SALT LAKE CITY — Although he has been on national television over a half-dozen times, Salt Lake City chef Viet Pham doesn’t consider himself famous.
Pham will be featured on an episode of the NBC culinary game show “Food Fighters,” in which the best amateur cooks in America face off against professional chefs, airing Thursday, July 23, at 7 p.m. He has competed in several other culinary television shows as an amateur, but this time he is one of the professional chefs and is facing some unexpected challenges.
“I’ve done several other television shows in the past but none like this,” Pham said. “There’s a lot to lose because you’re considered a pro chef, you’re more experienced working in the industry, and you’re going against a home cook who has a lot of experience cooking home-cooked meals. I don’t cook anything at home. I just cook in the restaurant level, so if you were to tell me that I would have to make a casserole or something like that, I would probably struggle. I’m not so much of a home cook. It is definitely challenging.”
Pham is chef and co-owner of Forage Restaurant in Salt Lake City and was named one of Food & Wine Magazine’s “Best New Chefs.” He was the winner of “Iron Chef America,” was a finalist on “The Next Food Network Star” and has appeared on “Extreme Chef.”
In “Food Fighters,” the “amateur” contestants come prepared with recipes for their best signature dishes and compete against expert chefs who must cook the same dish without advance notice of what they will be making. A panel of judges blindly samples both dishes to determine the winner.
According to a news release, “If the home cook wins, they earn a cash prize. Even if they don’t win, they still get to face off again against another culinary expert, climbing a money ladder with increasing cash prizes for every professional chef they knock out. Any amateur cook who wins each of the five rounds will walk away with $100,000. It’s the ultimate food fight, putting amateur cooks against the most formidable culinary pros in America to see if they have what it takes to beat the very best.”
To spice up this second season of “Food Fighters,” kid chefs will be added to the pool of contestants competing against the professional chefs.
“I didn’t know there was going to be kids in it until I saw the preview,” Pham said. “We don’t know who’s competing or who the chefs are, so I had no idea there were kids. I’m glad I didn’t compete against a kid because it would not be good. Could you imagine your cooks reminding you that you lost to a kid?”
Pham began cooking when he was even younger than the kids who will be competing on the show. He said he didn’t grow up in a wealthy family and his parents had to work odd hours. This left him and his brother home alone to cook dinner.
“At an early age — I was either in kindergarten or first grade — my parents taught us how to boil water,” Pham said. “We were making ramen noodle soup at the age of 5 or 6 by ourselves. You can only do that so many times before you get bored of it, so we would chop up hot dogs, cereal and whatever we could find. I think being able to combine different flavors and textures has always been appealing to me.”
When he got older, he entered the finance and software industry. It wasn’t until Pham was 29 that he realized he was more passionate about food than finance. He decided to make the switch to cooking, and that switch changed the course of his life.
He has been on several TV shows, and every time he is up against new competition, he said, he is surprised by how “well-versed” the other cooks are.
“Whether they’re home cooks or pro cooks who work in restaurants, the industry has definitely changed,” Pham said. “People have taken it up several notches from what you would think cooks do nowadays. Because of that, I’ve very impressed.”
Email: kschwab@deseretnews.com