'Hell's Kitchen' welcomes Commack chef

A private chef from Commack is among the 18 contenders under age 25 competing on, appropriately, Season 25 of the Gordon Ramsay reality TV series "Hell’s Kitchen," premiering Thursday at 8 p.m. on Fox/5.

"I didn't even submit a video!" when he auditioned in November, said  Michael Catuosco Jr., 24, speaking by phone last week about his audition in November. "I was just sitting on my bed with my girlfriend, and was just, like, ‘Maybe I should apply. Why not? You never know.’ I did just the online portion — it's optional to include a video," added Catuosco, who splits his time between his parents’ home in Commack and his own place in Plymouth, Massachusetts. "And funny enough, they reached out a couple days later."

The show — currently shot at a kitchen/restaurant studio at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut — pits ambitious chefs against each other in cooking and other food-related challenges, generally eliminating one each week until a winner emerges for the $250,000 prize and a position at a Ramsay restaurant.

Catuosco, the eldest of three sons of Michael and Karen Catuosco, has been working in kitchens since high school — first at his hometown’s now-gone McDonald’s on Vanderbilt Parkway, set to be the site of Long Island’s first Raising Cane’s restaurant, and then at the gastropub Prato 850, on Jericho Turnpike.

After graduating from Commack High School in 2019 — learning cooking part time at the BOCES school Wilson Tech, in Dix Hills — Michael Catuosco Jr. spent a COVID-interrupted five years obtaining a culinary art degree from Rhode Island’s Johnson & Wales University. In addition to a school-required internship semester — in his case as a line cook for Yachtsman Steakhouse at Disney World in Florida — he concurrently spent four years on-and-off as a junior sous chef at Commack’s Athenian Greek Taverna, which closed abruptly this spring after 30-plus years.

"Chef Alex there taught me so much," Catuosco said of Alex Homenides, who with his brother, John Homenides, had created a local mainstay. "I would go in the mornings for a couple hours and practice and prep cook with him. ... He was obviously older than me, but he kidded around like he was my friend. It was awesome."

Post-college, Catuosco became a manager for the company running the cafe at the pharmaceutical giant Moderna’s Norwood, Massachusetts, manufacturing plant — something akin, he said jovially, to the cafeteria scenes of the scientist sitcom "The Big Bang Theory." "That's exactly it!" he said. "I'm seeing all these scientists walking around! It was just a really cool experience, and I got to learn more about the front-of-house side of things."

He progressed to sous chef positions at two consecutive Massachusetts country clubs, then expanded his side gig as a private chef to full time. In that capacity, he said, he has worked private dinners, events and catering in New York City; Boston; Newport, Rhode Island; Cape Cod, Massachusetts; and elsewhere.

None of this prodigious experience — nor even his being "head chef" at 75 Main in Southampton on HBO Max’s "Serving the Hamptons" Season 2 (2024) or his three episodes as a cook this year on Hulu’s "Vanderpump Villa" Season 3 — completely prepared him for the rigors of "Hell’s Kitchen."

"It's really crazy because you don't get phones or electronics technology," he recalled. "I didn't even know the time, the day, the part of the week! ... So there're 18 of us. You live with them in the dorms. We go to bed and at about 6 to 8 o'clock every morning — I can only guess because we have no clocks! — you wake up to the brightest lights in the world flashing on. Some days you get woken up with other craziness, which I can't say, but you'll see when it comes out."

For all that, he said, "Hell’s Kitchen" proved to be a joy. "You'll see me laughing, having fun, joking around, and I feel like that's the biggest thing, to just stay true to yourself and enjoy the ride. There were people struggling, crying, on ‘Hell's Kitchen,’ and I'm saying [to them], ‘Look where you are right now. Just enjoy it. Enjoy life.’ It's not that deep. Just enjoy every moment."