Exclusive interview with Fire Masters Judge and former Hell’s Kitchen Chef, Andy Husbands

I got to sit down and have a chat with Chef Andy Husbands — was honored to, in fact — and he filled me in on his many impressive endeavors in the professional cooking industry.

In this piece, we’ll go into his many restaurants, his many books, TV appearances, and yes, we even went through a few of his thoughts on Hell’s Kitchen and his experience on that show and what he thought of that point in his life. All this in the interview he graciously granted me.

Andy Husbands caught my eye and piqued my interest when I first watched him compete in Season 6 of Hell’s Kitchen with Gordon Ramsay on Fox. Back then I was a struggling writer trying to get articles and stories published and of all the possible places, I worked on the line in many kitchens in and around Montréal.

And where did I get my inspiration to get up in the morning after a mere few hours of sleep and start all over again? By watching a heck of a lot of Food TV, and Hell’s Kitchen was certainly a go-to for me back then and honestly, it had nothing to do with Chef Ramsay.

A look at Chef Andy Husbands and what he is doing today

Instead, I drew my inspiration from the chefs that I saw competing; doing their best to deal with the calamity that unfolded on the screen with every episode, and Chef Andy Husbands definitely did that—inspire.

In this interview, Chef Husbands goes into the ins and outs of what went down during filming, but he also takes us on a journey through his career, one that was already promising before he ever went on that show, and further, did nothing but flourish even more so after he was off the show.

Like I said in the lead in this piece, Andy Husbands is chef/owner of multiple restaurant locations, has co-won BBQ Competitions with a team he’s so proud to be a part of: IQUE—specifically they were first out of 510 teams at the Kansas City Royal in 2007 and in 2010, they became the first-ever non-Southerners to become champions at the Jack Daniels World Championships in Lynchburg, Tennessee…this according to his Wikipedia page.

But beyond the research I did for this piece, I got to sit down with the man himself and hear all about his amazing career thus far.

The Smoke Shop by Andy Husbands is his baby, and he has multiple locations—award winning locations—specifically named “Best Barbecue” in 2017 and 2018 by The Improper Bostonian, and a plethora of other accomplishment we got into as we spoke. Locations include: Assembly Row in SOMERVILLE, MA, Harvard Sq. and Kendall Sq. in CAMBRIDGE, MA, Seaport in Boston, MA, Hub Hall at TD Garden…and there are more coming, he lets us know in the interview.

He is passionate about charity and giving back to his community, and what I saw seep through the screen as I spoke to him, was a passion for cooking and a passion for those in the industry, which cemented that I had been right about him long before I ever got the chance to speak to him. He would have been a chef I would have loved to work under. He knows how to motivate and he knows how to succeed.

You could say he rose from the ashes of Hell’s Kitchen, to become the Pitmaster in the end, controlling the fire and the flames, like no other.

Let’s get to the interview, shall we?

Domenic Marinelli for Guilty Eats: Andy, if you can fill us in on your background in the cooking industry.

"Chef Andy Husbands: “In fourth grade, which is a long time ago, baking donuts…I’ve always wanted to cook, wanted to learn how to cook. I worked in some fancy restaurant called the Pillar House when I was a senior and I applied to go to Johnson and Wales. It was the best thing for me. I was an awful high school student and it taught me discipline…Johnson and Wales taught me discipline…then became a straight A student, loved every minute of it. “That kicked off my career. I loved not just the cooking part…I went for two years of culinary and two years of business. I love business, I love numbers. I’ve always been a math guy, so to me that was super fun. Then I just worked hard. Many years; a lot of hours; giving up everything to learn my craft, which I just love. “I’m in my fifties now and the one thing I like to tell people: ‘In your twenties, your paid for your back,’ and I don’t necessarily mean physical, even lawyers, they’re doing a number of hours a year to become partner and you’ve gotta put the time in; you’ve gotta do the reps. That’s what I did and now thankfully I’ve just opened up my fifth restaurant and I’m opening up another one this Spring—that I own now—I’ve had eight restaurants altogether, some widely successful and some failures, awful failures (smiling).”"

DM for Guilty Eats: What can you tell us about your experience on Hell’s Kitchen? Did it affect your career?

"Chef Andy Husbands: “Just to be clear, I don’t do many interviews about Hell’s Kitchen. You know, I did okay, 9th or 10th off. I didn’t get a black jacket. I don’t think it affected me one way or another. Certainly didn’t learn anything. I didn’t enjoy the show. I don’t like liars. I’m sure they’re good people. I know it’s a TV show, and I’m not trying to disparage Chef Scott who was the sous-chef, and chef Ramsay. “I’m sure they’re great people, I’m sure their family loves them and they have a great product. I believe Chef Ramsay has the busiest restaurant in the United States right now so it’s pretty impressive, but that TV show…the part I liked about it was to see how far I could push myself. I enjoyed that challenge. “But it didn’t really help me. In fact, I would tell you it probably set me back a good half year. If you look at people that are held hostage…with people trying to break their mind…that’s pretty much how they do it. It takes about 30 days to break someone’s mind. And that’s where I found my mind—and this doesn’t happen to everybody—it’s just me, my experience, but my mind went to mush on about the 30th day. “I couldn’t focus anymore. It’s very hard when they take all of your control away. You don’t know when you get up, you don’t know when you go to bed, you don’t know what you’re doing every day, you don’t know if you’re eating, you don’t know when you’re eating…for me, it screwed me up, and I think for six months after I was off the show, and the show hadn’t even been out yet, it was hard for me. I was having like, I don’t want to say PTSD, nothing compared to what those in the military go through, much respect to them, but it was definitely traumatic for me. So I didn’t really enjoy it; I really didn’t learn much.”"

DM for Guilty Eats: You caught my eye when I watched back then, and you inspired me, a writer who worked the line, and you handled your stress really well on camera.

"Chef Andy Husbands: Well, thank you. I appreciate you saying that and so… ‘did I get anything out of it?’ This is what I got out of it, and I like that. Thank you very much."

DM for Guilty Eats: Absolutely. Much respect. But I guess that answers my next question, which is, do you still watch the show?

"Chef Andy Husbands: “I haven’t watched one episode, but my friend Jason’s on it – Jason Santos (of Season 7 of Hell’s Kitchen, now sous-chef on the show), and he actually used to be one of my sous-chefs, so I’ve seen parts of it when he’s on it, but maybe I’ll watch the British Baking Show. I like that format and how nice they are to people. “Someone tried to put our restaurant on film, doing a story about our restaurant, and make it a TV show, our old restaurant, and they came and they watched us for about a  week, and they came back to me and said ‘you’re boring.’ And I was like, exactly, this is a business. Has anyone really thought about it? No chef shuts down their kitchen. “When a chef screams and yells, it’s because they have not prepared their team for what needs to come, and that’s for any coach. It’s your job to train your team to be able to execute. If they’re not executing, you haven’t trained your team well. If you say that your team is a bunch of idiots, you hired them, right? You have to step back and say, maybe we can’t do that full menu; maybe we’re just doing peanut butter and jelly.”"

DM for Guilty Eats: Covid-19 hit everybody hard. I feel that Covid-19 hit the restaurant industry just as hard as other industries, if not more. What advice do you have for line cooks, chefs facing a post Covid-19 world, and of course for the areas that are still suffering high numbers?

"Chef Andy Husbands: “Our strategy, we sat down and we had to look at what was important to us and from the very beginning it was out HR. Our people. That was what was most important. So we focused on them. That meant unfortunately during the pandemic, losing money for some, and it meant building a strong team and really valuing that human part of it; that’s helped us retain a very good crew, and when other people were shutting down, we were out there hustling. “I know I’m fortunate that I have a cuisine, I’ve built a brand that is built to go, a valued brand. My suggestion is be flexible, be consistent with prices…it’s a challenge. But restaurant people are good with that anyway."

DM for Guilty Eats: Chef, can you tell us about your cookbooks?

"Chef Andy Husbands: “I’ve written six books, I believe one is not in print any more (The Fearless Chef: Innovative Recipes from the Edge of American Cuisine). It did good. My bestseller is called Pitmaster, and it’s just a phenomenal book, really about great BBQ from around the country; Wicked Good Barbeque written with Chris Hart—this book and that book co-written with Chris Hart—and how we won the world championships in BBQ in 2009, becoming the first non-southerners to win the world championships. I do want to point out that I’m not the lead Pitmaster on our team; it is Chris Hart. It is important that he gets his props. “My latest book is Backyard BBQ. The only problem with that book is if anybody wants advice: Don’t release a book about large party gatherings during the pandemic (laughs good-naturedly). But no, it’s a good book and is selling well."

You can also find these books here: Amazon

DM for Guilty Eats: And Andy, can you tell us a little bit about Fire Masters?

"Chef Andy Husbands: “I’m a guest judge on Fire Masters. We tape up there in Canada. You Canadians are the nicest people ever. And that’s what I love about that show. It’s about real cooking. There’s no stupid weird ingredients, usually, every now and then you see something like ‘that’s interesting.’ “Everyone on that show is a good cook; there’s no one there that should ever be embarrassed about not winning, they’re really good cooks, and they really make everybody feel special…even if they don’t win, everybody’s really happy, somewhat like The British Baking Show. Of course you don’t want to lose, but it’s a great show. Unfortunately I didn’t tape this year because of the Covid-19 restrictions and quarantine rules, but I’ve done two seasons of that and hopefully I’ll be on soon. It can be found on the Cooking Channel or the Canadian Food Network… in America as well. “It’s a great show. In fact, if you have cooks that read this, try out for it…you can win $10,000! It’s a great show to be on. And they don’t screw with you. One of the things I told you, I didn’t like about Hell’s Kitchen, was the liars, they would do things like switch your salt for your sugar. You know, you worked in a kitchen, right? You know you have a two cup of salt, right behind you? “Well that would turn into sugar …or you know how he’s like; ‘the stove’s not even on!’…It’s a French flattop, half an inch…you know that in a kitchen they turn it on in the morning and at night they turn it off, but when we would step out for break, they would turn it off, you wouldn’t notice because it would be so hot, but then come service, ‘oh your stove is not even on!’ “Things like that. I didn’t enjoy the trickery, the lying; they would tell you one thing and do another thing, and I know it’s part of the show, I know I should have been smarter about it at the time, but I didn’t really care for it. To me it’s not real cooking. Cooking is about passion, and love and love for the people you work with, right? “Being successful as a team. There’s nothing better than a Saturday night, you’re calling tickets, and everybody’s just grooving together like the best concert you’ve ever seen, and at the end of the night, everybody’s like ‘wow that went by fast,’ and ‘that was just an amazing night.’ That’s what cooking is about. Feeding people, treating people with respect; not screaming and yelling; that’s not what it’s about.”"

“Cooking is about passion…”

Well, Chef Andy Husbands’ passion showed through as I spoke to him, and his accolades speak for themselves, but we reiterate them here, and his success in the business proves that not getting a black jacket, or perhaps going home a tad too soon, doesn’t mean anything in the end.

In the end, it’s what you do when you fall that counts…and Chef Andy Husbands came up on top in the end. In the end, he made his very own black jacket, and it suits him just fine. Thank you, Chef. It was an honor to speak to you.

If you haven’t seen Fire Masters, check it out. And check out Chef Husbands’ books and try the recipes out and let us know how they go.