I got the chance to interview DJ CHEF and speak about his experience Supermarket Surveillance and how he got to where he’s today.
Marc Weiss aka “DJ CHEF” who recently won Food Network’s Cruel Kitchen hosted by Alton Brown, returns to TV to compete in the Food Network’s challenging cooking competition show Supermarket Surveillancewhich will be shown Tuesday, March 9 at 10:00 PM (EST).
DJ CHEF is the only entertainer who concurrently cooks and DJs for personal parties and events worldwide. He’s been nicknamed “The King of the Hamptons” for his wildly popular interactive cooking class parties for bachelorette parties and birthday parties that mix food, music, and fun. DJ CHEF received his training under world renowned cooks Bobby Flay, Matthew Kenney and John Tesar on the Manhattan fine dining scene. After developing his culinary skills, he worked as a chef for the Sodexho Marriott company which gave him free weekends to host private dinner parties. Before becoming a chef, he was a DJ so he developed the niche of “putting on beats while cooking treats” and DJ CHEF was born. Shortly after spinning and cooking, the Food Network called and featured it on their show, What’s Hot! What’s Cool! which reveals the hottest trends in food. DJ CHEF has traveled the world DJing and cooking at major events as far away as Dubai to Toronto to Beverly Hills.
OR: What are you doing to stay relevant during the pandemic?
DJ Chef: During the pandemic, I led the daily birthday car parade for youths who missed celebrating with family and friends. Armed with music pumping my fashionable DJ CHEF truck, microphone, and six-foot-tall teddy bear, I appeared in over 500 birthday parades and a dozen school reunions. Post-pandemic with restrictions on restaurants, clubs and wineries, I’ve been throwing parties for clients including hundreds of brides who have changed Bachelorette weekend destinations from Nashville and Miami to the Hamptons and Jersey Shore. I host plenty of safe parties at home where I cook, DJ, and provide culinary lessons while the guests eat, drink, dance, and have fun.
OR: Tell us about your experience making movies Supermarket Surveillance.
DJ Chef: Supermarket Surveillance is a nice experience. It’s essentially a potluck dinner competition. You get a bag of ingredients and you must make the most of them while cooking in the parking area. This really is the luck of the draw. I all the time try to go with the flow and make it entertaining in substandard cooking conditions. Alex called me to be great Cruel Kitchen right before shooting so I believed the judges would hold me to a higher standard, which gave me a little extra motivation.
OR: Sounds like Supermarket Surveillance different from Cruel Kitchen where you’re the champion.
DJ Chef: Yes! For Cruel Kitchen, we must prepare dishes you must make like “taco”. You have two minutes to shop for your ingredients and then there are three sabotages which you use to spend your prize money or risk being sabotaged and cooking with the flaw. With Supermarket Surveillance, you have $500 to negotiate a potluck with a random shopper. But for these two, it really becomes 1/3 strategy, 1/3 luck and 1/3 cooking skill. Needless to say it was an awesome experience.
OR: What are your favourite beats and foods to make and play?
DJ Chef: I personally love old school hip hop and freestyle music and as far as food goes, I love rib eye steaks, short ribs and any kind of BBQ.
OR: You help so many various organizations like the John Starks Foundation, Marty Lyons Foundation, and the enCourage Kids Foundation, to name a few. What does giving back mean to you?
DJ Chef: It’s great to be doing what you love while helping with the missions of diverse organizations. We have a bigger goal and that’s to lift each other up and help those who are less lucky.
OR: What cooks do you see today as industry game changers?
DJ Chef: I love what Guy Fieri is doing during the pandemic and restaurant closures. He raised 20 million for unemployed restaurant workers, which is pretty astonishing!
OR: What do you see in the future DJ CHEF?
DJ Chef: I’m certainly looking at my own food and travel. #Target
OR: Congratulations on being recognized with a number of awards for your high-energy mobile gathering including The Knot Best of Weddings, Brides of Long Island Diamond Award, LI Weddings Best of 2021, and Citizens Magazine’s Model award recipient for December 2020.
DJ Chef: Thank You. I feel blessed to be recognized for my work and doing what I love every day.
OR: Thank you very much for taking the time to interview us. I look forward to seeing you at Supermarket Surveillance.
DJ Chef: Thank you, it’s my pleasure.
To learn more about DJ CHEF, please visit the website: https://djchef.com. You can follow and interact with DJ CHEF on his social events.
https://www.instagram.com/djchefrocks/
