Robert Irvine

Expert Interview: Robert Irvine

Behind the Chef

What were your favorite foods growing up?
Cornflakes and baked fish. That's it.

When did you decide you wanted to be a chef?
When I was eleven I decided to be a chef on a cruise ship.

Where and when did your career in food begin?
I started when I was 15.

If you didn't become a chef, what would you be?
A fire fighter because I love danger.

Who/what has shaped your cooking the most over the years?
The people I've met in the Navy and food industry; I've taken pieces from each of them in order to create my style.

How would you describe your cuisine?
Simple elegance with a touch of the unusual.

What are your favorite culinary weapons in the kitchen?
My knowledge.

What is your favorite secret ingredient?
Ginger and rice wine vinegar.

How would you describe your training as a chef/cook in the Navy? Do you think that makes your style differ from other more traditionally trained chefs?
Definitely. What you learn in the Navy is leadership, respect, dignity, teamwork, and self confidence. Traditional chefs go to a school that can build skills, but in the Navy you get that instantly.

Do you eat anything in particular to stay fit?
I eat steak and chicken everyday. I also drink coffee every morning, and a lot of English breakfast tea. I also work out six days a week.

What was the most challenging meal you had to make? Why?
There were two, the 2006 Oscars in Los Angeles because I had to make so many top chefs work as a team to feed 700 people a ten course meal and Blackberry Farm's Dinner Impossible because it rained torrentially on all my equipment. It took me to my wit's end.

What is your least favorite food?
Cinnamon and red peppers.

What is your beverage of choice?
Tea and beer.

What are some recent dining and culinary trends you have been observing?
I don't observe trends, I set them.

Do you have a favorite show on the Food Network?
I like Iron Chef.

Which foreign country inspires your style most?
They all inspire me, but probably France because I am a classically trained chef. But I like eating Mediterranean style foods.

What is your best cooking tip for a home enthusiast?
Get organized and learn how to use a knife.

What do you eat when you are home?
I eat probably 6000-8000 calories a day. I eat every hour and a half. I eat 8-12 meals a day. I have a very unusual eating pattern.

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Expert Profile

With more than 25 years in the culinary profession, Chef Robert Irvine has cooked his way through Europe, the Far East, the Caribbean and the Americas, in hotels and on the high seas. He brings his experience to Food Network as host of Dinner: Impossible, Worst Cooks in America and Restaurant: Impossible.

On Dinner Impossible, Robert serves stunningly creative dishes for both intimate gatherings and huge crowds, all without warning and at a moment's notice. On the show, he has cooked on a desert island, in an 18th-century kitchen, in an ice hotel, for cowboys on a cattle drive, for master instructors at the Culinary Institute of America and at the inauguration of Pennsylvania's governor.

Robert joins the prime-time reality show Worst Cooks in America as a co-host, with Chef Anne Burrell, for season two, premiering January 2011. On the show, the chefs attempt to transform the country's most hopeless cooks from kitchen zeros to kitchen heroes through a grueling culinary boot camp. Also in January 2011, Robert will host a new prime-time show, Restaurant: Impossible, in which he attempts to save America's most desperate restaurants from impending failure in just two days with a budget of only $10,000.

A native of England, Robert joined the British Royal Navy at the age of 15, and his skills in the kitchen soon came to the attention of his superiors. As part of his service for the Royal Navy, Robert was selected to work onboard the Royal Yacht Britannia, where the Royal Family and their entourages regularly dined. During his time spent training U.S. Navy chefs as part of a guest chef program, Robert worked in the White House kitchens, and his creations were served to high-ranking government officials. During his career, he has also had the opportunity to serve 6,000 servicemen and servicewomen on a U.S. aircraft carrier and plan the menu for a celebrity-studded after-party at the Academy Awards.

Robert's first book, Mission: Cook! (Harper Collins, 2007), was published in September 2007, and his latest cookbook, Impossible to Easy (Harper Collins), was released in 2010.