Bedford Teen Juggles School, Work to Pursue Career as Chef

BEDFORD, NY — Nathan Spiro, by his own admission, has always loved cooking.

The 18-year-old lives for cooking and said he’s wanted to be a chef since he was 9.

To date, he’s already worked for several restaurants, quit high school, been on the television cooking competition “Chopped Teen Tournament,” gotten his high school equivalency diploma and is now working at a renowned Westchester County restaurant.

Spiro got bitten by the cooking bug after a friend invited him to attend a cooking class at Hyde Park’s Culinary Institute of America.

“Then I started making all the stuff at home,” he said, in a recent telephone interview.

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Shortly after that, Spiro started working one night a week—he was 10—at the Fish Cellar in Mount Kisco when they would do food demonstrations.

Unfortunately, it was short lived because the chef told him he couldn’t legally continue due to the fact that he was, well, 10.

In January 2014, he began working as a chef’s apprentice, doing prep, at the Inn at Pound Ridge by Jean-Georges. He was working 60 to 70 hours a week.

That was while he was going to school full-time.

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He said he looked at it as a challenge, but the following year, while going to BOCES and Fox Lane High School, he began to feel that his grades were suffering. He felt he needed to make a decision: school or work?

Spiro spoke with the executive chef at the Inn, and he agreed to offer him more work so he could keep learning.

He didn’t leave his parents out of the loop.

Debbie Spiro, his mother, wasn’t thrilled about her son dropping out of high school.

She said he was a “different sort of learner.”

“He’s very hands on, but he found it difficult to learn in the traditional setting and was getting in a little bit of trouble in school,” Debbie Spiro said, during a recent interview.

She said he kept telling her that he wanted to work.

“When he got this job as chef apprentice, we never saw him that happy,” Spiro said. “And you can’t push a string.”

Nathan Spiro did drop out of high school but completed his high school equivalency in May and will continue his education at the CIA starting in September 2017.

In the interim, Spiro has worked at Le Marais in New York City, where he apprenticed with the head butcher and is now working locally again at Campagna, which is located in the Richard Gere-owned Bedford Post Inn.

So what about his appearance on “Chopped Teen Tournament”?

Spoiler alert—he got chopped.

Not only did he cut his finger—and that didn’t help—the experience was really intense.

“I’ve never been in front of so many cameras,” Spiro said. “I did think I choked under pressure.”

He admits that he thought one of the ingredients in the mystery basket was couscous, but it was really quinoa.

“It ended up being under cooked,” Spiro said, which was probably an understatement.

The producers must have seen something in him, because they are planning to bring him back for a “Chopped Redemption” show.

Until then, Spiro continues working at the Bedford Post Inn.

From his unique perspective, he does have advice for anyone might find themselves torn about trying to become a chef while going to high school.

“I would say the No. 1 idea is to see if they really want to be a chef,” Spiro said.

“Get a job in a restaurant, some place that has high standards,” he said, “and see what it is like to work outside of your kitchen.”

Spiro said some cooks can’t work in a high pressure restaurant.

“I really enjoy that,” he said, “when it’s really busy.”

Photo caption: Nathan Spiro, right, with Asia Shabazz, his co-worker at the Inn at Pound Ridge. Photo credit: Courtesy.