Chef Anne Burrell Has Changed A Lot Through The Years

Anne Burrell is one of several American celebrity chefs that have risen to prominence through television programs on the Food Network. Unlike some of her contemporaries, however, Burrell has a solid culinary background, thanks to a career spent working in professional kitchens in the United States and Italy. These skills developed over her cooking career, and, when combined with Burrell's flamboyant personality, have seen her become a household name in American food media. Today, she is one of the biggest Food Network stars.

Although her career has followed the well-worn path from kitchen to screen, Burrell's professional life has been anything but straightforward. Burnout, restaurant closures, and court cases heralded difficult times in her career, just as award-winning TV programs, best-selling cookbooks, and prominent kitchen positions have marked its peaks. While much has changed about the celebrity chef throughout her many years in the spotlight, Burrell's love for food has remained constant.

Anne Burrell was raised in Cazenovia, a small town in upstate New York. During her childhood, she developed a love for food and cooking thanks to two women: her mother and Julia Child. Speaking to Syracuse.com Burrell said: "My mother was an amazing cook ... she was a very creative cook. Growing up we always had a big garden and it just gave me the passion and appreciation for really good food. And whenever I think of summer time tomatoes and good Upstate New York corn and cantaloupes and salt potatoes — those are things that take me right back to being home."

While her mother sparked Burrell's obsession with food, it was Child who fanned it. Burrell told Closer Weekly that she watched Child's cooking programs every day when she was growing up. Even today, Burrell feels a kinship with Child thanks to a shared love of food and their similar, eccentric personalities.

Although Anne Burrell grew up loving food, she did not immediately pursue a culinary career. Instead, Burrell sought out a corporate lifestyle; after achieving an English and Communications degree from Canisius College, she got a job. Burrell described the experience to Closer Weekly: "After I graduated from college, I got a miserable job working at a physician headhunter company. I lasted a year. I was thinking to myself, 'I am 23 years old, and I am too young to be this miserable.' That's when I decided that I was going to culinary school."

Burrell enrolled at The Culinary Institute of America and graduated from the Culinary Arts Degree Program in 1996. As it did for many others before her, this course taught Burrell traditional and contemporary culinary techniques which proved essential to the rest of her career both as a chef and food media star.

Keen to add to her knowledge, Anne Burrell attended The Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners in the year following her graduation from The Culinary Institute of America. This experience transformed Burrell's understanding of Italian cuisine, as she explained to Italia Living: "I always thought I liked Italian food, but it turns out that what I knew of was actually Italian-American food. It wasn't until I got to Italy after culinary school that I fell in love with true Italian cuisine and the love and passion that Italians have for food."

During this time, Burrell also worked in some prominent Italian restaurants including La Taverna del Lupo and the Michelin-starred La Bottega del' 30. These influences clearly made their mark on Burrell's cooking. For much of her subsequent career, Burrell has been known for simple, well-executed Mediterranean dishes, such as those she served while chef at the acclaimed New York City restaurant Savoy. 

Anne Burrell was 27 years old when she moved back to New York City — soon after her time in Italy. She wasted no time integrating herself into the city's professional cooking scene, securing a job at Lidia Bastianich's Felidia, a prestigious restaurant located in Midtown.

In this role, Burrell was able to use the lessons she had learned in Italy. This was thanks to Felidia's focus on Istrian cuisine which draws heavily from the cuisine of mainland Italy, as well as those from Croatia and Slovenia. There was no better place for Burrell to develop her skills, as Bastianich had an intimate understanding of this cuisine thanks to her childhood on the peninsula.

Though prestigious and rewarding, the job was not easy, as Burrell highlighted in an interview with RestaurantGirl: "Working at Felidia was one of the toughest jobs I have ever had, mostly because I put so much pressure on myself. It was my first job in NYC and I was the only girl in the kitchen beside the pastry department. I was determined to work harder than the guys in the kitchen. I was really uptight about the whole thing because I wanted so much to do a good job. The funny thing is I probably would have done a better job and had a lot more fun if I had just relaxed about the whole thing."

After working at Felidia, Anne Burrell took a position at Savoy. It wasn't long, however, until she decided to take a break from professional kitchens. Though still relatively early on in her career, Burrell decided she wanted to try teaching and secured a role as an instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. She held this post for three years.

In an interview with RestaurantGirl Burrell explained why she made this decision: "I took a job teaching because I was really burnt out from restaurants. I needed a change of scenery, but something still involved with cooking and it definitely made me a better cook. It really made me question cooking techniques and ask myself a lot of "Why do I do this..." sort of thing. I was able to answer these kinds of questions for myself. It made me decide what kind of cook I wanted to be."

Although she took the job as a means of reducing her workload, Burrell incidentally found another passion: teaching. Burrell wasn't to remain a teacher for long. However, she has continued to use her teaching skills to help other cooks throughout her career. The most prominent example of this was Burrell's role on Food Network TV programs such as "Worst Cooks in America."

Shortly after Anne Burrell re-entered the world of professional cooking, she secured another high-profile job; Executive Chef at Italian Wine Merchants. This restaurant was owned by B&B Hospitality Group, a joint venture between Lidia Bastianich, her son Joe Bastianich, and restaurateur Mario Batali (at the time). This was the beginning of Burrell's professional association with Batali whose career, at this time, was experiencing a peak.

Soon after, Burrell joined Batali on the hit show "Iron Chef America," acting as his sous chef in over 20 battles. She explained how it felt to feature on the show to RestaurantGirl: "Iron Chef is really a stressful experience. It IS every bit as stressful as it seems. My philosophy is: I want to help as much as I can and I am not going to be the reason Mario loses. That being said, I love doing it. It really is a blast."

In 2017, multiple women accused Batali of sexual harassment and assault. Some of these women were Batali's employees. In statements later released by Batali, the chef apologized for his past behavior and several of the lawsuits were settled out of court. Since the scandal, Burrell and Batali don't seem to be working together anymore.

Anne Burrell's appearances on "Iron Chef America" slingshotted her to stardom. Food Network was quick to capitalize on her burgeoning fame, signing her to a number of programs, including "Worst Cooks in America" and "Secrets of a Restaurant Chef."

Burrell has enjoyed her time on TV, describing her experiences to Syracuse.com as follows: "I've had 'Worst Cooks in America' which is about the worst of the worst home cooks, I did 'Secrets of a Restaurant Chef,' which is about teaching people to become better cooks. So I feel like I have the full spectrum covered. And I love doing all of them." Burrell also expressed a particular fondness for the show, "Secrets of a Restaurant Chef.

However, the show only ran from June 2008 to April 2012, for nine seasons. In comparison, "Worst Cooks in America" has been much more successful. After premiering in January 2010, the program continues to run to this day. Season 26 premiered in August 2023.

In 2009, several staff members at Centro Vinoteca — a restaurant where Anne Burrell was employed as the executive chef, at least until around 2008 – accused Burrell of discrimination. In the lawsuit filed by them, female staff members detailed instances where Burrell made derogatory remarks about their bodies and harassed them for information about their sex lives. The lawsuit was settled out of court; details were not disclosed.

Despite filing for bankruptcy in 2009, Centro Vinoteca did not close until 2013. By this time, Burrell was an established Food Network star. She continued to star in several Food Network programs following her departure from Centro Vinoteca, the lawsuit filed against her, and the restaurant's eventual closure. Burrell is just one of many Food Network stars that have been taken to court by former employees. This list includes Mario Batali, Paula Deen, and Geoffrey Zakarian. 

Phil and Anne's Good Time Lounge — a joint venture between Anne Burrell and Phil Casaceli — opened in New York City in May 2017. By April of the following year, the restaurant had closed. Early reviews of Phil and Anne's Good Time Lounge found that — outside of being owned by Burrell — the restaurant lacked a central theme. Its menu was also disjointed, even if it was crowd-pleasing.

These, however, were not the reasons for the closure of Phil and Anne's Good Time Lounge. Instead, it was reported that the relationship between Casaceli and Burrell, who had once been good friends, became so poor that the two could no longer work together. 

Comments made by Casaceli suggested that Burrell assumed her fame would bring in a lot of customers. He also stated that she started making business decisions without consulting him. He even claimed that Burrell offered to buy him out for a single dollar.

Anne Burrell's debut cookbook, "Cook Like a Rock Star," was published in 2011. Co-authored by Suzanne Lenzer, the book made The New York Times bestseller list thanks to its range of approachable recipes. Customers still think highly of the book, as highlighted by a review left on Amazon: "I loved Anne's show on the Food Network so I was so excited to try her cookbook and I wasn't disappointed! Every single recipe I have made out of this book has been amazing – I even cooked my entire family Easter dinner using only recipes from this book ... Above all, Anne provides great guidance throughout and her funky personality is infused in every dish. Definitely a must have!"

Burrell and Lenzer followed this success with "Own Your Kitchen," a cookbook that was published in 2013. This book contained 100 recipes designed to empower novice home cooks, by giving them the basic skills and techniques necessary to feel comfortable in the kitchen.

Anne Burrell has been featured in many TV programs over the years, but none have been more unique than "Battle for the Bird." In this 2021 show, Burrell, alongside Carson Kressley, judged the efforts of two teams as they tried to pull together the best Thanksgiving meal possible. A $10,000 prize was on offer for the winning team. The one-off episode was aired by Food Network at the beginning of November 2021.

"Battle for the Bird" was the brainchild of Burrell herself, as she explained in an interview with MediaVillage: "It's a concept I came up with based on a dinner party that I was having a few years ago, and everything that could go wrong went wrong ... It's based around the Super Bowl of cooking holidays — Thanksgiving. We came up with the idea of having two teams and seeing the dynamic of people working together and putting on Thanksgiving. We gave them a budget and five hours, and they had to go to town, and you see things that happen."