chef interviews

Chef Phillip "Ippy" Aiona may have been the youngest person to ever compete on Next Food Network Star when he appeared last year as a finalist in Season 8, but you'd never know it by the 24-year-old Hawaii native's achievements. Just last month, Aiona opened the Three Fat Pigs, a gastropub (the Big Island's first, he says) with a few Hawaiian twists. I sat down with Aiona to talk about the logistics of cooking on an island, his essential Hawaiian ingredients and the challenges of proving himself as a young chef.

Mette Williams has worked in the kitchens of some of Los Angeles’ most popular restaurants, including Postrio, Spago and CUT. In a testament to the (sad) world we live in today, it was not her stellar credentials, but a victory on season two of Food Network’s Chef Wanted with Anne Burrell that landed her the Executive Chef position at Culina, a modern Italian restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel. We caught up with the rising chef to discuss the new menu at her restaurant, the city’s food scene, and not looking like, well, an ass, on TV.

“Belgians need to stand up and say that the B stands for being the best!” says proud native chef Bart Vandaele. We caught up with the affable chef to talk about Belgian food’s superiority, cooking with beer, being knighted by the King of Belgium and his serious love of, um, crazy socks.