Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Chef Wanted With Anne Burrell - Sea Dog Update

Sea Dog Steak & Ale Northborough, MA
Tomorrow's episode of Chef Wanted with Anne Burrell will be looking to hire a new chef at Sea Dog Steak & Ale, in Northborough, Massachusetts, which is right outside of Boston.  The four contestants on this episode are Nathan Hartman, Amie Hurd, Paul Scheffler, and Amanda Pavone.  I will not spend too much time on the chef's backgrounds due to the update after the jump, which could be a spoiler depending on the person.
  • Amie Hurd -  the executive chef at Mojo's and The Exchange, both in Portsmouth, NH.
  • Nathan Hartman - a sous chef at Public 612 in Los Angeles, California
  • Paul Scheffler - chef de cuisine at Park West Tavern in Ridgewood, NJ
  • Amanda Pavone - a sous chef at The Daily Catch in Quincy, MA

The Sea Dog Steak & Ale actually CLOSED in early December.  I would say the producers of the show didn't do a good job scouting this restaurant.  The restaurant has a lot of bad reviews on review sites, and the reviews average out to about a 3 out of 5 stars.

Here is a quick timeline of recent events at The Sea Dog Steak & Ale:
  • After a July 19th health inspection, The Sea Dog was shut down for a day due to cockroaches and 8 other health code violations including "improper thawing of food - a container of raw haddock on top of a container of raw scallops thawing in the sink, the water in dishwasher not being hot enough, old and stale-looking food in a fridge, expired egg yolks, and storing raw chicken in a cooler above cooked soup." (Metro West Daily News)
  • Chef Wanted with Anne Burrell filmed at the Sea Dog in the middle of September
  • The Sea Dog closed at the beginning of December.

The owners of the Sea Dog are still evaluating if they want to reopen the restaurant, but if they do, they will most likely open under a new brand, and a new name.  This may have been a case of a restaurant trying to use the free publicity of a TV show to bring more attention and business to their restaurant.  You would think they would at least try to stay open until their episode aired.

I do not know if the winning chef of this episode actually worked there at all, but hopefully they didn't, as it would have only been for a few months.

FYI (Spoiler for the episode) - The casting site for Chef Wanted has Amie Hurd listed as the winner of this episode, so she is the one expected to win.

Finally, Chef Wanted is moving to Sunday Nights after this week, so another new episode will be airing this Sunday along with the season 4 premiere episode of Worst Cooks In America.


8 comments:

  1. It will be interesting to see if the episode mentions this development at the end of the show.

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  2. Kind of doubt it since they don't bother to mention that most of the winning chefs don't end up employed (at the establishment) either.

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  3. At some point, these programs will have to be honest about the fruits of their labors - at least, if viewers begin demanding it.  (One can usually find a lot of follow-up in the comments on the Food Network site.  Especially about the featured "Restaurant: Impossible" establishments.  That feedback is often very insightful.)

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  4.  Yup... Looks like they didn't mention anything about the restaurant being closed in their update

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  5. I guess I am just a counyry hick ans I have ate in a lot of fine restaurants but usually customers are coming and going. Is it the usual thing for customers waiting out side and then going in,eating and leaving and that is the end. HMMM

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  6. Just saw this full episode for the first time today in a rerun and REALLY liked Amie.  I would appreciate knowing how she is doing if anyone is still posting on this.  Thanks.

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  7. We just watched this episode, and I was very disappointed with it (we live near Northborough).  I searched for this place online, only to find it closed even before the show aired.  Glad we didn't go based on the Board of Health issues.  I wasn't impressed with the owners on air yelling and screaming.
    I agree with SlapChopped.  If you look up some of the restaurants featured on Chef Wanted, the chef hired is never listed..  Great example is the episode featuring Met Boston.  Another restaurant with really bad ratings on yelp, etc., yet it was chosen for Chef wanted.   Appears to be a common theme.   Have a really bad place, get onto Chef Wanted.  I should start using the show as a reference for where NOT to go out for dinner.I'm giving up on watching Chef Wanted as it's just more fake (not reality) tv.   I thought Anne Burelle was better than this.  I've lost quite a bit of respect for her due to the Chef Wanted series.

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  8. According to this, she declined the job and stayed where she was at:

    http://northborough.patch.com/groups/business-news/p/what-happened-to-the-chef-who-won-the-job-at-the-sea-dog

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