Three New Hell's Kitchen Contestants Hail From Massachusetts

Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen, a FOX show in which the foul-mouthed British chef relentlessly shouts at 18 professional chefs until he finds one who might be worthy of a job placement in his restaurant empire (or a cash prize), embarks on its 14th season on March 3. (It has been renewed for at least two more seasons after this.) The latest crop of contestants is one-sixth comprised of Massachusetts folks.

One is Brendan Pelley, a 34-year-old Bedford native and executive chef at the lovely Zebra's Bistro and Wine Bar out in Medfield. He's an alum of Clio, Tryst (Beverly), and more. His "signature dish," according to his Hell's Kitchen bio, is tempura soft-shell crab with yuzu aioli, quick pickles, and ginger garlic sauce, and he has wanted to be on the show since it began.

Also on the Blue Team, there's Nick Peters, 25, a private chef from Stoneham. His signature dish is pan-seared duck breast with grilled peaches, roasted Brussels sprouts, bacon, gorgonzola dolce, and black pepper sherry gastrique. "At first I'm going to feel it out," he says in his intro video. "Eventually they'll realize I'm a force to be reckoned with."

And on the Red Team, there's Lynn native Monique Booker, 23, who, according to LinkedIn, has been in the Los Angeles area for at least the last couple of years, working as a line cook at a Seasons 52 location and later a restaurant called The Misfit. "I know what I want to learn from Ramsay — how to control my attitude," she says. "Because I'm a Bostonian, it just comes with the territory. I lose my cool in the kitchen all the time." Her signature dish is something called "Moe's Pasta."

UPDATE: A fourth competitor also has local ties — Michael Dussault, 38, is a native of Nashua, New Hampshire and attended Boston's New England Center for Arts & Technology. (Nowadays he's in Hartford, Connecticut.) His signature dish is an herb-roasted Statler chicken breast with buttermilk mashed potatoes, sauteed asparagus, sun-dried cranberry puree, and pan au jus.