Growing up in a large family helped chef Joe Flamm learn the importance of speaking up. If you wanted to be heard in his house, you had to be loud and have something interesting to say. This education helped prepare the event Head Chef lifetime winner as celebrity chef in social media era.

These days it's not just celebrities who are expected to broadcast to the world. Everyone has a story to tell. Chief Flamm shares a personal look at his work and life – not just food, but also family and fun.

“I'm a chef, I'm a husband, I'm a Southsider, I'm a Bears fan, I'm a Sox fan,” he said of many parts of his life. In other words, don't go to his social accounts and expect a perfectly curated feed. “I'm not perfect, that's what makes it fun.”

Taste for television

Chef Joe Flamm is now the kitchen director Day off group, which runs Chicago restaurants Rose Mary and BLVD Steakhouse. Before opening his first restaurant Rose Mary (named after his grandmother Mary, a culinary inspiration) Joe Flamm worked with several well-known chefs in Chicago, including Stephanie Izard at Girl and the Goat and Tony Mantuano at Spiaggia.

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When Flamm was working as a chef for Stephanie Izard, he got his first taste of television. He was chosen to cook alongside her on Food Network's Iron Chef competition show. “It was so overwhelming, the adrenaline was through the roof,” Flamm said of cooking in front of a large television audience. And when the dust settled from the Iron Chef competition, he knew the media was in for him. “I thought, 'That was good. I've got to do it again sometime,'” Joe Flamm said Restaurant influencers HOST Shawn Walchef.

Little did he know that years later he would get another chance to star in food TV – this time on an even bigger stage.

It was while working at Spiaggia that Chef Flamm was invited to be a part of Bravo's The head chef season 15 in Colorado. He went on to win the season. “It was just a crazy experience,” he said of the win The head chef.

When Joe Flamm left Spiaggia to enter the restaurant ownership, he knew he wanted to create his own path. This meant that with Rose Mary, he wanted to move the menu away from the traditional Italian dishes he had been making. “I didn't want to leave Spiaggia and open Spiaggia. I wanted to do my own thing.”

Rose Mary combines Croatian cuisine with its Italian heritage. Flamm calls it “drinking food of the Adriatic”.

Soon after opening that restaurant, Chef Joe knew he would have to prove his credentials to some customers who were skeptical of his ability to cook Balkan food as they knew it at home. “Balkan hospitality is like skepticism with kindness,” joked Joe Flamm.

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A few people raised their eyebrows when they saw his last name and the menu together. “This is not the cuisine I grew up with. This is the cuisine I have adopted over the last 14 years of my relationship with my wife Hilary. I did a lot of research, read as much as I could,” he said of the wedding. in a Croatian family.

“I think I own more Croatian books than anyone in the United States,” he said in it toast booth during the National Restaurant Association show in Chicago. “I love this food and I wanted to be able to cook it and tell this story. I always say, I hope I'm doing a great job. I'm still learning this. I'm still growing into this .”

Joe Flamm said all the hard work paid off when he learned how his food touched people and moved Balkan cuisine forward in America. “I had a woman come in after we opened and she started crying,” he said of one particular customer experience.

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