Heat’s on UNLV student in Almost Famous Chef battle

Eric Leake

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2004 | 8:39 a.m.

Stephen Gillanders is around food all day. He cooks in school and in classes he teaches and sometimes in competitions.

"So by the time I get home I'm so burned out, I eat a bowl of cereal," Gillanders said.

Gillanders will be making a lot more than cereal this weekend as he grills and is grilled in the third annual S.Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef competition.

The cooking contest begins Thursday and continues through Sunday at Mandalay Bay. Regional champions will compete for national recognition with signature dishes and mystery ingredients. They will also compete to be taste test crowd favorite.

Gillanders, 21, will represent UNLV. The competition is nerve-racking and just exhausting, he said, but definitely worth the work.

Gillanders started studying to be a chef at a culinary school in Los Angeles while still in high school.

"When you're in high school, you're 15 and a guy, cooking's not really the cool thing to do," he said.

The culinary scene since then has exploded with the Food Network and celebrity chefs, including Wolfgang Puck. The scene in Las Vegas is exemplary and what attracted Gillanders here last year as a Los Angeles Mission College transfer student.

Chefs are now expected to do more than just cook. Almost Famous Chef contestants will be scored by judges from some of the city's finest restaurants for presentation, personality and the ability to perform under pressure.

UNLV chef lecturer Jean Hurtzman, who instructs Gillanders, is confident in her student's ability.

"He's very professional. He's able to work under the time pressure and stress," she said.

Hurtzman said the competition allows students to showcase their skills and is an opportunity to network with some of the top chefs in their fields.

To win, she said, takes creativity, flair and a good understanding of food composition.

"They're not looking for the huge piece of prime rib on the plate."

Gillanders won the regional competition last month with salmon, potatoes and spinach.

"I like to take ingredients that are common and make them exquisite," he said.

And he did, turning those ingredients two hours later into his signature crispy skin cured salmon with Parmesan spinach cakes, Yukon gold potato puree, mushroom ragout, smoked salmon rillette, and port beurre rouge.

Gillanders said he started cooking early with his grandmother, who helped raise him. "She was always in the kitchen, so I was 4 years old rolling egg rolls."

Later, he learned to appreciate food better with a visit to an open-air market in the Philippines, where meat hung on racks and rabbits were sold live.

"And they don't come with leashes, they come in bags," he said.

"You develop an appreciation for the food and you become more careful with it when you see something die and know that it did to nourish someone," Gillanders added.

After he graduates from UNLV, Gillanders plans to study for a year at a culinary school in France, a plan his parents supports, which helps, he said.

If he becomes the 2004 Almost Famous Chef, he will also win cash, goods and a trip to Italy.

"I would like to go into a restaurant when I'm older, see my food on the menu, have it brought to me and know that it's done right," Gillanders said.