Chopped Competitors (Pride on the Plate)

Pasquale Frola
Age: 37
Executive Sous Chef, Naples 45
Location: NYC

I'm Pasquale Frola, I'm 42 years old, and I'm the Executive Sous Chef at Naples 45. It's a real Italian Neapolitan restaurant with a real Neapolitan chef. I started out in the restaurant industry working as a pot washer in a family restaurant in Naples when I was 14. What drove me to become a chef was working with these 65, 75 year old chefs in Italy with so much knowledge. A couple of years ago I opened a restaurant on a cruise ship and met my wife Jaime. She's a Rockette, so I moved to NY. I'm teaching her how to cook. I think I'll win because I like to be challenged and I can get crazy and be very stubborn until I get something right.

Shaya Klechevsky
Age: 28
Kosher Personal Chef, “At Your Palate” and instructor at the Jewish Community Center
Location: NYC

I'm a kosher personal chef. My mother was born in Egypt and my father is from Poland and they lived in Israel. We had Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and Eastern European food in the same meal. I try to meld and synergize the food from these regions. I couldn't afford to be a line cook so I built my own personal chef business right out of culinary school. People might underestimate me because I don't show my competitiveness.

Roshni Mansukhani
Age: 25
Executive Sous Chef for Club Link and private chef
Location: Nantucket, MA

I'm originally from Canada. Since I was a kid, I can't remember wanting to do anything else. Both of my parents grew up in India. When I got the idea that this is what I wanted to do, I wasn't supported. So I ended up starting to go to college to study business and then transferred after a year to the CIC – Culinary Institute of Canada. I did my internship at the Sagamore Resort in Lake George, NY. After graduating I moved to Goa in India and worked there for two years. I'm a young chef but you can't judge a chef on how much experience they have, but how they use that experience.

Giuliano Matarese
Age: 30
Executive Chef, Arte Café and Executive Chef of NYCRG
Location: NYC

I was born with a mission to cook. I grew up in a restaurant family in Naples and from the time I was 3 years old I was telling everyone that I wanted to be a chef. Food is like fashion: it's always changing. New techniques, new taste, new presentation. My food represents my personality. When you eat it, you can feel that it is prepared by an Italian guy with a heavy accent. I'm a very big fan of myself. If I win, I use the money to surprise my wife and get married in a church in Italy.