Yes, Chef!'s Chris Morales Addresses That Risotto Fail, Perfection & More: "It's Go Big or Go Home"
The Cuban/Italian chef got bested by time and stubborn arborio rice.
Of the 12 chefs chosen to compete in Yes, Chef!, NBC’s competition cooking series, judged and hosted by Martha Stewart and José Andrés, Chef Christopher Morales arguably best personified the dual intentions of the show by the time he left.
The professional chefs are judged on the merits of their cooking but also on how they deal with their personal issues, whether it’s self-doubt, short fuses, or problems with teamwork. By Episode 6, Chef Chris had won competition challenge rounds, gotten past his early ego issues, and was becoming a model example of strong chef support in the kitchen (such as helping Peter with his caviar).
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In the end, Chef Chris was taken out by his al dente risotto and Chef Petrina Peart’s redemption dish. But he tells NBC Insider that he walked away with a new group of genuine friends and peers who have changed his life.
"The... other chefs are truly amazing,” he said of his fellow competitors. "We're a little, messed-up family now."
Chef Chris on surviving alcohol addiction: "I realized it wasn't just a drink"
By Episode 5, Chef Chris shared on camera that he is five years sober from alcohol addiction, a common problem in the restaurant industry. Chris said he was proud to put a face to the problem in Yes, Chef!.
"I'm a big advocate for sobriety in the restaurant,” he said. "A lot of chefs deal with alcoholism, putting stuff up their nose, smoking...whatever it is that your vice is, we struggle with it. Five years ago, I realized it wasn't just a drink that was [my] issue. It was a lot. It was anger, it was my short fuse. It was ego. Not only am I a chef and an alcoholic, but I'm also Cuban and Italian, so all those things multiplied."
He said he loved getting an opportunity to show off his high-end cooking skills, but also getting to work on all those other things that still trip him up emotionally.
"I wanted to be real,” he emphasized. "I didn't want to be this facade of like, 'Oh, I'm this perfect chef.' No, I got issues. I got shortcomings. I have egotistical features, if you want to call them that. But the vice of the actual drinking is gone. I continue to better myself and be better to the people around me by going to [AA] meetings and by being an advocate for sobriety in the restaurant. A lot of people don't realize that we go through stress. There’s so much weight on our shoulders and that's why we're so short-fused. We strive for excellence, but if we achieve just a third of that, it's still never good enough. We're always chasing something better than our last dish."
Watching out for Chef Peter and making real friends on Yes, Chef!
One of the season’s most heartbreaking moments came when Chef Chris and Chef Peter faced off to make a perfect egg dish, with Peter getting sent home for his deviled eggs. The youngest chef on the show melted down afterward and broke his hand.
"As time went on, we started getting closer as less chefs were on [the show]. We started opening up to each other more and more, knowing our shortcomings,” he said of his observations about Chef Peter. "You don't really see it too much in the episode, but I'm like, 'He's gonna have an aneurysm. He needs to take five.’ But you can't go out and take a smoke break because you're on set so he's just flipping out.
"Peter and I are tight,” he continued. "I've seen him the most after the show's done. It still breaks my heart because it was either him or me. But I wanted to win fairly."
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And he said there’s only good vibes amongst the chefs in the show.
"We knew that there was going to be one winner, so it's, 'What can we take out of it at the end of it?'" he said of their overall goal. "Put it this way, if NBC didn't pay me $250,000, I'm gonna earn $250,000. And it just so happens that Chef Julia and I networked, and now I have a client in the Hamptons. And then my girlfriend and I, we drove up to Virginia to Chef T’s and picked Peter up, knowing that I cooked Peter off the show. We picked him up and went to her restraurant and had an amazing time.
"We're all chefs and we're all doing something to better ourselves, to just open our experiences,” he continued. "I've been on other shows before where we'll send a couple texts here and there. But with this, we're tight. If there's issues going on, we reach out to each other. It's just an amazing experience going through what we went through and trying to change and addressing our issues."
The risotto controversy that took Chef Chris down
Italians who cook risotto know, you can’t make an authentic version of the dish well in less than 30 minutes. Yet, when Chef Chris was in a cook-off with Chef Petrina, he chose grilled meat and a risotto. The labor intensive rice dish needs constant attention, which means plenty of home cooks at home were screaming at their TVs when he announced his dishes.
Asked why he chose risotto, Chef Chris said he had to go big because, outside of her failed gazpacho, he had no idea what he was up against in the kitchen with Chef Petrina.
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“When she starts doing her first dish, she's just cruising around, and I'm like, 'Oh, she threw in the towel. She doesn't give a s--- anymore,’” he said of his assessment of Chef Patrina’s overall vibe. "She was just meditating in her mind, doing her thing, but in my mind, I'm like, ‘She doesn't care.’ So I was like, 'I gotta do something big because I don't know her capability.' Of course, I chose [to] grill, as that's my forte. And then I was like, 'You know what, I'll just infuse the grilled vegetables in the risotto.'"
Fateful last words, as the dish was what brought him down at the judge’s table.
"My risotto was a little bit stiffer than I wanted it to be, but I tried to thin it down with some cream,” he admitted. "I tried. Like I said on the show, it wasn't a bad dish. I just got beat by a better dish. And I respect that."
Asked if he’d like to compete again in more cooking shows, Chef Chris said he’s all about it: “Some chefs aren't for the limelight and I respect that. But, put my name out there. Get me out there!"
New episodes of Yes, Chef! premiere on Mondays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. Each episode will be available to stream on Peacock the next day.
