Anne Burrell's Life And Career As A Celebrity Chef - Nicki Swift (2024)

Television

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ByJon O'Brien/Jan. 9, 2023 5:24 pm EST

Switch on the Food Network at any given time and chances are you'll see the platinum blonde locks of Anne Burrell. The flamboyant celebrity chef has appeared as everything from a cooking competition contestant and cooking competition judge to roadshow guest, sous chef and even a cruise ship host on the mouth-watering channel since her debut way back in 2005.

Of course, Burrell's culinary talents extend far beyond the celebrity chef arena. She's studied at one of the most prestigious culinary schools in America, worked at several of the Big Apple's finest restaurants, and even temporarily owned her own eatery. The native New Yorker has also been a tabloid favorite thanks to a broken engagement and eventual walk down the aisle.

From childhood inspirations and Italian gap years, to small screen debuts and best-selling books, here's a look at how Burrell became one of the country's most popular food TV personalities.

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While most children's heroes are of the superhero kind, Anne Burrell's was a pragmatic, middle-aged woman responsible for introducing America to the wonder of French cuisine. Yes, the Food Network regular became fascinated by the talents of TV chef Julia Child when she was still knee high to a grasshopper.

Burrell explained to Closer Weekly, "When I was three, I went to my mom and said, 'Mom, I have a friend named Julie. Julie Child!' I watched her every day on TV. She is still my idol. I sort of feel simpatico with Julia because we are both these big, kooky, loud ladies with a particular outlook on things, but with a definite joy in what we do."

But Burrell also looked up to a domestic goddess much closer to home: her mother. "My mom was a really good cook, and I always loved to help out. We planted a big garden every summer. To be able to see things start from seeds and grow was great. My mom could say, 'Go out and pick lettuce for dinner, or dig up potatoes.' It was so fun. Cooking to me was always like an arts and crafts project with something to eat at the end."

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Anne Burrell's path to celebrity chef stardom wasn't exactly precisely engineered. The platinum blonde initially never had any intention of entering the culinary world, let alone espousing her words of wisdom about the subject on national television.

Yes, we can't imagine that Burrell learned much about high cuisine while studying at Buffalo's Canisius College. Well, unless she had a whiz in the kitchen for a dorm roommate. The star graduated from the institution in 1991 with an English and Communications degree, but her part-time job is where she found her life's mission.

Burrell did, however, work part-time waiting tables during her studies. And it was here, as she later told Buffalo News, that she realized her true calling. "When you're 17 and from Cazenovia, you're supposed to go to college, it's not really why or for what," she said. "So I kind of figured it out while I was in Buffalo, and I got my first restaurant job at Jimmy Mac's. I waitressed there for three years starting when I was 19, and I loved it! It's where the restaurant bug bit me."

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The restaurant bug may have hit Anne Burrell during her waitressing stint at Jimmy Mac's, but the Food Network regular still waited a while to fully commit to the industry. In fact, she took a regular job after earning her degree.

Unfortunately, as she later told her alma mater, the 9-5 lifestyle didn't suit her. Burrell revealed that she only pivoted away from the culinary world on the advice of her father. But realizing that she was "way too young to be miserable," the star soon decided to hand in her notice and chase her dream career.

Yes, Burrell landed a place at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in her New York hometown, eventually graduating in 1996 with an Associate in Occupational Studies. The chef admitted that this move didn't exactly boost her street cred. "When I decided to go to culinary school being a chef wasn't the cool thing," she said. "Chefs weren't rock stars then."

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Anne Burrell certainly didn't rest on her laurels after graduating from New York's prestigious Culinary Institute of America. The Food Network favorite instantly traveled to the home of pasta and pizza, Italy, to hone her culinary skills further.

Burrell went on to study at Piedmont's Italian Culinary Institute for three months before taking internships at La Bottaga de '30, a tiny Michelin-starred Tuscany eatery which only had one seating every evening, and the Umbrian restaurant, La Taverna del Lupo. Burrell later told Italia Living, "I always thought I liked Italian food, but it turns out that what I knew of was actually Italian-American food. It wasn't until I got to Italy after culinary school that I fell in love with true Italian cuisine and the love and passion that Italians have for food."

Burrell has since become renowned for her take on Italian food, particularly her Pasta Bolognese, a dish she got surprisingly poetic about during an interview with Mashed."The thing about a Bolognese is it takes a little bit of work to get started," she explained. "You have to take your time to go through all the stuff ... It's a dance, and the life cycle of the Bolognese, to see where it starts and where it finishes, is so soulful. If you're going to make it, make a big pot so you can freeze it and you have it."

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After returning from her Italian sojourn, Anne Burrell continued her connection with the boot-shaped country by bagging a sous chef position at Felidia, the former New York restaurant run by Italian-American Lidia Bastianich. The Food Network star worked under Fortunato Nicotra, the establishment's executive chef in a small kitchen which served up to 350 dinners every evening.

In a 2007 interview with the Restaurant Girl blog, Burrell revealed that she found the experience a baptism of fire. "Working at Felidia was one of the toughest jobs I have ever had, mostly because I put so much pressure on myself," she explained. "It was my first job in NYC and I was the only girl in the kitchen beside the pastry department. I was determined to work harder than the guys in the kitchen."

This battle of the sexes meant that Burrell didn't enjoy her stint as much as she perhaps should have: "The funny thing is I probably would have done a better job and had a LOT more fun if I had just relaxed about the whole thing."

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Anne Burrell went from student to mentor when, just a few years after graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, she bagged a teaching position at New York's Institute of Culinary Education. And as she explained during a visit to Bermuda College in 2022, the star didn't take the role lightly.

"Before every lesson I would research every dish I was making— not only how to make the dish but also the 'whys' of the dish," Burrell said (via Bernews). "It's not about just being a 'recipe chef', it's about learning how things behave and why; for example, 'If you do this or add that, this will happen'. That's when you get creative."

And Burrell's fastidious approach was definitely appreciated by at least one of her pupils. Speaking to Canisius College, "Top Chef" season five contestant Alex Eusebio revealed that Burrell was an instrumental figure in his life. "With her I always had a connection," he said. "Not many Canisius graduates end of going to for second career, let alone a cooking career and cross paths doing it."

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Anne Burrell's thriving culinary career was given a further boost when Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich hired her as the chef for their Big Apple store Italian Wine Merchants, per her profile on Two Twelve Management.Soon after, she received an invite from the former to become his sous chef on the show that would ultimately launch her to TV stardom.

In 2005, Burrell worked under Batali in the first season of "Iron Chef America," racking up more than 20 different battles. "Why he asked me out of the hundreds of people who worked for him, I never questioned it and I never looked back," the star later admitted to her alma mater Canisius College. "I was just very, very lucky."

Speaking to Total Food Service more than a decade after her TV debut, Burrell revealed she was still very much in awe of the man responsible. "Mario is freakishly smart. It makes me crazy. He can sit down and speak with anybody about any subject or topic in depth and tell you about the movies he's seen, the books he's read, he'll talk about cooking, politics, religion, current events. I learned so much from [him]."

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Anne Burrell made such a good impression during her stint as Mario Batali's sous chef on "Iron Chef America," that Food Network executives soon gifted the talent with her very own show. "Secrets of a Restaurant Chef" premiered in 2008 and ran for an impressive nine seasons before wrapping up four years later, picking up a Daytime Emmy nomination for Best Culinary Program in the process.

As its title suggests, the show saw Burrell giving audiences tips on how to create restaurant-quality meals at home. The star was still working at New York's Centro Vinoteca at the time, something she told Reuters set her apart from many of her fellow TV chefs. What makes me different is because I work in a restaurant every day," she said. "I'm giving people a sneak peek into my world. Now I can take that and share it with everyone else."

And if you didn't manage to catch any of the show's whopping 115 episodes, then Burrell gave a handy tip to the news agency that can still be applied today — sample what you're cooking. "It's such a simple thing, but people follow a recipe and they don't taste food as they go. If it doesn't taste good, you can adjust along the way," she told Reuters. "In the restaurant, we taste all day long, every day."

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Having received the competitive cooking show bug from "Iron Chef America," Anne Burrell then stepped away from the shadow of Mario Batali when she signed up to another Food Network contest. Yes, the celebrity chef was asked to appear on "Worst Cooks in America," a series which, since 2010, has pitted approximately a dozen contestants with limited cooking skills against each other for $25,000.

Burrell told Creative Loafingshe found the adjustment from mentoring professionals to complete amateurs rather overwhelming at first. "It's a totally different skill set; I had to go 180 degrees because they're not even in the same ballpark," she said. "These people were so bad, and every season since I've been surprised at how bad people really are."

Of course, Burrell has remained a presence on the show since. When asked by Mashed about the worst ever dish a contestant cooked up, the star recalled a guy who opened a can of tuna fish. What happened next was pure culinary nightmare fuel. "I don't even think he really drained it, and mixed it with about two cups of mayonnaise and a jar of," Burrell pauses for dramatic effect. "... Rachael [Ray] and I dispute this, she thinks it was grape jelly. I think it was raspberry jelly — regardless, gross."

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Anne Burrell found out in 2012 that there's a downside to being a celebrity chef: the press are more interested in your love life than your recipes. That year, the "Worst Cooks in America" star inadvertently made headlines when she was seemingly outed by a fellow Food Network regular.

While appearing on the Sirius XM show hosted by Romaine Patterson, "Chopped" presenter Ted Allen saidhe wasn't "going to put a label on Anne, but she is dating a woman right now" (via Out). However, a rep for Burrell later told E! News that Allen's revelation wasn't really a revelation at all, adding that it's "not really a big deal to her."

Burrell's rep also told Page Six that the star chef didn't feel like she was forcibly outed."She has made no secret of her relationship. Her significant other is a very private woman," the rep said. "They have been together for a couple of years and spend a lot of time together. It is no secret in the culinary world."

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In the same year that she was accidentally outed by Ted Allen, Anne Burrell asked her partner of two years, Koren Grievson, for her hand in marriage. The Food Network star, who announced the news via Twitter on New Year's Eve, told Entertainment Tonight, "We got engaged and then I've been on the road, so it's kind of like, 'Hi Sweetie, nice to see you, I'll see you when I get back.' I feel like I've been home long enough to unpack and pack again and maybe take a quick nap, and then I'm off to the airport again."

The "Worst Cooks in America" mentor also disclosedthat an international ceremony may be on the cards. "We have to talk about it, I think we're thinking of a destination wedding, maybe in Vieques, [Puerto Rico]," she said. "That's where we got engaged, and the first time we ever traveled together was to [Vieques], so it's kind of a special spot for us."

Unfortunately, Burrell and Grievson didn't get their Puerto Rican happy ending. Although the latter moved from Chicago to the Big Apple to be with the former, the pair eventually split up before making it down the aisle. Neither party has commented on the split at the time of this writing.

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Anne Burrell surprised everyone in 2020 when she revealed that she'd got engaged, only this time to a man. After her relationship with fellow chef Koren Grievson ended, the Food Network favorite began dating Stuart Claxton. And this time around, she did make it down the aisle.

Burrell and Claxton exchanged vows in the fall of 2022 at Cazenovia's Windridge Estates Redbarn 20, with the former telling People, "I can't believe it's really here. It's kind of surreal. We feel so much love and support from everyone who's coming." Marc Murphy, Alex Guarnaschelli and Jeff Mauro were just a few of the famous faces in attendance, while the sumptuous meal included roasted cauliflower steak, goat cheese and pumpkin ravioli, braised short ribs and a zucchini cake made by Buddy Valastro of "Cake Boss."

Burrell sported a Carolina Herrera dress for the occasion and arrived at the ceremony in a horse and carriage. Burrell acknowledged that she may have gone a little overboard but that ultimately she didn't care. "I don't care about the cheese factor," she said. "Every time I mention the horse and carriage Stuart laughs a little bit, and I'm like, 'Alright, whatever. It's my moment and I mean to have it.'"

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In May 2017, Anne Burrell achieved a lifelong dream by opening her own restaurant in New York City in partnership with bar owner Phil Casaceli (via People). Unfortunately, within a year, Phil and Anne's Good Time Lounge had closed its doors for good, per Eater New York.

Interestingly, the establishment didn't close because of a lack of customers. Burrell decided to quit on the venture herself after falling out with Casaceli. According to Page Six, their business relationship broke down almost immediately, with things eventually getting so bad that they could only communicate with each other via their attorneys. A spokesperson for Burrell explained, "Unfortunately, she and Phil have had differences of opinion during their business relationship that made running a restaurant together impossible," adding, "Phil and his representative have been unwilling to meet thus far to try to reconcile the situation."

Casaceli disputed this version of events, telling the same site, "That's an all-out lie. I sent her a letter the Monday after Thanksgiving. I've called her, texted her and e-mailed her and she has claimed that she didn't receive them." Either way, the restaurant should have been named Bad Time Lounge.

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Anne Burrell added New York Times best-selling author to her list of achievements in 2011 when her first ever book, "Cook Like A Rock Star," made the publishing charts. When asked by Channel Guide about the meaning behind the title, the Food Network regular explained, "It's about empowerment. It's like, if chefs are the new rock stars and people are the chefs of their own kitchens, then I want them to be rock stars, too!"

Striking while the iron was hot, Burrell followed her first foray into the book world just two years later with "Own Your Kitchen." During the promotional trail, the star told Total Food Servicethat she takes her role as an author very seriously. I like to instruct people in my writing. I take it very personally how I write recipes because I really want people to be successful at them," she said. "I'm very detailed about how I do it but I also want people to hear my voice. I want it to be, when you're reading a recipe, you feel like I'm there cooking with you."

Perhaps surprisingly, Burrell hasn't written another since. When asked about the possibility of a new book hitting the stores by Delaware Online in 2018, the chef responded, "I haven't zeroed on what I want to say yet. I'll wait until I have something I have to say."