Whiteland grad competes on ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ cooking competition

At the age of 24, Brett Binninger-Schwartz found himself cooking in the heat of “Hell’s Kitchen.”

The Whiteland Community High School graduate is among the latest group of chefs to compete on the reality Fox Network TV show, “Hell’s Kitchen” this season.

“Hell’s Kitchen” is notably hosted by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who serves as head chef during the show, overseeing the competitors on two teams. Each season, the two teams of chefs compete for a job as head chef at a restaurant owned by Ramsay, while working in the kitchen of a restaurant set up in the TV studio.

The show wrapped filming about eight months ago, and is now airing on TV. Sporting a bright pink hairstyle, Binninger-Schwartz is easy to spot among the 17 other contestants in the kitchen.

Getting on the show

Binninger-Schwartz, 24, graduated from Whiteland Community High School in 2016, where he took culinary classes and worked at the To the Nines restaurant at Central Nine Career Center.

While in high school, he got a job working in the kitchen at The Revery restaurant in Greenwood at age 16, where he was the youngest person working in the kitchen. From there, after graduating, he moved out of state looking for culinary jobs, until eventually landing an executive chef job. He is now the executive chef of Nada in Nashville, Tennessee.

Binninger-Schwartz was not actively seeking to compete on “Hell’s Kitchen,” but earlier this year, a representative from the show reached out to him on social media asking him to audition.

“I thought it was fake at first,” he said. “But I said I’m definitely interested though. I would love to be a part of it. I watched it when I was younger.”

Three months later, he got the call that he was picked to compete on the show. Filming then took a little over a month in January.

At this time, Binninger-Schwartz had already dyed his hair bright pink, not knowing he’d be called to film the show then.

His wife, a former hairstylist, died her hair pink, and Binninger-Schwartz decided at the time it would be fun to do the same because he had never “done anything interesting” with his hair color. There wasn’t time to get rid of it for the show, so he just rolled with the “strawberry shortcake” hair and left it.

“I had the pink hair, we re-dyed it right before I went to just keep it as bright as possible, and that was it. So it was not anything I planned to happen,” he said.

Mindy Binninger, his mother, joked she was not “super excited” about the pink hair, but it “makes him easy to spot.”

When Binninger-Schwartz initially found out he was going to compete on “Hell’s Kitchen” he did his best to keep it “hush-hush” from his family and friends, and most of them did not know he competed until he returned from filming.

His family was ecstatic for him, and they’ve held watch parties together. He used to watch “Hell’s Kitchen” with his family as a child, so it was a full circle moment watching the show with them while he is a contestant.

“Watching Brett on TV has been fun,” Binninger said. “Like any other time a parent watches their kid compete in a sport they love, you want the win of course, but you really just hope they try their best, learn from it and continue to grow.”

Binninger was “overwhelmed with many feelings,” for her son when she first learned he was a contestant.

“I was definitely worried. I have watched the show and know how brutal it can be. I was excited for, and proud of him, for having the courage and confidence to compete, be filmed and inevitably judged by the public,” she said. “I knew whether he wins or loses it could be life changing for him, so emotionally I was all over the place.”

The competition

This season, Season 21, is titled “Battle of the Ages,” where the teams are split up based on their ages because Ramsay could not decide if he wanted an older or younger head chef in his restaurant, according to the show.

The two teams were split into the traditional Red Team, dubbed the “20-somethings” — which Binninger-Schwartz joined — and the Blue Team, also referred to as the “40-somethings.”

Binninger-Schwartz has fared well so far on the show, in the first three episodes.

In the first episode, the teams were put to the test to cook a “signature dish” in 45 minutes. Binninger-Schwartz’s dish — a roasted rack of lamb with chimichurri sauce on a arugula salad, and a brown buttered roasted cauliflower — was the first to be tried by Ramsay. Ramsay liked the dish and told Binninger-Schwartz that “he’s been cooking beyond his years.”

A notable element of the show is Ramsay’s often explosive anger toward the competing chef’s when they don’t perform as expected.

On working with Ramsay, Binninger-Schwartz said the chef gives off an intimidating aura, but he also gave the chefs good advice during their time on the show.

“I have worked for a lot of really talented chefs who kind of have like an, I don’t know, an aura about them — like you feel their presence, you feel their energy in a room. But nothing compares to when that guy walks in the room,” Binninger-Schwartz said.

He also said he doesn’t think Ramsay overperforms for the cameras, but rather wants to uphold a certain reputation when the team of chefs are cooking for guests he invites, or for the judges.

“It’s not until you don’t listen to his advice that he, you know, he jumps on you on the show,” he said. “I don’t think he cares about the cameras … he kind of turns it on when you’re cooking, for service or for somebody who he respects because we kind of represent him.”

Though he couldn’t reveal too much about the show, as all the episodes haven’t aired yet, Binninger-Schwartz said he learned a lot about himself while competing.

He described the experience as valuable but also physically “grueling” at times. The show films quickly, and the chefs are constantly in some sort of competition during that time, and when they aren’t, they are in the dorms they shared.

Working closely with other talented chefs in time-crunched, and sometimes brutal, challenges, it exposes weaknesses, he said.

“There aren’t a lot of times where I’m like under that much pressure, and so to be thrown in that and kind of battle tested, that exposes those cracks and weaknesses,” Binninger-Schwartz said. “I think it was really valuable to see kind of where I still have a lot of room to grow.”

Remembering his roots

Binninger-Schwartz credits his education at Central Nine, and his time at The Revery for giving him a head start in his career, which eventually led him to “Hell’s Kitchen.”

From when he was a child, Binninger-Schwartz gained an early interest in cooking and food. He has memories of his grandma’s garden, and having family meals at her house.

By the time he reached high school at 14, he was already cooking for his family often, and he joined the culinary program at Central Nine.

There, he worked under Chef Clint Smith, who leads the culinary program at the school. Smith mentored him in school, and gave him cookbooks and chef autobiographies to learn from.

“He just poured his heart and soul into the class, you know, and I think that that paired with my passion and willingness to learn and excitement,” Binninger-Schwartz said.

By 16, he was working in a higher-end restaurant like The Revery, where he was also mentored by older chefs and cooks. Binninger-Schwartz started working hard at a young age, which he says catapulted him to get to where he is now at 24.

“I tried to get into the nicest kitchens I could and learn as quick as I could,” he said. “I just now am at the age to go to culinary school. And I feel like through Revery and reading and Chef Smith and everything at C-9, you know … I already kind of put myself through one.”

Binninger-Schwartz will appear in the next episode of ”Hell’s Kitchen,” which airs on Thursdays at 8 p.m. on Fox.