'Next Level Chef's' Gabi Chapelle talks about working in a 'toxic' kitchen

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by Francesca Bacardi

“Next Level Chef” Season 3 winner Gabi Chappelle is ready for a “change” in the culinary industry.

The cook-off winner says she admires the two finalists, Christina Milos and Zach Laidlaw, because they are the type of people who make a difference in a notoriously “toxic” environment.

“All I want is for us to succeed, and at the end of the day, I root for people that I know are good people,” Chappelle, 30, told Page Six in an exclusive interview, “because I know they're the ones that are going to bring change to the industry and not tolerate more hierarchical chaos.”

The plant-based chef acknowledges there is an “appropriate time and place” for the organization's “standards,” but says he will never allow his competitors to “create the toxic environment that is so prevalent throughout our industry.”

Chappell also acknowledged that he had heard stories from many trainee chefs about abusive behaviour from superiors in response to how they were treated as they moved up the ranks.

“Why wouldn't we want to be the person to break that cycle? In a way, it's human conditioning,” she explains. “It feels a little bit condemning, like, 'I'm starving for this affirmation,' and maybe the only way we can feel like we can achieve it is to move in that direction.”

“That's a hard thing to do, but I feel like you have to add some empathy to it.”

Chappell argues that Jeremy Allen White's hit show “The Bear,” which chronicles the chaotic inside of a restaurant kitchen, is “incredibly authentic and accurate.”

“It's a tough situation, but I'm really hopeful that we can at least start to turn things in a different direction,” she said.

Since winning the Fox series, Chappelle has hosted “Gabi's Next Course” on the digital platform “Byte” alongside mentor Gordon Ramsay, and will now be working with “MasterChef” judges and co-hosts, celebrity chefs Richard Blais and Nisha Arrington.