Hungry for fame

Kiwi lad Mark Simmons is cooking up a storm in the US reality show. Photo / Supplied by TV3

Mark Simmons has always been a curious sort of fellow. As a teenager, the dish-hand used to nosy around the chef's work, constantly asking questions. Eventually the chef got so sick of him, he told Simmons to put on an apron and start cooking.

Some years later - having climbed the kitchen ladder to become a chef himself - curiosity helped shape Simmons' life once again, when he saw a long and winding queue outside a New York restaurant.

"I wasn't too sure what was going on," recalls the New Zealand-born chef. "So I just went and stood at the back of it."

As it turned out, the queue comprised a host of kitchen wizards and aspiring reality television stars, all waiting to audition for Top Chef.

With his curly hair and impressive sideburns, the unassuming Kiwi quickly caught the producers' eyes. Days later, having proved he could whip up the odd dish or two, Simmons was boarding a plane to Chicago, to join the fourth season of Top Chef.

Born in Invercargill, Simmons left New Zealand - and his job at the Makarewa Freezing Works in Southland - when he was still a teenager, off to travel the world.

It was in Australia, where he was working his way around as a dishwasher, that Simmons began learning his culinary trade.

From Australia, the budding chef went on to Tokyo, before an opportunity arose to move to New York, where he now works at Public, under the acclaimed head chef Brad Farmerie.

"I didn't think I'd be here very long, especially in New York, because it's a pretty hard-knock life over here.

"But I'm still here so it can't be that hard really, can it?"

Simmons took a similar, unfazed approach to Top Chef, which pits 16 chefs against one another in a series of weekly challenges.

"I'd seen [the show] a handful of times and I would watch it, going, 'I could probably do all right in that. I could give it a go.' I'm quite ambitious and always up for a challenge," he says.

While the challenges themselves were intense and action-packed, Simmons soon discovered that reality television is a surprisingly sedentary process.

"Once you've done a TV show like that, you never look at reality television the same, ever again," he laughs. "I knew it was going to be pretty gruelling but I was surprised by the amount of time out.