Anne Burrell

It was while attending Canisius College in Buffalo that Anne Burrell, who has taught in both the professional and recreational programs at the Institute for two years, first worked in a restaurant. "I waited tables at a casual bistro/bar," she says, "and I got bitten by the restaurant bug." After graduating in 1991, she worked for a time as a physician headhunter, but found that the culinary world still called. "I moved back to my mother's house after six years away-she loved that-and got a job making salads and doing prep work. I did all the grunt work like cleaning shrimp and washing lettuce for a year, and then I went to culinary school," she reports.

Upon graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Burrell studied at the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners, spending time in Piedmont, Umbria, Tuscany and Liguria. "It gave me a feeling for simplicity and seasonality," she says.

Burrell has always relished the opportunity to work in small, highly personal restaurants. In Tuscany she worked at La Bottega del '30, a 30-seat restaurant that offered one seating each night. Back in New York, after serving as sous chef at Felidia owned by Lidia Bastianich, she moved on to Savoy, where she was chef in the small prix fixe dining room. "I cooked on an open fire in the dining room and got to write a weekly menu," she recalls. "It was like being back in Tuscany."

In 2005, Iron Chef Mario Batali asked Burrell to serve as one of his sous chef, along with Chef and Restaurateur Mark Ladner, for a pilot taping of Food Network’s the Iron Chef America series. She has continued to serve as his sous chef, frequently making pasta dough for Batali's Italian-inspired cooking

After running the kitchen at Sasha Muniak’s Centro Vinoteca from its opening in July 2007 through June 2008, Burrell landed her own show on the Food Network. Aptly named “Secrets of a Restaurant Chef”, Burrell is now sharing her stock of insider secrets from years of training and restaurant experience with her fans. In 2009, she began appearing on another Food Network show, “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” in which chefs recount their favorite restaurant's dishes.

In January 2010, Anne’s new show “Worst Cooks in America” debuted on Food Network as the highest rated, most watched night in Food Network history, attracting four million viewers for the first episode. Anne and her co-host took twelve of the most hopeless cooks in the country, pitting them against one another in a high-stakes elimination series. The show put the “recruits” through a culinary boot camp with the last cook standing winning $25,000.

Burrell feels fortunate to have found a field that satisfies her so completely. "I like to teach cooking because it's fun and because I get to share with lots of people things that it has taken me years to learn, and I also love talking about food all the time," she says. "I feel so lucky that I have found my true passion in life."