As a freshman in high school, Ryan Scanlon started cold calling restaurants, trying to see if he could land a job in the kitchen. He had no professional training experience — he mostly cooked for family businesses.
He said he knew going to college and pursuing a degree wasn’t the path for him, and his love for food blossomed as he helped his single mother make meals for him and his sister.
Eventually he got a call back from Christopher Stam, the executive chef and owner of Alchemy, a restaurant in Edgartown, Mass.
“I had no resume or anything for him [to] look at my past work or experience,” Scanlon said. “He was like, ‘what are you looking for?’ and I told him, ‘I just want to get into the kitchen.’”
Now, Scanlon will appear on season four of Next Level Chef, a reality show where each week, contestants cook on different floor levels with varying qualities of utensils and kitchens.
To get ingredients, an elevator platform with different types of food descends to all levels. The chefs at the top level get first pick, then the middle kitchen and the basement chefs get the leftovers.
The basement level is a run-down kitchen, with old, low-quality utensils. The middle level is a standard commercial kitchen, with supplies that could be found in any restaurant kitchen. The top level is a state-of-the-art kitchen, with high-end supplies.
The show airs on Thursdays on FOX, with Scanlon making his first official appearance on the show as part of the professional chefs Feb. 27.
After Stam agreed to train him, Scanlon began working as a prep cook. It was at Alchemy where Scanlon realized he wanted to work as a cook, watching the “madness of the kitchen.”
“It was actually really cool to work with somebody that had that kind of eagerness in him,” said Stam. “The biggest thing I look for in a young, trainable cook is the willingness to just go with the flow and adapt.”
Scanlon spent a lot of time learning from Stam and other senior cooks, trying to absorb as much knowledge as he could.
“This was the first place that I felt like I really fit in and I belonged,” Scanlon said.
Eventually, Scanlon decided he wanted to go to culinary school, and he decided to enroll in Boston University’s culinary arts program in 2020.
“I wanted to kind of have [culinary school] as part of my journey and my memories,” he said. “[I wanted to feel] more validated within the industry…and the program at BU is great.”
Lead BU Culinary Instructor Chris Douglass recalled how ambitious Scanlon had been to take classes within the program, and after meeting with him, could “tell he had a spark.”
“When I see a young kid who’s eager to grow, I really could lean on them, and I can kind of push them,” Douglass said. “He was that kind of student.”
After the BU culinary program, Scanlon moved to Los Angeles, where he worked under the mentorship of Executive Chef Lucas Koehn as a sous chef.
“When we’re in this industry, we kind of see each other more than we see our families,” Koehn said. “Sometimes it’s like a second family. He just is a really good guy.”
Scanlon also said he met Angelia in LA, who pushed him to apply for a cooking show.
After submitting an application, not even 24 hours later, he received a direct message on Instagram from a casting director for Next Level Chef, hosted by chefs Gordon Ramsay, Nyesha Arrington and Richard Blais.
Initially, Scanlon said he wanted to say no.
“I was at a crossroads, and didn’t know what decision I wanted to make,” he said. “[But Angelia] was like, ‘no, you’re not going to say no. You don’t want to pass up this once in a lifetime opportunity.’”
Eventually Scanlon agreed, and accepted the offer to be a contestant on the show.
“I remember the first day on set. It was pretty surreal just to see all the cameras in your face and just the way that it’s all set up,” he said. “I remember just seeing Gordon, Aisha and Richard all just standing there. It was a pretty crazy moment, because long before I was even in any kitchen, I’ve been watching Gordon Ramsay on plenty of shows.”
With the show premiering now, Scanlon said he’s working on putting his name out there more and that meeting many social media chefs on set has helped him grow his following.
“It was a great experience, and I met a lot of amazing people with the same love and passion for food that I do,” Scanlon said.“I met some really talented other professional chefs that I’m starting to do businesses with.”
Now that filming is over, Scanlon is back in Boston working on several projects. Currently, he’s working on a collaboration with Curio Spice, a Cambridge-based spice company, to develop his own spice blend.
“The overall show experience was like nothing I’ve ever done in my entire life,” he said. “I left the show very, very proud of myself.”
