Our town is home to some of the best restaurants in the nation and the next celebrity chef may be working at a restaurant near you.
NBC 7/39 got a sneak peek at the next generation of sensational San Diego chefs, all participating in a heated competition. Three aspiring chefs from the Art Institute of San Diego, each learning from a master chef in front of a panel of judges during the dinner rush at Roy's in La Jolla -- talk about a pressure cooker!
Celebrity chef Roy Yamaguchi, the restaurant is named after him, invented the Aloha Kitchen Challenge. The winner of this challenge will be awarded an internship with one of Roy's professional cooks.
"Hopefully, with them being able to have this mentorship with a chef, maybe they'll get more excited, they'll learn different things and hopefully as they grow older they'll turn around and mentor somebody else when they become a great chef," said Yamaguchi.
Helping young chefs is important to Yamaguchi. He still remembers the mentors who helped him over 20 years ago.
"If I would mess up, instead of yelling at me they would turn around and say, this is why you messed up," he said. "They would teach me and they would correct mistakes. So to have that kind of tutorship, it was awesome."
