“顶级厨师”粉丝最喜欢的杰米·特兰（Jamie Tran）几乎没有成为厨师

尽管杰米·特兰（Jamie Tran）爱上了一名厨师。她的父亲在移民到美国之前曾在越南战争中作战，他曾在别人的餐厅里担任过。她说：“我看到他在挣扎。”“我父亲总是在说，'这是艰难的生活。'”

降落在烹饪之前,她考虑becoming an optometrist, physical therapist, orthopedic surgeon, and an accountant. "I tried to fight it as best as I could, not to be a chef," she says. But she was cooking all the time.

她说：“我姐姐只是告诉我，'面对你的命运。'“然后我做到了。我再也没有回头。”

After working for Charlie Palmer and Daniel Boulud, she opened Black Sheep in Las Vegas in 2017, to near instant acclaim. Despite her growing visibility, she had no desire to be on顶级厨师直到制片人接近她。她说：“由于焦虑，我没有参加比赛。我从未参加过任何竞争。”“在大学里，我和我的朋友在看顶级厨师，and I was a big fan。她问我是否曾经在上面，我告诉她地狱不。现在看着它，我仍然不敢相信我在上面。”

她只告诉一些家庭和工作人员 - 不得不签署发行版 - 她去年秋天要去波特兰拍摄该节目。她的酒保告诉人们，她进行了视觉追求。她说：“每个人都以为我终于休假了。”“这是可以相信的，因为我开设了餐厅以来没有服用，所以已经有一段时间了。他们就像，'她正在康复吗？她要去哪里？'''

Tran beat out eleven other chefs to make it to the top four, finally getting eliminated in episode twelve. Over the course of the season, she endeared herself to fans with her vulnerability, and a collaborative spirit that's frankly antithetical to good reality TV. At one point, in episode eleven, she offered to go home so fellow competitor Maria Mazon could stay. (Mazon graciously declined.)

“老实说，我什么都不会改变，”特兰说。她捍卫了装有奶酪的鲈鱼菜，这是蒂拉莫克赞助的挑战的一部分。“我只是想测试一些东西。我在比赛中帮助了我的朋友。即使在那个挑战中，我仍然是我。我仍然很开心。”

收拾行装后，她在波特兰住了一天，并与她在演出中结识的其他一些参赛者租了一个Airbnb。现在回到拉斯维加斯，人们在杂货店里阻止她索要照片 - 她仍然习惯了。特兰说：“有些人开始哭泣并哭泣。”“而且我想，我不是后街男孩。我不是男孩乐队。”

可以预见的是，她的餐厅的预订已经上升 - 尽管已经众所周知。“我们吸引了很多竞争者，他们出现并说他们来了，因为他们看到了我顶级厨师，她说：“这肯定会有所帮助。这不是马上，因为当我回来时，我们仍然受到限制。我们的身高为25％，但现在我们为100％。”

既然餐馆老板在她成功的第四年中，有抱负的厨师向她寻求指导。她的建议？像她一样接受一些商业教育。她说：“如果您想开设一家餐厅，就不必获得营业学士学位，但至少要在社区大学上一些课程。”

"If you don't know the business side and think cooking is what will drive your restaurant, that's not the case," she adds. "You can't run on debt and think you're going to make it by having revenue every day, because there are going to be rainy days." This cautiousness is what helped her endure the COVID-19 shutdowns.

特兰（Tran）的业务学士学位也使她充满信心。她坚持要以书面形式获取每个细节，她拒绝安定任何不平等伙伴关系的事情。她说：“我设定了界限，这是与您可能认识或不认识的人开展业务的关键。”“我知道有很多厨师因不支持他们的协议而被搞砸了。”

She adds, "If you open a restaurant, your role doesn't just exist in back of house. It's the whole restaurant. You need to know every position. I'm the only one in my restaurant who can work every position."

Now a successful restaurateur with some years under her belt, Tran supports entrepreneurial streaks in her employees -- even if it means losing them. "I don't expect people to stay with me forever," she says.

One of her servers, for example, wants to be a nurse practitioner. He had suggested he could stay on with Tran instead and help her grow her restaurant. But she refused. "I said, 'No, you're not going to give up on school. I want you to go for your dreams,'" she says. "I'm very much an advocate of people pursuing their own goals. If they want to be entrepreneurs, I want to give them tools to open their own businesses."

她说：“这就是我需要的。”“我想给那些怀疑的人提供机会。我想这就是为什么我是黑羊的原因。”