These are the biggest culinary failures of famous chefs
We’re not the only ones who regularly have kitchen bloopers. We asked (star) chefs about their biggest culinary failure and, sure enough: even (star) chefs completely miss the mark sometimes.
Of course, some dishes are incredibly challenging to make, even for (star) chefs. But chefs sometimes don’t think things through, and then even less difficult dishes can go terribly wrong.
Culinary failures
From roasting peppers to ruining a wedding cake: this is what went horribly wrong in professional kitchens…
Yornie van Dijk (Basiliek*)
“My first cooking competition. It went completely off the rails.”
Niven Kunz (Triptyque*)
“The first time I made rice and soto for Virginie… It was nothing like it was supposed to be. Luckily, she could laugh about it, haha. In the meantime, I’ve got the hang of it.”
Jord Althuizen (Black Smoke)
“My recent attempt to roast peppers in the oven. I’d bought perfectly good peppers (or so I thought) and cooked them in the oven according to an Italian recipe. After the indicated time, the skin had indeed turned black and I wanted to peel it off. Unfortunately, there was nothing left of the flesh underneath. Next time, I’ll go back to using the trusted BBQ.”
Tim Golsteijn (Restaurant Bougainville*)
“I once poked holes for the stand into the top layer of a wedding cake..”
Casimir Evens (Odile*)
“Linnen in Oisterwijk.”
Thomas Val (Wils*)
“This may be somewhat controversial, but becoming a chef too soon. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very proud and happy with what I do, but sometimes you just want to pack your bag and travel to learn new things. As a chef, you simply do that less quickly now.”
Leonardo Pacenti (Toscanini)
“I don’t have much experience with it, but sometimes a dish doesn’t quite work out. That makes you improvise, and somehow everything turns out fine again.”
Arie Visscher (Café Visscher)
“Before I knew that you had to cook egg yolk in the ice cream mixture for binding, I spent a long time wondering why my ice cream was so soft.”
Michiel Deenik (Visaandeschelde)
“I still need to think about that 😉”
Jasper van den Berg (Hotel De Witte Dame)
“This was at Lucas Rive. The chef had asked me whether I could put the vacuum-packed duck legs in the roner (a device that can cook au bain-marie with extreme temperature precision, ed.) before I went home; no problem, of course. The next day, when I arrived, kitchen chef Erwin was waiting for me with the message that the chef didn’t need to see or speak to me for a while. I had cooked the 40 duck breasts instead of the legs for 14 hours at 80 degrees. Chef was not amused!”
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