Fueling the Pros: Chef Brandon Rogers on Cooking for Athletes and Building a Private Chef Brand

What does it take to cook for NFL players, wear multiple hats as a culinary entrepreneur and still deliver high-end meals week after week? In this episode, Chris Spear sits down with Chef Brandon Rogers, a Chicago-based private chef with a background in fine dining, luxury hotels and a growing client list that includes professional athletes.

What You’ll Learn:

• How Brandon transitioned from event planning to private cheffing
• Building trust with high-profile clients like pro athletes
• The difference between private vs. personal chef work 
• How Brandon handles custom menu creation, pricing and client communication
• Tips on navigating admin tasks, sourcing and scaling with support staff
• How nutrition knowledge helps him stand out in a competitive market

Highlights:

• Brandon’s journey to becoming a private chef 
• The balance between food, experience, and hospitality
• Behind-the-scenes insights on working with celebrity clients
• Using ChatGPT to master photography

Want more Brandon?
This is just one part of a two-part series Head over to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast to hear Brandon talk about his time on Next Level Chef with Gordon Ramsay and Richard Blais. 

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Transcript

Chris Spear: [00:00:00] What does it take to cook for NFL players? Wear multiple hats as a culinary entrepreneur and still deliver perfectly tailored meals for your clients every single week. Chef Brandon Rogers is here to break it down. Welcome to Personal Chef Business Startup Guide, the podcast where we help chefs build, launch, and grow successful personal chef businesses.

I'm your host, Chris Beer, personal chef, culinary entrepreneur, and founder of Perfect Little Bites. And host of the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. Today's guest is Chef Brandon Rogers with a resume that includes high-end restaurants, luxury hotels, and private clients that include professional athletes.

Brandon's built a high level private chef business in the Chicago area. In this episode, we talk about how he found his niche, how he structures meal prep for pro athletes, what he's learned about pricing, and how he builds relationships with his customers. Brandon also shares why nutrition education is core to his cooking philosophy and how he [00:01:00] uses that knowledge to elevate his brand and deliver more value to his clients.

And this is something new for me because this is an original episode created just for this podcast. It's unlike many of the other episodes in this feed, which have been repurposed from the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. And on that note, the other half of this episode has been released on the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast.

So if you'd like to hear the whole story and get the full context about Brandon and his experience cooking on Gordon Ramsey's next level chef, you'll wanna catch today's episode of Chefs Without Restaurants, where we dive into his time on the show and what it's really like behind the scenes. And our full conversation was cut into two distinct parts, so none of it's repeated.

You won't hear this section over on there. And if you love that show, this show, or both of them, I'd love it if you subscribe to them. As always, thanks so much for listening and have a great week. 

Brandon Rogers: I remember I was on the train at like two in the morning going home and I could barely like stand up. I was so exhausted.

And he [00:02:00] got on the train and he was like, I just started with this private chef startup. Why don't you come interview there? And that's how I got into the private chef 

Chris Spear: industry. So you started working at someone who was booking you. You didn't have to go out and do all the hustling to find jobs then. So this was like a 

Brandon Rogers: little niche startup, so it's called Pear Chef.

So they would go into luxury condominium buildings and you would cook for the people that lived in the building and you know, doing that. Like people would come up, have glasses of wine, and I'd be cooking them dinner and just having great conversation. And it got to the point where there were sometimes like crowds of people just coming up and hanging out.

Or they would ask me to come cook for their personal events or whatever on the side. Just kinda like building that rapport and you know, when I was a kid, my culinary knowledge came from cooking shows. So like, you know, I used to watch Elton Brown and you know, I was addicted to cooking shows and you know, I loved like [00:03:00] Emerald, if you will, how he used to do the live shows and have the live audience, but he was cooking and like having a conversation at the same time.

You know, I absolutely love that. And it kind of put me back in that time that like, that you know, was happening. I was just like, this is, this is what I love to do. You know what I mean? It was like you're being forward facing your, your wine and dining, your clients, you're building that relationship with them.

There were people would come down and spend the evening with me every night, so it was, it was, it was really, really cool. 

Chris Spear: What's interesting, because I think that is one of the most challenging things about what we do is a lot of people don't have like the front of the house kind of aspect to it, or, you know.

You're a chef, you're a chef, chef. You've come up just through the back of the house, the kitchen, and then you transition to something like a personal chef, and now you are having to talk while you cook. You're entertaining. You're like, can you tell a joke and have three things on the stove and not burn anything?

Right? People are having a good time, but I don't think that comes naturally to everyone, and I do think that that's something that's tough for [00:04:00] people who maybe aren't used to that kind of entertaining aspect of personal chefing.

Brandon Rogers: That's why I. I came into the industry in the way that I did because I had to work on the front end, you know, in hospitality, and it forced me to know how to build relationships with people and how to maintain those relationships with people and really kind of. Um, it set me up for success when having to be forward facing and then think on my feet, but then also being new into the professional cooking side of things.

You know, I kind of relied on that hospitality training or that white glove training that I got from hotels and my corporate experience. Um, and it really, it really helped me to work wonders, you know, and I, I also just kind of. Remain with that mindset of just we're having fun. It's a conversation, you know?

And, you know, one of my favorite things [00:05:00] about food is that out of all different walks of life, this, the one thing that we have in common is that we all have to eat in order to live. You know? And to being able to turn that into a enjoyable experience where people are coming and being able to break bread and, and be at the same level and, you know, it's, it's one of the best icebreakers that you could possibly have.

Food. 

Chris Spear: And it's interesting, there's so many different ways that this shakes out being, um, you use the term private chef, is that right? As opposed to like personal chef or anything else? You call yourself a private chef. 

Brandon Rogers: You know, to me they're pretty much the same thing. You know? I think that if we're gonna separate it, I guess, like, I don't know.

I, you know, I feel like one of them is in the home, if you will. And then the other one is like, let's say like meal prep or something, you know? 

Chris Spear: I only ask because there's so many people, like people seem to get confused by what those mean, and there doesn't even seem to be any standard definition. You know, it's like, are you personal chef?

Yeah. Are you a private chef? Do you do dinner [00:06:00] parties? Do you do meal prep? Do you do catering? Some people actually have a catering license, but they still call themself a personal or a private chef. So I'm always just kind of trying to figure out how everyone identifies like themselves and what that term is.

Brandon Rogers: At the end of the day, I call myself a chef. And to me, whether you're a personal chef or a private chef, I take that as being like the same thing, if you will. Like right now, for example, I am the private or personal chef for like an all star NBA player. You know, I'm in their home cooking their meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you know, as opposed to cooking for the public.

But at the same time, you know, I also do catering. I'll also do meal prep. Um, uh. Yeah, so I, I guess I don't, I don't really know what the difference is. To me, it's, it's the same thing. 

Chris Spear: So how do you land a job cooking for a high-end celebrity or athlete? 

Brandon Rogers: You know, one the way that I got into [00:07:00] the professional, um, the professional athlete industry or the sports industry, I.

Was, I used to just strictly do like catering and I started off actually helping people that wanted to, like if they had dietary goals or whatever the case may be, building meal plans for them and helping them to achieve their health goals. And you know, one day I got a call from an agent for, from one of the Bears players in Chicago and I was going out to their home, um, I think twice a week.

And meal prepping for them and kind of putting them on like a nutrition plan. So I was working closely with their nutritionist just to make sure that they were getting the, the proper amount of macros and all of that, um, in each of their meals throughout the week. So we would have it set up that on game days or, you know, the two days that [00:08:00] are around the game days are their highest caloric days.

And then those off days it would be less. Um, that their caloric intake would be less, but around the game days, we would hike up their, their caloric intake just to make sure that they had enough energy to sustain themselves throughout each of the games and workouts. 

Chris Spear: That's interesting. I was gonna ask about that.

Do, do most, um, professional athletes to your knowledge, like, is having your own specialized nutritionist, like a thing that you know of? 

Brandon Rogers: In my experience, the team has like a nutritionist or has a staff. Oh, interesting nutritionist. Yeah. That'll work with the players just so that they know what, what it is that they should be consuming.

You know, I think a lot of athletes, even though they're really big into workouts and all of that, you know, from a nutrition side, they're not eating the right things. So it's extremely important to make sure that, you know, they do have a nutritionist on staff that can help guide them through what they should be [00:09:00] eating and why, and how it's helping them to sustain their energy levels throughout the the game or the workouts.

Chris Spear: Now, did you have any experience with that going into it, or was it a learning experience for you to learn more about the macros and the health and nutrition end? 

Brandon Rogers: Luckily, it's always been something that I was interested in. You know, at one point I actually thought about gonna school to become dietician, but I.

I kind of deviate away from that just because from talking to other people that were doing that, you know, they kind of were saying it's not the most exciting job, if you will. Um, it's kind of a snoozer, but, you know, I, I did take, um, college nutrition courses. I actually took Stanford nutrition courses as well.

So it's always been something that I was extremely interested in and luckily it, it worked to my benefit because I was able to utilize that in my real life practice. 

Chris Spear: I'm just laughing 'cause my wife is a dietician now and she's actually teaching a master's level nutrition course. Um, and, and they're actually gonna have to take a [00:10:00] podcasting course, so I won't have them listen to this podcast as part of their training.

I appreciate that. No, no hate there. Well, looking at the kind of, when you do like dinner parties and stuff, what is your menu planning process look like? I know on your website you have some kind of sample, uh, theme menus, but how do you go about creating a customized experience for someone? 

Brandon Rogers: Um, you know, I think that it starts with getting to know the people that you're cooking for.

You know, I think that. You when you're able to build a connection with the food or the menu, if you will, you know, it creates your exper, it makes your experience that much better. Um, you know, it starts for me with a conversation, getting to know them, um, you know, learning their likes and their dislikes and, you know, kind of trying to figure out how far, you know, I can push them.

To the edge of trying new things or whatever the case may be. Um, you know, some people come to me and are extreme foodies [00:11:00] and are extremely adventurous and want to try anything that I'll put on a plate. And then some people are extremely picky. And you know, I think for me the fun is being able to create a menu that any and everybody is able to love or build a connection with.

And, you know, when I worked in event management, that was my favorite thing. Do you know the, I was in charge of creating menus and you know, that was one of my things that, or one of the things that my clients loved the most about me since I was so, I was so infatuated with food and I knew that I couldn't technically be in the kitchen.

The least that I can do was create menus for them and get that over to the chef. And the chef loved it as well, so. 

Chris Spear: Now when you create a custom menu, are you just giving them like one op, like is it a set, like here's the salad, the entree, the dessert? Or do you give them flexibility? Like, here's two or three salads, two or three soups, two or three entrees?

How does that [00:12:00] work? 

Brandon Rogers: You know, I, I feel like we live in a world that loves options. You know, I, I, I try to give them a few different options and then also, you know, I also let them know that. Each of the menus. It's not just something that is coming from me. I really want their input. So their input is extremely important in making sure that this menu is really tailored towards, you know, what they, what they love and want.

Chris Spear: Yeah. Personally, my experience is I used to send a larger list and kinda let people put together things, and I got some feedback that, uh. It was kind of overwhelming and people didn't know what went with what, but as soon as I pared it down, I had a lot more people passing. I would send a menu proposal and then they'd ghost me.

And you'd reach out and you say, Hey, you know, I put together a menu. Do you have a questions? They'd say, ah, we're just gonna go in a different direction. So it's like, for me it was finding the balance of how many options I found when I, I took it down too small that more people were opting out. You know, I, I dunno.

Brandon Rogers: And you know, that's why I had even put on my website a couple sample [00:13:00] menus. Just because, you know, I try to touch on a, a bunch of different cuisine types that, you know, people would typically like. And then I also say, if you like something from this menu, but you don't like that, the second, um, course option from this menu, you know, anything is interchangeable.

You know, you know, you're able to customize it to your liking. And I think that they love that, you know, they've built just as much as me, so I think that they love. Having those, a couple different options that they could play around with? 

Chris Spear: Well, I think Sample gives them a base idea of like what your style is, right?

Yeah. It's something I started, uh, two years ago and just having, if you just wanna come, I have like a Southern menu, I have a Mexican, I have, you know, like around St. Patty's Day and Irish just to kind of show you what a typical menu would look like. And a lot of people will just come to me. I love when they just say, I was on your website, I saw your Southern menu.

I wanna do it. And then I don't have to do any planning. So Nice. Takes a lot of the work off. Right. Um, you know, and, and you've already balanced it out for your workload and for your profitability. 'cause I think that's [00:14:00] important too, when they're starting to put things together, then you're having to figure out costs because it's like, well, they picked the crab cake, you know, which is expensive with the expensive appetizer?

What's the pricing? But I've got that all kind of under control if I have it as a, a built out menu. 

Brandon Rogers: Yeah, and you know what helps too? You know, I, I kind of have like an Excel file with different options and the costs, and if I were to kind of play around with the menu items, it'll cost all of that out for me just to make sure that I remain within the budget.

Chris Spear: Something I like to ask chefs is, what do you think you do better than anyone else? You know, if in your market it's a competitive market and people were looking to hire a chef, what do you think you do really well That if you were teaching someone how to be a personal or private chef, that you're the go-to guy to kind of give them advice on.

Brandon Rogers: I think that what my clients love about the services that I offer is not only are they getting an amazing menu that's tailored to their needs, I think that a lot of people love the [00:15:00] interactive aspect of having a private chef. You know, it's not just, uh, you come in, you sit down and you're being served food.

A lot of, a lot of my clients love the whining dining aspect. You know, they want to have a conversation with you. They wanna watch you cook their food. They want to ask you questions and maybe even be able to get their hands dirty and try making pasta or try, you know, pulling cheese or whatever the case may be.

I think that the fact that I'm able to offer that to my clients, that's a huge plus for them. 

Chris Spear: Do you ask that in the process if they wanna help out or if there's anything they wanna learn? 

Brandon Rogers: Sometimes, you know, I think that, you know, in the conversation you can kind of get fillers of people that are really, really interested in that aspect of the experience or, and then there's others that would rather just come around and sit down when the food's ready.

You know, let me know when it's ready and I'll be there. So, yeah, I, I really do try to get a gauge of which side of the fence the client is gonna be on. 

Chris Spear: [00:16:00] Sometimes I do dinner parties where they don't even seemingly like food. It's like a business dinner and they just like, need food. And really quickly, you're like, this is not the vibe of they're gonna hang out in the kitchen.

Like, they won't even stop talking when I bring the plates out. Um, right. So it's just like, here's your food and I'll stand there for a second. If they don't stop talking, I just walk away because no one likes to uncomfortably stand at the head of the table. But, um, I hate when you have like this nice, like, let's say a steak and then your clearing plates and there's, you know, like.

Eight ounces of steak of a 10 ounce steak left on the plate, where it's like they didn't even really care about having dinner, but, you know, yeah. Those, those jobs also pay the bills and you take it as it comes. Oh, 

Brandon Rogers: absolutely. You know, you gotta take the good with the bad. I mean, I think as a chef it speaks volumes when your clients are showing you know, how much they love your services and how much they love the food and the experience.

So it makes it a lot better for us when we have a client that we're really able to, to connect with and really showcase our talent as opposed to just [00:17:00] the, well, I'm here to eat and this is what it is, and then I leave. But again, you're right, both of those pay the bills and you gotta take the good with the bad.

So you gotta be able to adapt in this industry, right. 

Chris Spear: Do you have people who work with you, whether it be extra sets of hands on site or, uh, sometimes behind the scenes, because a lot of us, I, I don't have anyone who works with me for any of the administrative stuff. So what does your team look like if you have one?

So I 

Brandon Rogers: do have servers that work with me as well as bartenders that I'll partner with. You know, it really depends because if it's just a, a Chef Brandon Rogers thing, um, you know, it's typically just me. I'm doing the admin side as well as the production side. And there have been times also that I have brought in like line cooks that'll help me with the prep or that'll help me on site.

But for the most part it is just me. But. I also am one of the founders of a traveling supper club, and [00:18:00] it's myself and two other chefs and we really split a lot of the admin side amongst the three of us and then also the production as well. And then we'll also bring on other chefs to help out with like the prep and then also, uh, the production side as well, and really be forward facing and really help us to.

Our services in the sense of they really add their own touch or their own recipes onto the table. So it's, 

Chris Spear: it's a, it's a really cool experience. Do you always have servers when you do your dinners or are there sometimes where it's literally just you and you're serving the food as well? You know, 

Brandon Rogers: I've done both.

I think that it, it really depends on how many attendees there are. When we start talking about like 10 people or so, from an aesthetic standpoint, that's way too much for just mm-hmm. Myself, you know, but it's, if it's something that's very intimate, you know. Three people, four people. You know, I can handle that by myself.

I mean, as long as [00:19:00] my arms are, you guys have seen it in the show. As long as my arms are, you know, I can carry three plates. No, no problem. A hundred 

Chris Spear: percent. Uh, I asked that question because some people exclusively, even for small parties, hire people. I, my break point is like eight ish, we're gonna assess whether or not I need someone, and if I bring someone, they're almost, they're always someone who can cook.

So I don't like. You're gonna be a sous chef, and I let everyone know you're, it might be my wife, it might be my friend Andrew. It might be my friend Mike, but it's like, you're gonna be helping me cook plate and serve. But you know, you some, some dishes are easier to plate than others. You know, a crab cake goes from a pan onto a plate, but like this beef with eight components on it, it's a plating nightmare, and you're gonna need a set of hands.

Brandon Rogers: Absolutely. And you know, it's, it's, it's really, really cool too, just because, you know, with the seventh course, the, the Traveling Supper Club that we have going on, you know, when you're able to really just give somebody a job for all of the plates, you recognize the [00:20:00] difference in what the plates look like, as opposed to you just trying to do them all yourself, you know, um, you know, again, it's either way it's gonna be done, but you really do notice a difference.

And with the flow of service as well, 

Chris Spear: flow of service and keeping everything hot. You know, when you're slinging 10 plates, it's a lot to make sure that that first plate is as warm as the 10th plate that gets put up. 

Brandon Rogers: Absolutely. And again, as chefs, we wanna make sure that everybody is having the same experience and ultimately that every bite is pretty much the same.

Chris Spear: What about advice for someone who's looking to get into this? Let's say there's a lion cook or even a chef out there right now listening and they've never done this before. What do you have for advice for someone looking to start, you know, relatively soon? 

Brandon Rogers: Um, I would say do your research. You know, a lot of people will tell you that it's really, really hard to get into the private chef space, and it is because there are.

You know, it's a small, let's say a relatively small group of people that are [00:21:00] even looking for private chefs to begin with. And then, you know, depending on the market that you're in, that market could be oversaturated with chefs or private chefs. So I, I would say definitely do your research and don't be afraid to just go out there and try, you know, you have to get your name out there at the end of the day.

Otherwise, who's gonna know that you're a private chef? 

Chris Spear: I've always said, you know, one of the hard things is I see right now a lot of people are looking to get into it who have not a lot of cooking experience and yeah. You know, that's fine. But what I'll say is when the shit hits the fan, having some experience really helps you.

Like, I don't know if you've had any times where like just something wasn't going right and if you've been cooking for a while and have seen these things, you know how to do it. I, and I just. Sometimes I know there's people who go out there and they're good if everything goes well, but if something does not go well, uh, it's probably not gonna be a good experience.

Brandon Rogers: Yeah. You know, I, I definitely think that yes. It's glamorous looking, but you know, it is a [00:22:00] lot of real work at the end of the day, and if you aren't someone that is able to wear many hats and pivot or adjust when something goes wrong, you won't be successful 

Chris Spear: here. It is not glamorous for me, which is why I love sharing the behind the scenes.

You know, like quite often I take a quick video of me eating something. Thing in my car on the way home. Yeah. Of a two hour drive and the food was made like seven hours ago and it's like the first time I've had a chance to eat, you know? 

Brandon Rogers: Absolutely. You know, it's really, really funny. I tell people that when I'm cooking, a lot of times I'll make myself a plate to go every single time, and I can count on one hand how many times I've actually eaten that plate.

I'm normally giving it away, but, you know, I really want to kind of, to shed light on the fact that being a private chef. Again, if you're not able to be a person that can wear many, many hats, because it's not just cooking and being forward facing, you know, there's the admin aspect that's behind it.

There's the sourcing the plates, [00:23:00] there's sourcing all of the food, there's the cleaning aspect of it. It's almost like running a hotel, you know, within a home, because every outlet that is in a hotel. You as the chef are that outlet in the home. And if you can't juggle, unfortunately you're not gonna succeed in this industry.

Chris Spear: I got three emails today about people who want dinners. I gotta get back to them, put together custom menus for them. I already went shopping at three grocery stores today. You know, I'm, I'm planning out all this stuff and it's like, I'm gonna have to. Do my polls list, get all my stuff pulled together to load up.

'cause I take all my stuff with me. You know, it's, it's a lot, but definitely it's a lot that admin it and, you know, everyone's like, get on social media, you know, show me. So it's like, create some reels, put some photos up, you know, do some marketing, reach out to some people, trying to get some jobs, go to a networking event.

Um, yep. You know, it's, and then the dishes, like getting, ooh, getting dishes done after an event. And it's like, you've worked all day and now I've got two bins of dirty stuff to [00:24:00] wash, you know? 

Brandon Rogers: You know, that's the really, really hard part. It's like I don't think people understand how exhausting service is, and then when you have to turn around and you have to clean up too, like.

The absolute worst. The worst. That's 

Chris Spear: the absolute worst. But we love what we do. You know, I love what I do. Yeah. I was gonna 

Brandon Rogers: say with, you know, with the progression of social media as well, you know, I'm the type of chef that like, by the time that I actually think about taking pictures or recording myself trying to make a reel, you know, I'm almost damn near done cooking.

Yeah. By that time. And then, you know, it also. I can be challenging as well because you know, when we're talking about high net, net worth individuals, you know, a lot of them don't want us recording content in their home because they're very, very private people. So just trying to find that happy balance.

Chris Spear: If I don't take someone with me, I almost get no footage. Like that's one of those things. Oh yeah, absolutely. And quite often it's me taking footage of them. So there's so many [00:25:00] videos of my sous chef, if you will, plating something up and no content of me. Every once in a while. I say, here, take here, take my phone.

You know, something that's really nice that I've been doing is I love photography and being like an amateur photographer, I've actually started bringing my real camera to take pictures of the guests for them. You know, when you talk about the experience, you know. iPhones are great and I love 'em, but how many times have you looked at a photo and it's like, it's not that great.

So to go in Yeah, and take my Nikon and get them in a group and take a photo and not for social media, like for them. And then I take it home and I Photoshop it and make them all look nice and then have something you can send them after the fact to say like, here's a nice photo for you to remember. You know, you're 50 50th birthday party or whatever.

I think it's something that everyone appreciates and I started doing that in this past year. 

Brandon Rogers: Yeah, you know, I'm still trying to learn how to use my Nikon camera and it's really funny 'cause I, I used to think that I was good at technology. Like now, now that I'm old, like, I'm like, I'd rather somebody 

Chris Spear: Do you use chat?

GPT? I love it. I actually, [00:26:00] this might be controversial. I actually used it to teach me how to be a photographer. So I uploaded the manual to my camera. I uploaded the specs on all my lenses and then you can talk through and say. I'm going to a dinner party, there's gonna be eight people there. It's in the night.

There's not a lot of natural light. Help me set my camera and I'll say, you know, set your aperture to this. Set your ISO to this with this limit. You know, use this lens. And it actually has taught me to be a better photographer. Um, and Wow, that's actually 

Brandon Rogers: genius. 

Chris Spear: Yeah, it's, it's great. You can just, you know, my daughter was playing soccer last week 'cause I have a new camera, it's like a month old and I'm not used to the setting.

So it'll teach you through the settings. You can take a picture and say, what's this button on the camera? And it will. Tell you what the button is and how to use it. 

Brandon Rogers: Yeah, because all of the buttons, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm like, what is the triangle with the squiggly 

Chris Spear: lines? Like what, what?

For anyone listening chat, GPT will teach you to do that. So all the people who dog on chat, GPT, I'm not talking about making, uh, art that is, you know, imitating something else. I'm talking [00:27:00] about using it as a learning tool, and I think there's a lot of opportunities for things like that. 

Brandon Rogers: Yeah, I definitely agree.

You know, you saying that, you know, I use chat GPTA lot just to get ideas or to stay current with events or, um, but to, to utilize it, to teach you how to do something. You know, I, or you know, like. Photography. That's actually genius. I personally, I paid for a photography course. It was like an online course or something like that, and I could probably tell you two things that I learned from it.

Yeah. So no, I, that's actually a genius idea to utilize chat GPT to teach me, you know, how to use my camera. Better work, you could 

Chris Spear: just put your camera model, any of your lenses, anything you do, so it has all the info and it'll give you suggestions on, uh, what to do. So it's, it's a good starting point. 

Brandon Rogers: Yeah.

Chris Spear: Because for 

Brandon Rogers: me it's like. I, I want to remain in a professional mindset, you know, while I'm doing these dinners. And I think that for me, it will take away from the experience if I'm sitting [00:28:00] here trying to fumble around with a camera. Yeah. Or trying to figure out how to use it in that, in that moment. And then also for me, it's like.

I don't want to jeopardize the quality of my product a hundred percent. Or my client. Yeah. Because, and you know, my a DD self is, is going to be fumbling around with a camera and forget that I even have a stake on, you know? So, and the 

Chris Spear: reality is, is the quality of. Photos and video you're gonna take during the day when you have the time is better anyway.

So quite often if I have leftovers that look like they're gonna be good, I stage a photo shoot at my house the next day. Yeah. You know? And it's like, so we're gonna get through this dinner, everything's gonna be great. And I have some shrimp and grits and collard greens and whatever, and I can make it look nice.

And tomorrow I'll break out the lights and open the curtains and set out the tripod. And then have a nice studio looking. Photo of that as opposed to it's pitch black and they have these yellow casting lights and I'm in a hurry. Yeah. Like that's not the time I wanna be shooting photos and video of my food.[00:29:00] 

It's 

Brandon Rogers: kind of funny because I feel like there's a common misconception that the food has to be hot when you're taking the pictures of it, and that's not the case at all. No. You know, I feel like it's, it's gonna hold its structure better as well, like once it's chilled, so Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Chris Spear: Just a quick heads up that if you're enjoying this chat with Brandon Rogers and wanna hear about his time competing on Next Level Chef with Gordon Ramsey. We cover all of that over on my other podcast, chefs Without Restaurants. We talk behind the scenes moments, the pressure of cooking on TV, and what it's really like to be on Team Blaze.

That episode is also out now, so give it a listen when you're done here. The episode is linked in the show notes.