at all times,” Pawlak said, even during the contestants’ down times.
“You’re working all day; it’s long days,” he said. The contestants compete in challenges, which are followed with a reward or punishment, and then dinner service after that.
“It’s not edited to seem like a busy day,” Pawlak said. “It a busy day.”
And, Pawlak added, “It’s not like it’s for the faint of heart. You’ve got to be pretty mentally ready.”
The famously hot-headed Ramsay might be known as much for flinging contestants’ cooking as for his Michelin-starred restaurants in London (plus other, more casual restaurants, and 10 U.S. restaurants).
“He’s actually really laid-back and literally wants the best for anyone who’s on there,” Pawlak said.
Pawlak’s personal takeaway from the show was the importance of communication in the kitchen, and learning “a lot about running a brigade and running a kitchen of that caliber.”
And he saw firsthand the truth behind an adage.
“The reason people mess up on that show is the old classic line, ‘There’s too many chefs in the kitchen,’ ” Pawlak said.
Since ending filming, he’s kept in touch with some of the other contestants and hopes to have them in Milwaukee eventually for collaborative dinners someday.
For the first time, the show wasn’t filmed in Los Angeles; it was filmed in Las Vegas, where Ramsay now has a restaurant named Hell’s Kitchen.
The season was filmed in 2019, well before the coronavirus pandemic, so none of the 18 contestants is wearing masks.
Much has happened in Pawlak’s life since filming the show. “I went and did that when I didn’t have anything at all,” he said.
Five days after returning from filming, he opened his first Egg and Flour in the Crossroads Collective food hall, 2238 N. Farwell Ave., in May 2019. He opened the Bay View location less than a year later, and in late December opened his pizzeria in the neighboring food hall stall.
Pawlak will have the show on the TVs at the Bay View location, 2273 S. Howell Ave. Seating is reduced because of the pandemic, but customers can take their pasta to go, and two other south side businesses — New Barons Brewing Cooperative at 2018 S.
First St. and Frank’s Power Plant bar at 2800 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. — also will be showing the first episode.
“I’m excited for people to see it,” Pawlak said.
Contact dining critic Carol Deptolla at carol.deptolla@jrn.com or (414) 224-2841, or through the Journal Sentinel Food & Home page on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter at @mkediner or Instagram at @mke_diner.