Here's What Your Favorite Hell's Kitchen Winners Are Up To Now

When "Hell's Kitchen" first aired way back in the year 2005, it was easy to see why it was going to be a massive success. It had drama, conflict, high stakes, and a group of wildly talented people all trying to do what they do best while impressing one of the most notoriously difficult-to-please chefs in the world. The stakes were high, the punishments were awful, and by the end of the first episode, everyone watching had their favorite contestants.

Before we get into what some of our favorite winners are doing, we do have some good news: Some of the chefs who presented the stiffest competition have gone on to do some impressive things. Season 2's Virginia Dalbeck, for example, has opened a slew of restaurants, including the Cork & Pig Tavern and the Red Oak Kitchen. Season 7's Jason Santos is the owner of the New Orleans–inspired Buttermilk & Bourbon, and Torrece "Chef T" Gregoire (the runner-up from season 14) opened Union 41 in Bristol, Virginia. 

Appearing on the show can be a life-changing experience, and it makes sense. If you can weather what Hell's Kitchen has to throw at you, you can do anything, right? While some winners have gone on to stay in the restaurant industry, not everyone has. Let's check in on some of the show's favorite winners and see what they're doing now.

Rahman "Rock" Harper came out on top in Season 3, and since then, he's gone on to open restaurants of his own. That includes Queen Mother's Kitchen, which opened in 2020 to serve up some truly incredible chicken sandwiches that would make any mother proud. He's doing it all with just 13 ingredients and a commitment to additive- and antibiotic-free, high-quality chicken, and it's clearly working: As of this writing, his Virginia restaurant has a solid 4.3 out of 5 stars on Yelp.

Harper hasn't stopped there, either. He's also the owner of Hill Prince, a cocktail bar built in historic part of Washington, D.C., where he makes cocktails with the same commitment to high-quality ingredients. It, too, seems to be doing well and sits with a 4.2 out of 5-star rating on Yelp (as of this writing).

He also found time to release a book called "44 Things Parents Should Know About Healthy Cooking For Kids," but he's made it clear where his heart is. When he started working at Green Valley Ranch in Las Vegas back in 2007, he told the Las Vegas Sun that he loved meeting customers and fans of the show, but added, "I just can't wait to get back to the kitchen. That's my sanctuary."

Back in 2021, Season 4 winner Christina Machamer sat down for an interview with Frank Family Vineyards, one of the many wineries that she had partnered with during her time as a personal chef in Napa Valley. In the interview, she shared that she was putting her experience on "Hell's Kitchen" to good use: "Working for Chef Gordon Ramsay, I learned how to plate food. I know that sounds simple, but there is an art and a technique, and it was built (or beaten) into me," she said.

Machamer has a project of her own going in Napa Valley, too, and it's called the Clandestine Table. If that sounds mysterious, it is, and it's advertised as a catering service that offers private wine tastings, dinners, and brunches. 

In an interview with Parade, she shared that with tragedies like the COVID-19 pandemic and the California wildfires, demand for services that cater to small groups had risen drastically. "Most of our clients require discretion, which is the genesis of our company name," she said. It's likely why you won't find much in the way of reviews or photos of clients on her social media pages, which feature elegant settings, fresh, local ingredients and finely plated dishes. 

When Nona Johnson sat down for an exclusive interview with Mashed in 2021, she spoke not only about the stress of daily life on "Hell's Kitchen, but what she'd learned, how it had changed her career path, and what she incorporated into her own work. She credited Gordon Ramsay for teaching her "even the smallest little things, what would seem minute to people outside of this industry — it was instrumental in how I run my kitchens now," she said.

She credited the show with giving her the confidence to move to Los Angeles, step through the doors that opened for her, and find her own place in the world. Now, that's all the way on the other side of the country, in Georgia. Johnson is now running The Local Peach, which is much more than a restaurant. Johnson and her partner, Chef Briana Murray, established the business as a community center, a market with a focus on local goods, and a solution to the area's lack of access to fresh foods. In addition to serving food, they also prep meal kits, give cooking classes, and do it all with a focus on diversity and inclusivity.

Along with Paul Niedermann's Season 9 "Hell's Kitchen" win came an appointment as the head chef of New York City's BLT Steak. That was in 2011, and from there, he moved on to the SALT7 Restaurant Group. Today, he's the Executive Chef at The Jupiter Grill. The restaurant is known for their combination of steak and seafood, touting itself as offering the best of both worlds from a coastal location in Jupiter, Florida. The restaurant has been awarded honors from both OpenTable and Wine Spectator. If it sounds fancy, it is — but it also has live music and a daily happy hour.

The restaurant is (as of this writing) sitting with a solid 3.9 out of five stars on Yelp, with recent reviews lauding the food, drink menu, and atmosphere. The Deviled Egg Flight is a clear favorite, and plenty of people share photos of fresh seafood, delicious-looking steaks, and funky cocktails.

By the time Scott Commings took home the win in Season 12, the Chicago area had already had a slew of contestants. In 2014, he spoke with Las Vegas magazine about his appointment as the head chef at Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill at Caesars Palace, and he admitted that as far as his career, Vegas hadn't really even been an option he'd considered. "Las Vegas was never a goal of mine ... I had never even been out here ... But now that we're out here among all the restaurants and incredible talent, it's really an incredible experience," he told them.

Commings was still fresh off his win at the time of that interview, but his love for Las Vegas has seemingly never dwindled. In 2022, he turned his longtime interest in bread-baking and wood-fired bakeries into the Daily Bread LV, a bakery that's serving breakfast and brunch and always has freshly breaded breads and pastries on the shelves. As of this writing, the bakery has a 4.7 out of 5 stars on Yelp, with customers raving about everything from the quality of the food to the friendly staff, beautiful atmosphere, and the tendency Commings has to be on-site greeting his customers and answering any questions they might have.

After it was finally announced that the Season 13 winner of "Hell's Kitchen" was Fort Lauderdale's La Tasha McCutchen, it was a secret that she had to keep for around a year while continuing to work as a line cook in her hometown. After her win was announced, she moved on to a head chef's position at Gordon Ramsay's Atlantic City restaurant.

What has she been up to since the win? Her social media presence is surprisingly sparse, with her Instagram and her Facebook pages filled with both personal updates and photos of food. It's only when you get to her LinkedIn that you see she's working as a professional chef with her own Atlantic City–based business called Entertaining with Chef Tasha Mac. As of this writing, she had been doing this for nearly nine years since leaving a position with Marriott International in 2014.

When Season 14 winner Meghan Gill sat down for an exclusive interview with Mashed in 2021, she was already working with the Dormie Network, a series of seven luxury golf clubs designed not only around golf but on-site accommodations and fine dining. Gill started there in 2019, and as of this writing, she still gives her job title as Executive Chef at Dormie Network in Hidden Creek, New Jersey. 

In her interview with Mashed, Gill credited her time on the show and her experiences working with Gordon Ramsay as validating her years of training. She said that it also gave her the confidence to achieve what she has and the belief in herself that she needed to take the next steps in her career. "I think that in that discipline, discipline has been the thing that has gotten me through everything, in life, and in cooking," she said. "You stick with that and you'll be good." What the future holds is always up in the air, but Gill did say that one of the things she had always thought about doing was opening her own food truck.

Season 16 "Hell's Kitchen" winner Kimberly Ryan has had some challenging years since her big win in 2017. After taking her head chef position at Gordon Ramsay's Yardbird Southern Table & Bar in Las Vegas, she opened her own catering company. Unfortunately, post-2020 updates have been tragic. Most of the information available has been posted on a GoFundMe page set up to help with the mounting medical bills that started to accumulate after she was diagnosed with long COVID. In 2023, Ryan was relying on supplemental oxygen and was diagnosed with scarring in her lungs, heart damage, and permanent numbness in her hands.

Her condition was so severe that she needed to have heart surgery, and as of this writing, the most recent update was posted on August 31, 2024. Although she had been scheduled for heart surgery in September, she had also lost her job amid her health struggles. At the time of her illness, it appears that she was working as a recovery coach helping those working toward a goal of sobriety.

Getting invested in a show like "Hell's Kitchen" means that sometimes, you're going to be treated to the sometimes poignant, heartfelt advice that Gordon Ramsay is known for giving to young chefs on the edge of burnout. Other times, you're treated to a spectacle that leaves you waiting for Ramsay to call someone an "idiot sandwich" (which is, incidentally, a sandwich that you'll find on his Hell's Kitchen restaurant menus). And, sometimes, you'll be yelling at the television in frustration.

That's what happened during the lead-in to the Season 17 finale, which chatter on Reddit often points to as the most frustrating elimination in the series when Michelle Tribble won out over Nick Peters. That was the All-Star episode, and not only was Michelle Tribble invited back to be a Red Team sous chef for Season 23, but she continues to work closely with Gordon Ramsay.

After almost three years as a chef and manager at Hell's Kitchen at Caesars Palace, Tribble moved on to Gordon Ramsay North America (GRNA). There, she started out as Culinary Development Executive Chef before moving on to be the Director of Culinary Development in June of 2023.

Every show has to keep things fresh and throw in a curveball every once in a while, and in Season 18, "Hell's Kitchen" had eight show veterans face off against eight newbies. The winner was veteran Chef Ariel Contreras-Fox, who has been one of the few winners to turn down the big prize at the end. What has she been up to since the season aired in 2018? She's currently the Vice President of Culinary at Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse and Del Frisco's Grille in New York City.

As of this writing, TripAdvisor ranks Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse at number 316 of 12,240 New York City restaurants, and it has a comfortable 4.5 out of 5 stars. Most of the reviews are favorable, lauding the steakhouse for perfectly cooked specialities that include steaks and seafood dishes like salmon and crab cakes. Del Frisco's Grille, meanwhile, is ranked at 520 on Tripadvisor, with similarly stellar reviews from customers.

Next time you wonder if you can keep a lid on what you've gotten someone for their birthday, here's something to help you keep things in perspective. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and delays in Season 20 of "Hell's Kitchen," Trenton Garvey couldn't tell anyone he'd won for a whopping two years. He told Mashed, "It was brutal, keeping it secret and not being able to talk about it, not let people know. ... Because you get a lot of flak, being a 23-year-old executive chef!"

Garvey also said that he had walked away not only knowing that he now had some serious experience to back up his natural skill. It's not entirely surprising, then, to find out that he's stayed in the industry and now has the title of Executive Chef at The Blue Duck in St. Louis. The restaurant is open for brunch and dinner. It also boasts a full bar with some seriously amazing cocktails, as well as a bakery. Of the 28 restaurants in the suburb of St. Louis, Tripadvisor ranks The Blue Duck at number 2. Customers say there's a lot it's getting right, from favorites like burgers and fries to — as the name suggests — duck, and the cocktails.

When Mashed interviewed "Hell's Kitchen" contestant Alex Belew, he was still just a contestant — and the spoiler-free interview didn't ruin the fact that he was going to ultimately walk away as the winner. Interestingly, one of the things that Belew did talk about was how he had gone to culinary school but was so burnt out by the whole thing that he walked away from the entire industry. Until, that is, he got a job teaching others to cook. It's not entirely surprising, then, that his social media pages today are more focused on his band, Reckless Eden, than on his culinary career. That's not to say he's totally turned his back on cooking, but what he's found a niche doing is a little nontraditional.

Nutrition Faktory is a site that sells things like vitamins and supplements, and they also sell meal-prep services. The chef behind those premade meals? You guessed it: Alex Belew. The partnership was announced in early 2024, with a handful of protein bowls designed by the chef and available for local pickup or delivery.

"Hell's Kitchen" might have a reputation as being pretty cutthroat,. But, when Ryan O'Sullivan gave Tasting Table an inside look at the season finale that he ultimately won, he told us that what you saw on-screen wasn't a rivalry, but a friendship: He and Johnathan Benvenuti had become incredibly close over the filming of the series and absolutely plan on continuing to work together. At the time, he couldn't say too much about future plans, so what's he been up to since?

O'Sullivan also turned down the main prize, a job working for Gordon Ramsay in Las Vegas. Instead, he head back to Palm Beach Gardens in South Florida, picking up where he had left off at the restaurant at The Country Club at Mirasol. He did have other plans in the works, particularly spending a month working in London at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. He knew that his challenges in the kitchen were just starting, including a gig serving at the Fork Fest in his hometown of Cork, Ireland.