"The worst thing that could happen" — Yes, Chef! star Lee Frank reacts to letting culinary students help him with his dish

Yes, Chef! season 1 episode 8, The Pursuit of Perfection, premiered on NBC on June 16. In the episode, the five remaining contestants were asked to prepare a dish worthy of a high-end restaurant that showcased their creativity and technique. However, their challenge was that they had to leave the fate of their dish in the hands of culinary students.

Each contestant was assigned a culinary student who had to prepare the dish that the contestant had decided to present. Meanwhile, the contestants could only guide these students to prepare their dishes without touching or tasting at any point during the challenge.

This put Chef Lee Frank in a difficult position. While he had no issue with culinary students, he admitted the timing couldn’t have been worse, as he had opted for a complex dish he hoped would impress the judges.

"Nothing against culinary students, I was one at one time. But knowing the dish that I'm trying to execute, this is probably the worst thing that could happen," he said.

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Yes, Chef! star Lee Frank's team wins the episode 8 challenge

In Yes, Chef! season 1 episode 8, the final five contestants, Chefs Emily Brubaker, Lee Frank, Jake Lawler, Zain Ismail, and Petrina Peart, had to come up with a dish that was worthy of a high-end restaurant and which they could prepare to show off their creativity and technique.

Frank decided to prepare a modern, deconstructed duck entrée with gourmet elements. With duck breast as his central ingredient, he talked about using its skin as crumb.

"I'm going to take duck breast, remove the skin, lay black truffle over it, then wrap it in leek and puree it. I'm going to take the skin and turn it into a crumble. A pommes paillasson and blackberry whip," he said.

However, before the contestants could start working on their respective dishes, host Martha Stewart hit them with a surprising twist: culinary students were going to prepare the dishes on their behalf. The Yes, Chef! host then went on to introduce five fresh-faced culinary students. One student was assigned to each contestant, and the challenge was aimed at testing contestants' mentoring skills.

Host José Andrés then informed the five chefs that they had to guide their assigned students through the cooking process without tasting or touching anything. Additionally, the students could only reply with "Yes, chef!" or "No, chef!"

Some of the chefs, including Frank and Brubaker, were caught off guard by the challenge as they had picked some of the more complex dishes to prepare and feared elimination now that culinary students were competing on their behalf.

"This dish in 90 minutes would be hard for me to pull off. I definitely pulled out all the stops, not thinking in any realm of possible that I would not be cooking my dish," Frank shared.

Culinary student Jack Fries was assigned to Yes, Chef! star Lee Frank. While an early mishap with a food processor tested Frank's temper, he was able to maintain his cool and guide Jack effectively.

"I know my anger has hurt people's feelings, and that's why I'm here. That is not the person I want to be. The way a kitchen is run is not necessarily the way it was run when I was coming up, being yelled at, and long hours. The world is changing, and I'm trying to change with it," the Yes, Chef! star shared.

At the end of the episode, the judges praised Chef Frank's duck dish for its complexity and execution. It earned him the win for the episode and the title of the Most Valuable Chef.

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Yes, Chef! season 1 episodes premiere every Monday on NBC.