For cooks who compete,the challenges of fame

After his victory in September,he left Rat’s to focus on opening a restaurant of his own and to attend to a flurry of paid speaking engagements and cooking demonstrations. “I didn’t think I would,but I miss the routine of work a day restaurant cooking,” he said in a recent telephone interview from Pittsburgh before an appearance. “Right now I’m all over the place.”

Sbraga’s Top Chef victory netted him $125,000 and a feature in Food & Wine magazine in December. It enabled him,financially,to go into business for himself. The past few months have been “a big transition time,” he said. “It can be a challenge.”

Several New Jersey chefs who have appeared on reality-TV cooking shows said they had also felt challenged,though all were glad for the experience,they said.

“It was definitely life-changing,” Ariane Duarte said of her stint on season 5 of Bravo’s Top Chef,which was broadcast in 2008 and early 2009. (She was eliminated on episode 8 of 14.) CulinAriane,the Montclair restaurant she has co-owned with her husband,Michael,since 2006,doubled in size after she left the show.

“When I got kicked off,I developed a really great fan base,” said Duarte. Actually,she said,“in the beginning it was a little weird for me.” But some reality-TV chefs enter the fray with fame as their objective. Aaron McCargo Jr.,the bold-flavour-favoring winner of season 4 of Food Network’s Next Food Network Star,did. McCargo has had his own show,Big Daddy’s House,since 2008; the network guaranteed him six episodes as a result of his win.

In addition to his TV series,McCargo has written a cookbook,Simply Done,Well Done,to be released in April by Wiley. He has also introduced a signature spice line. Success aside,though,if asked to compete as a reality-TV contestant a second time,he said he would politely decline. “I wouldn’t want to do it again,it was very,very hard,” he said.

It was mostly,McCargo said,the result of being sequestered from his family during filming,a standard procedure on reality cooking shows that can last two to three months. But whatever the challenges of participating in TV cooking competitions,contestants say they wind up with a sense of achievement. Anthony Amoroso,38,the executive chef at SeaBlue,a seafood restaurant in Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City,won an episode of Food Network’s Iron Chef America in October 2009.

“It was a quality experience,” he said. If there is a misconception about reality-TV cooking,Amoroso said,it is that it is scripted to enhance the drama. “Anyone who hasn’t done it doesn’t understand how difficult it is,” he said. “It’s incredibly hard. And it’s exactly what you see—if you make a mistake or there’s a mishap,it’s tough.

“It’s the kind of thing that if you’re going to take it on,” he added,“you better take it seriously.” TAMMY LA GORCE