From Flames to Fame: Hell’s Kitchen Names Club Chef Winner

The Country Club at Mirasol Chef de Cuisine Ryan O’Sullivan outlasted 17 other chefs to win the 22nd season of FOX TV’s Hell’s Kitchen, hosted by Chef Gordon Ramsay. O’Sullivan wins a $250,000 cash prize and a job offer as head chef at the Hell’s Kitchen restaurant in Las Vegas.

Led by Executive Chef and Director of Culinary Operations Michael Crain, O’Sullivan joined the Mirasol team in 2018 as a seasonal line cook, working between the club’s four dining outlets. He quickly moved up the ranks, being promoted to sous chef in 2020 and then chef de cuisine in the club’s fine-dining restaurant, Solstice, in 2021.

“We take about 30 H-2Bs each season. From the first week, [O’Sullivan] stood out,” says Crain. “He’s super energetic, and you could tell he was well-educated in the culinary arts and came from a great background. Sometimes, you don’t get so lucky with H-2Bs. But within the first week, we clicked; we spoke the same language. He’s got a great eye and palate, and he worked his way up the ranks the past five years here.”

Throughout the Hell’s Kitchen process, filmed in 2022 but aired this year, Crain says Mirasol’s members have been incredibly supportive. Reservations for Solstice, the restaurant O’Sullivan runs, are sold out well in advance, and the members have loved following the show and O’Sullivan’s progress each episode, posting photos and congratulations across social media.

The theme of this Hell’s Kitchen season, ‘The American Dream,’ resonated with O’Sullivan, who left his native Ireland for the U.S. in 2018.

“When they said the theme was ‘The American Dream,’ I thought, ‘Surely this was written for me,’” says O’Sullivan. “This journey has been incredibly challenging, but the lessons learned and the experiences gained will stay with me throughout my culinary career. I am grateful for the opportunity to showcase my passion for cooking on such a prestigious platform, and I look forward to my future within Chef Ramsay’s world-class organization.”

Club + Resort Chef (C+RC): How did the opportunity to compete on Hell’s Kitchen come about?

Ryan O’Sullivan (RO): I never actually applied to be on Hell’s Kitchen. [In 2018], I got an email from a casting company called Casting Duo. They found me from my Instagram (@chef_sull) because I post nearly everything on Instagram. I did an interview and then a Skype interview. Funny enough, we never actually cooked anything to get on the show. It was all based on personality.

It was pretty cool for them to find me through my social media and then actually make it on the show. The amount people that apply for the show is in the hundreds of thousands. … But they find people they think would be good for the show because half the people on the show are there for entertainment purposes, and then I feel like the other half are actually decent chefs that might actually make it.

C+RC: That’s a good motivator for chefs to be more active on social media.

RO: 100%. I just had a conversation with a chef about some famous influencers who probably couldn’t cook an egg in a real restaurant setting—but they’re making millions and millions of dollars from TikTok and Instagram. I think it would be best for everybody to jump on the social media bandwagon. That’s how the world is leaning. … Social media has a massive impact on what we do as chefs, especially in the club world. When I first joined, Mirasol’s Instagram was private; now it’s public. The club world is definitely growing, and I love that it’s appealing to the younger generations, too.

Michael Crain (MC): Since [O’Sullivan] was on the show, one of the things I’ve noticed while following many of my cooks and ex-sous chefs is that anytime they post something, all my chefs use #casting now.

C+RC: Is posting on social something you were strategic about, Chef O’Sullivan? Or is it something that came naturally to you?

RO: Not really for TV shows. I just wanted to get myself out there because these days, if you’re looking for a job, especially in the chef world, the employer’s not going to go straight to your resume; they’re going to look for social media.

I never once thought I was going to be on a TV show. I was just having fun with it, and they found me through my hashtags.

C+RC: Can you tell us about your background and how you got into culinary and clubs?

RO: My father was a chef. He just retired this year. From a young age, I was always involved in kitchens with him. When it was time to fly the coop, I went to college in Ireland. For two years, I studied culinary arts at the Cork Institute of Technology. Then I worked in five-star hotels and restaurants across my city. Then I had a lucky break to come to [the U.S.] through the H-2B program.

I came to Florida in 2018. Then I left the first club and went to Martha’s Vineyard for a season. One of the cooks I met there worked at Mirasol. He called Chef Mike [Crain] and said, ‘You’ve got to hire this guy. He’s thinking about going home, or even worse, to a club he doesn’t like just to stay in America for as long as he can.’

So I talked to Chef [Crain]. We had a quick phone call, and I had a job offer the next day. I’ve been here now for five years.

C+RC: What do you like about club culinary or Mirasol in particular?

RO: In clubs, you have to cook what the members want, but you also have some creative freedom. Once the membership got to taste my food and try some new flavors and cuisines, I had complete creative freedom. Once I had the members’ trust, it was great because then I could give them the food I wanted to cook. They trusted me enough to know that they were going to get a good meal every time.

It’s all about trust and building relationships with people through food. That’s the most amazing thing for me—it all came through my love of food. Now people come to [Solstice] and say, ‘Whatever Chef Ryan wants to make.’ It’s a fantastic compliment.

C+RC: How do you describe your culinary style?

RO: Gordon Ramsay himself said that I’m an old Frenchman stuck in a young Irish man’s body.

[I’m] classically French trained, but if you show me something once, I run with it. Chef [Crain] might have a vision of something—he’ll give me ingredients and send me in the direction—and I come back with something completely different. My take on food is modernizing the classics and making the familiar unfamiliar.

That’s why Chef [Crain] and I work so well together. We come from two completely different backgrounds, but that’s what made us click. I was a 23-year-old who walked in the door, but I knew a lot about classical cuisine, and we connected through food.

C+RC: Have you had any significant mentors over the years?

RO: Number one, Chef [Crain]. Not only has he taught me a lot about cooking, but he’s also taught me a lot about life. Massive, massive respect. My family likes to think of him as my American father; we’ve spent so much time together.

My first-ever chef was [Gerard] Allen at the Maryborough Hotel [& Spa] in Cork, Ireland. He taught me about how kitchens run—all the old-school stuff that’s drilled into a chef. What determines a real chef from a cook? No matter what, you have to get the job done.

I also worked with Daniel Boulud. He played a massive role in my career. I worked for his head chef of 10 years, Patrice Martineau. When I went to Martha’s Vineyard, he was the executive chef of the Harbor View Hotel. [Boulud] frequented our restaurant a lot over the summer. We ended up doing half a dozen dinners together. … Getting knowledge from all those old-school French chefs was fantastic.

Last but not least, my father. He, in his time, was a fantastic chef. And the cool thing about him is that when he was 23, he won a green card lottery to come to America. A couple of weeks [after he activated his Green Card], my mother found out she was pregnant with me, [so] his American dream was cut short.

Then, when I was 23, I got my opportunity to come to America. … It’s funny how it all came full circle.

C+RC: When you were approached about Hell’s Kitchen, what were your initial thoughts? And how did that conversation with Chef Crain go?

RO: My initial thoughts were that it’s an absolutely fantastic opportunity. I’m going to run with it. Gordon Ramsay has always been an idol of mine; I’ve seen all of the TV shows and read his books. He was my father’s idol as well.

I wasn’t fussed about the show itself. The excitement for me was, “I’m going to meet Gordon Ramsay; I’m going to cook with him.”

And I think I can safely say, on behalf of [Chef Crain] as well, that it was an opportunity he couldn’t let me pass on because he knew how much it meant to me.

C+RC: And from your perspective, Chef Crain, what was that conversation like?

MC: It happened dead in the middle of the season, so I wasn’t happy about him leaving for filming. But we made it happen because we knew it was an opportunity for him. I just told him to give his best shot and see what happens. There’s no way I could say no. You don’t get that chance every day. We supported him and made it through a couple of weeks of the season without him.

C+RC: How long did filming take?

RO: It was in the middle of COVID, so we had to quarantine. We quarantined in a beautiful hotel for two weeks. We were only let outside the room for about 30 minutes a day with a handler. So it was two weeks of quarantine, and then it was almost three-and-a-half weeks of filming.

C+RC: What was filming like for you? Was it what you expected?

RO: No, I was an absolute nervous mess.

They take everything from you—your phone, your laptop. There’s no contact with the outside world. You live above the kitchen. You are forced into relationships with people that you probably would never have relationships with. It’s very nerve-wracking.

And that’s the thing people don’t understand: Like I said, half of those people were only there for entertainment purposes. They were never going to make it far. The other contestants that are left are all very good at what we do. But you’re put in a setting you’ve never been in before—there are 45 cameras on you, you’re mic’d up, and Gordon Ramsay is watching your every move, waiting for you to mess up. When you’re put in a high-pressure situation, it does crazy things to your mind and body. It’s very hard to explain.

I think after the first couple of episodes, I could tell where everybody was at. I was comfortable in my own skin, and I knew I wasn’t the worst one there. I told myself, ‘Just make it through the first episode. Don’t get eliminated first; that’ll be good enough for me.’

It’s been a whirlwind, to say the least, but filming was almost two years ago. It’s been the longest two years of my life. It’s a fantastic opportunity, and I think it will be great for my career.

C+RC: Is there anything else you think would surprise people about filming the show or about Chef Ramsay?

RO: Everybody has their own agenda about Gordon Ramsay. His shtick is the angry British chef on TV. But he’s actually a very, very nice guy. He’s an absolute legend.

We were able to have whatever conversation we wanted with him. He stuck around after rewards or challenges and services, and we got to talk to him about whatever we wanted. He had everybody’s best interests at heart. He wanted everybody to succeed and gave us the tools to succeed. It was up to us to use those tools, those nuggets of information.

The one thing I didn’t like about the show’s editing is that he comes up to us a lot in service; he would show us how he wants it done. He’d come up next to you, and he’d take your pan and pull you in alongside him, and he’d show exactly how he wants it done. They never show that in the editing. And that’s the one thing that I’d love for people to see, that he really does care about us. He doesn’t just throw us in the deep end; he really shows us what needs to be done and how he wants it done. He’s a true, true professional, and he’s a wizard in the kitchen.

C+RC: What does winning Hell’s Kitchen mean to you?

RO: All the sacrifices I’ve made, missing out on things at home—birthdays, parties, Christmas, funerals—I’ve missed out on a lot to follow my dreams in America. The main thing for me [is] the validation that it wasn’t time wasted. I’m where I’m supposed to be.

Editor’s note: Chef O’Sullivan has not yet announced if he will leave The Country Club at Mirasol to work as head chef for Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen restaurant in Las Vegas.