Richard Blais' Evolution Is Seriously Turning Heads

There's no guarantee that competing in a cooking show will kickstart a career as a celebrity chef, but Richard Blais is one of those very success stories. Since starring in Season 4 of "Top Chef," he's gone on to not only appear on the likes of "Top Chef Masters" and "Chopped All-Stars: Mega Chefs," but also go full circle and serve as a judge on "Top Chef Canada" and "Guy's Grocery Games," as well as expanding his impressive portfolio of restaurants.

But long before Blais was a scientifically-minded restaurateur with multiple cookbooks and podcasts under his belt, he was a McDonald's employee from Long Island whose expertise lay more in deep-frying a Filet-O-Fish than whipping up a gourmet meal. As per Blais himself, he didn't always know what he wanted to do in life; cooking just so happened to fill the gap until he realized it was his final destination. "It never felt like work, and eventually the people and team aspect of a kitchen combined with the fact that I was learning that food was an art and craft ignited a passion that was right in front of me all along," he said (via FARE).

But how exactly does one accidentally go from wielding a spatula beneath the Golden Arches to sharing hosting duties with Gordon Ramsay and befriending Guy Fieri? We've stepped back in time to take a look at how Blais has evolved over the years.

Born in Uniondale, New York, Richard Blais is a Long Islander through and through. He's described his childhood as that of a latchkey kid — the term given to those who typically return home from school to an empty house – who played on a Little League team, loved McDonald's, and occasionally frequented the many Italian restaurants dotted around the island.

However, you may be surprised to learn that this same child wasn't always known as Richard Blais. While the celebrity chef did spend occasional weekends with his father as a child, he was actually adopted in the second grade by his stepfather. This also meant that he took on his stepfather's surname and only then officially became a Blais. If you ever thought Blais' prowess in fine French cuisine stemmed from the heritage suggested by his family name, you would be mistaken. "Blais is a French name, but I'm not," Blais explained to Bravo. "I was adopted. Long story. I was an American kid. Sorry, I am an American kid."

McDonald's wasn't just an occasional indulgence for Richard Blais as a child. In fact, he has recalled visiting his local McDonald's every time his Little League team won a game or when his mother didn't feel like cooking — which was pretty often, as he said in an interview with Mashed. "My mom, who was not a great cook, was cooking from cans in the microwave and the freezer," Blais recalled, adding, "I'm always trying to sort of honor the fact that a lot of chefs may have grown up on their parents' farm, or whatever their story is, but not me."

Instead, Blais grew up almost exclusively eating a combination of fast food, microwave meals, and other processed yet convenient dishes that were easy to access as a latchkey kid. "I'm not exaggerating when I say that I would eat Cookie Crunch cereal with heavy whipping cream for breakfast," he told Esquire. "Ham-and-cheese sandwiches stuffed with potato chips? A great snack." 

With nobody around to teach him the basics of nutrition, Blais has also claimed that he wasn't the healthiest of children. It's partly for this reason that nowadays Blais is passionate about supporting the children's charity Alliance for a Healthier Generation, pointing to its Healthy Schools Program — which aims to transform schools into healthier places for young children — as a highlight.

In case you hadn't noticed, McDonald's played a significant role in Richard Blais' youth. After a childhood spent frequenting the fast food chain, Blais secured a job at McDonald's at the age of 14. While he initially joined on the counter side, he quickly grew tired of wearing a name tag and visor. He also lived through a variation of every teenager's worst nightmare by being forced to serve his crush within his first hour on the job. Soon enough, Blais ditched the counter for the kitchens. According to his recollection, this was not only where the cool kids worked, but where Blais would also get to reap the benefits of a free 20-piece chicken nuggets at the end of every shift.

It was in those kitchens that Blais took on his first professional cooking job: McDonald's in-house poissonier. Or, to put it simply, he was in charge of cooking the Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. It was there that Blais got to grips with the basics of working in a kitchen — plus he inadvertently started experimenting with food. "The first batch of filet of fish sandwiches that I served when I was 14, I forgot to put the top buns on them," Blais told Mashed. "So I was being avant-garde well before I knew that was my actual calling in the kitchen, but it was pretty chaotic."

In the years after his time working at McDonald's, Richard Blais studied at the renowned Culinary Institute of America (CIA). As a part of his program, he undertook on-the-job training at Thomas Keller's famous French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, California. He wasn't the only future big name doing so, as Blais worked alongside restaurateurs Grant Achatz (who today owns The Alinea Group) and Eric Ziebold, whose restaurants have currently earned two Michelin stars.

The years after graduation were equally impressive for Blais. After a stint as a manager-in-training teaching fish fabrication and cookery at the CIA, he took a job working beneath renowned French restaurateur Daniel Boulud. He later moved on to train at Chez Panisse and the now-closed el Bulli under Ferran Adrià, who racked up three Michelin stars for the iconic restaurant in Roses, Spain. By the time the 2000s rolled around, Blais had racked up enough experience (plus a handful of impressive references to put on his resume) to secure an executive chef position at Fishbone in Atlanta, Georgia.

Cracking showbiz is no small feat, and yet Richard Blais did it almost entirely by accident. After years of refining his talents with some of the world's top chefs, the first step towards becoming a household name came when Blais applied for "Top Chef." During his stint on the show, he endeared himself to viewers with his unique interest in liquid nitrogen, but didn't quite manage to clinch first place. Prior to this, he had also appeared in Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" and "Iron Chef America."

What followed was a string of appearances on "Life After Top Chef," "Chopped," and more. Blais also returned for "Top Chef: All-Stars," which he won, and began to host his own shows — such as "Halloween Baking Championship" and "Hungry Games" — as his star grew brighter. Most recently, Blais shared coaching and judging duties with Gordon Ramsay and fellow "Top Chef" alumnus Nyesha Arrington on "Next Level Chef." While this may track as a standard career path to celebrity chef stardom, Blais has insisted that he "never got into [cooking] to be in front of a camera or to cook competitively or judge or host TV shows [...] It just happened naturally" (via Click Orlando). Regardless of his intentions, it's clear that Blais paid his dues to wield the sort of media authority that he does today.

As Richard Blais' culinary star began to rise, he started to notice a side effect often experienced by chefs who spend most of their time in the kitchen. As he powered through working days as long as 16 hours, Blais — who had once been active in wrestling, lacrosse, and baseball – neglected his physical health. "I started living the classic chef lifestyle: cooking all day and eating and drinking all night," he told Esquire. "Not surprisingly, I put on a lot of weight."

But in 2004, Blais decided to make a change. He met his future wife, Jazmin, a former personal trainer who was studying for a master's degree in healthcare management. That was inspiration enough for Blais. "I think most guys would agree that one of the best motivators for getting in shape is trying to get the girl," he said. After he began to exercise more frequently (sometimes with Jazmin), Blais lost more than 60 pounds.

Long-distance running quickly became one of his favorite pastimes, with Blais claiming that his go-to thing to now do in any city is to throw on running shoes and do a run through his new environment. He's since run multiple years of the New York City Marathon, doing so to raise money for Alliance for a Healthier Generation. But his most important race? The Peachtree Road Race, where he dropped down to one knee to ask Jazmin to marry him at the finish line.

Richard Blais hasn't just overhauled his workout regimen over the years; he's also become more intentional with his dietary choices, such as deciding to cut back on white sugar (often replacing it with dried dates or raisins), grilling his vegetables to make them more palatable, and making sure he's always well-stocked with healthy snacks like nuts or whole fruit.

While he's made it pretty clear that he could never go totally meat-free (he tried veganism for a month before reverting back to his omnivorous ways), Blais has experimented with vegetarianism. One day a week, he ditches meat and focuses purely on vegetables. Together with his wife Jazmin — who is an on-off vegetarian — he also released the cookbook "Plant Forward," which helps readers pursue a more (but not entirely) plant-focused, nutrition-first lifestyle. "Eat good and healthy food is a mantra for me in my life," Blais wrote in its introduction (via Ranch & Coast). "This doesn't mean that every once in a while, on a road trip, I'm not pulling off to get a Whopper, but it's incredibly rare and balanced by the healthy food I eat the other 95 percent of the time."

Nowadays, you won't just find Richard Blais working in the kitchens of renowned chefs. Today, Blais is also a renowned chef, complete with his own collection of well-received restaurants. At present, he operates four establishments: California English in San Diego, Four Flamingos in Key West and Orlando, and Ember & Rye in Carlsbad, California. He previously also founded and invested in San Diego's fine dining spot Juniper & Ivy, plus multiple outlets of the casual fried chicken eatery The Crack Shack.

But Blais doesn't appear to be done just yet. In March 2024, the chef revealed that he'd signed a deal to more than double his current lineup of restaurants by opening six new locations in Scottsdale, Arizona. These include an Italian-American restaurant, a sushi and Spanish tapas bar, an eatery focused on Southwest-style grilling, a poolside snack spot, and a separate poolside burger joint. Scheduled to debut in fall 2024, these come as a part of a $110 million rebranding of the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort & Spa at Gainey Ranch. He also owns Trail Blais, a culinary consulting group through which Blais lends his expertise to designing and launching restaurants nationwide.

Richard Blais doesn't just credit his wife, Jazmin, for kickstarting his fitness journey. The duo have teamed up for multiple projects over the years, combining Blais' culinary prowess with Jazmin's expertise in health and wellness (she also works as a yoga instructor and has studied Reiki healing). Their first collaboration came in the form of the podcast "Starving for Attention," in which they recruited important figures from the food industry to open up about the ins and outs of the business.

This series wrapped up in 2020, but Jazmin has continued to serve as the chief operating officer of Blais' consultancy company, Trail Blais. Three years later, the couple debuted another public partnership. This time around, it was the aforementioned cookbook "Plant Forward" — which, as per its acknowledgments, was at one point called "My wife saved my life" (via Eldredge). It serves as a testament to their power couple status. "You, Jazmin, decided to stick by my side not during the best of times, but the most uncertain of them," Blais added. "Your unwavering support and invaluable contribution to my journey and our family's toward a healthier and happier life will never be lost on me."

It's been over 15 years since Richard Blais lost to Stephanie Izard in the fourth season of "Top Chef," despite pulling out a string of innovative dishes during his time on the show. Believe it or not, Blais has insisted that he doesn't think losing the series was a bad thing as it gave him a chance to identify his weaknesses and make sure it didn't happen again — something that proved true when he later participated in "Top Chef: All-Stars" and won.

Today, the show still plays an integral part in his professional DNA. Gone are the days of stressing out over cooking hamachi and protecting oyster recipes; Blais has now come full circle, serving as a recurring judge in seasons 12 and 13, as well as "Top Chef Canada" and "Top Chef: Portland." As per Blais, he learned a lot between judging stints. Back in seasons 12 and 13, some viewers slammed Blais for being overly harsh in some of his judgments. 

Determined to right this perception, he promised to change for his next round of judging. "I like to think that I bring a little bit of a lighter note to whatever table I'm sitting at," he said ahead of the premiere of "Top Chef: Portland" (via Bravo). Judging style aside, Blais remains extremely positive when discussing his time on "Top Chef." While his career was hardly floundering ahead of his debut, he's explained that the show did much for his career and metaphorically "turned a staircase into an escalator."

Though he has plenty of fans, not everyone appreciates Richard Blais' cooking. After becoming a father to daughters Riley and Embry, Blais realized that it took a lot more than professional culinary training to impress children. "Most people would think that my kids would love my food but that is not often the case," Blais told Fatherly. "They love simple pasta dishes [...] We cook a lot of spaghetti and meatballs and like traditional sort of New York-y Italian dishes and they love it."

Determined to ensure that they ate healthier meals than he did as a child, Blais has resorted to some sly hacks to encourage both daughters to eat their vegetables over the years. These include dipping a radish in white chocolate and putting ground-up carrots and kale in ketchup. As they've moved into their teenage years, however, he's been forced to abandon these attempts at deception and has instead focused on encouraging the art of balance.

Having acknowledged that he's an overprotective and oftentimes anxious father, Blais has also opened up about some of the more unexpected challenges of becoming a dad. His youngest daughter, Embry, has a peanut and tree nut allergy, which reinforced Blais' committment to making his restaurants allergy-friendly. To that end, he's also become a speaker for Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE).