BITTERSWEET BEAU
The Dish
“Although I laugh and I act like a clown,
Beneath this mask I am wearing a frown.” ~ John Lennon
With dual debuts–one of a multi-million dollar restaurant/kitchen renovation, and another on a new Food Network series (“Worst Cooks in America”), one would think that Beau MacMillan’s name was toplisted on the good side of Santa’s 2009 “Naughty or Nice” register. He seems to be receiving everything he could possibly dream of … or is he?
While building a new über-kitchen at elements restaurant has been a dream of MacMillan’s for ages, becoming a TV star was not — it’s something that, in his words “just sorta happened.” EATERAZ watched a sneak peak of the new show with MacMillan last week, so we asked him about his first three thoughts after viewing the cut. In true Beau Mac form, he rifled back: “I was blown away by how fat I look, how bald I am, and if anyone will like this show.” (To that point, humility like this has landed him the recognition of being named “Culinary Chef Extraordinaire” by the non-prof Scottsdale League for the Arts, for his outstanding charitable contributions in his community.)
Because of the show, MacMillan’s been the focus of almost all local press over the past few weeks (maybe they all picked up on this story: http://www.eateraz.com/?p=4395). But his prevalence has made us wonder about the truth behind the old cliché: “any press is good press.” What would Tiger Woods say about that right now? We tried to contact Woods for comment, but his mouth was duct taped shut by his publicists. So we asked Beau, and surprisingly he gave us quite a bittersweet summation:
“I love that I am getting all this positive press at the moment, it’s great,” says MacMillan. “But I have to say that when they allude to me being a ‘chef/entertainer’, that is less flattering. Listen, I am grateful to be noticed at all, but I have been working my butt off in the Valley for close to a decade to be known for my food. I am a chef. And suddenly it seems, all people want to write about is that I am on TV, implying that I am now moving away from being the thing I have been working at since I was 14. Suddenly I am an ‘entertainer’,” he continued.
“I never went after a spot on Iron Chef,” he says; “they picked me (thankfully). Then they asked me to audition for two other shows. A year and a half later they offered me an audition for Worst Cooks in America. I’m doing this stuff to of course promote myself, but also Sanctuary and Arizona. It’s a new stage in my career and who knows where it will go, if anywhere. But whether it does or doesn’t, I am a chef first.”
So Mr. and Mrs. local press, let’s all remember that although it’s tempting to write about his entertaining Boston accent, it’s more important to write about his deftness as a top chef.
PS–Want more than a picture of his kitchen renovation? Watch the video below.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by EATERAZ: Check out full video tour with Chef Beau MacMillan as he takes EATERAZ through his new multimillion dollar kitchen reno http://bit.ly/7V2w3e…