'Top Chef' Fan Favorite Jamie Tran Almost Didn't Become a Chef

Despite falling in love with cooking at a young age, Jamie Tran never wanted to be a chef. Her father, who had fought in the Vietnam War before immigrating to the United States, had worked as one in someone else's restaurant. "I saw him struggle," she says. "My dad was always saying, 'It's a hard life.'"

在登陆烹饪之前，她考虑成为验光师，物理治疗师，矫形外科医生和会计师。“我试图尽可能地对抗它，不要成为厨师，”她说。但她一直在做饭。

"My sister just told me, 'Face your destiny,'" she says. "And then I did. And I never looked back."

在为查理帕尔默和Daniel Boulud工作后，她于2017年在拉斯维加斯开设了黑羊，即在即时好评。尽管我越来越高的知名度，但她没有愿望Top Chefuntil producers approached her. "I'm not big on competition because of my anxiety. I've never done any sort of competition," she says. "In college, my friend and I were watchingTop Chef,我是一个忠实的粉丝.She asked me if I'd ever be on it, and I told her hell no. Now watching it, I still can't believe I was on it."

She only told a few family and staff members -- who had to sign releases -- that she was leaving last fall to film the show in Portland. Her bartender told people she went on a vision quest. "Everyone thought I finally took a vacation," she says. "It was believable because I hadn't taken one since I opened the restaurant, so it's been a while. They're like, 'Is she in rehab? Where's she going?'"

Tran击败了11个其他厨师，使其成为前四个，终于在第12章中被淘汰了。在本赛季的过程中，她和她的脆弱性相信自己的粉丝，以及一个合作精神，坦率地对良好的现实电视来说是坦率的。在一点，在第十一集中，她提出回家所以同事玛丽亚Mazon可以留下来。（Mazon慷慨地拒绝了。）

"Honestly, I wouldn't change anything," Tran says. She defends the cheese-laden sea bass dish that got her cut, part of a Tillamook-sponsored challenge. "I just wanted to test something out. And I helped my friends during the competition. Even in that challenge, I was still me. I still had fun."

After packing her bags, she stayed in Portland for a day and rented an Airbnb with some of the other contestants she'd befriended on the show. Now back in Vegas, people stop her in the grocery store to ask for pictures -- something she's still getting used to. "Some people start tearing up and crying," Tran says. "And I'm like, I'm not the Backstreet Boys. I'm not a boy band."

Bookings at her restaurant have gone up, predictably -- even though it had already been well-known. "We get a lot of fans of the competition who show up and say that they came because they saw me onTop Chef,and it definitely helps out," she says. "It wasn't right away because when I came back, we were still in restriction. We were at 25% [capacity], but now we're at 100%."

Now that the restaurateur is in her successful fourth year, aspiring chefs look to her for guidance. Her advice? Get some business education, like she did. "If you want to open a restaurant, you don't have to get a bachelor's in business, but at least take some courses at a community college," she says.

“如果你不知道业务方面并认为烹饪是将推动你的餐馆的东西，那不是这种情况，”她补充道。“你不能偿还债务，并认为你会每天收入都会让它成为它，因为有下雨天。”这种谨慎是有助于她忍受Covid-19停机的原因。

Tran's bachelors in business also gave her confidence when she launched Black Sheep. She insisted on getting every single detail in writing, and she refused to settle for anything less than equal partnership. "I set my boundaries, and [that's] key for opening up a business with someone you may know or not know," she says. "There's a lot of chefs I know who got screwed over because of not having an agreement that's in favor of them."

她补充道，“如果你打开一家餐馆，你的角色并不只是存在于房子的后面。这是整个餐厅。你需要了解每一个位置。我是我唯一可以工作的餐厅中的一个。”

现在，在她的腰带下有几年的成功餐馆老板，Tran支持她的员工的创业条纹 - 即使它意味着失去它们。“我不希望人们永远留在我身边，”她说。

例如，她的一个服务器想成为一名护士从业者。他曾建议他可以继续留在Tran并帮助她成长她的餐馆。但她拒绝了。“我说，'不，你不会放弃学校。我希望你去找你的梦想，”“她说。“我非常倡导着追求自己的目标的人。如果他们想成为企业家，我想为他们提供工具来开设自己的企业。”

"That's what I needed," she says. "I want to give opportunities to people that were doubted. And I guess that's why I'm the black sheep."