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Bonnie has already played several roles in the culinary industry:
- A private chef exclusively to a prominent Beverly Hills family (3 years)
- Runner up on season 3 of Fox’s hit cooking competition Hell’s Kitchen with Gordon Ramsay
- Owner/operator of Bonnie Appetit, private chef and catering services for A-list celebrities in the Los Angeles area (2 years)
My beliefs on cooking are simple: fresh, seasonal ingredients; layering of flavours; cooking everything with passion. Food should be simple, and beautiful in its simplicity. I don't believe in cooking anything in a way that it is no longer recogniseable from its original state.
I believe food is a core foundation in our lives as human beings and feel that eating together with friends and family strengthens those already existing bonds, not to mention helping to form new ones.
I aim to use my comical and sometimes scattered approach to cooking in order to help inspire other people to cook for themselves. I consider myself the anti-Martha Stewart – I don’t believe in perfection.
I fear that cooking in homes is on the decline and encourage those around her to alter their priorities just enough to allow time for home-cooked meals as opposed to eating out for every meal. I firmly believe that this will aid in implementing a more healthy lifestyle and, in turn, aid in weight loss for a rapidly increasing obese first world. |
Bonnie Muirhead was born and raised just outside of Los Angeles, California. When she was eighteen she studied abroad in South Africa; and it was there she really became interested in food and began attempting to follow and create her own recipes (most of which were disastrous).
She began to concentrate more heavily on her love of eating instead. She graduated the University of Cape Town with a degree in drama and psychology and headed back to LA to pursue acting. Like most aspiring actors, Bonnie waited tables in between auditions and grew quite comfortable talking food with her patrons - which was the only thing that kept her from being labeled the worst waitress ever.
Bonnie soon discovered she really didn't care for the film industry at all and decided to apply for a Master's program in Child Psychology. She quit her restaurant job and became a nanny for a Beverly Hills family, which she thought would help on her application. As fate would allow, she accidentally fell into the role of their "private chef". After what seemed like months of burning food and setting the kitchen on fire, cooking started to make sense.
The day before her Master's applications were due, and without telling anyone, Bonnie enrolled in culinary school. Just after graduating she auditioned for and landed a spot on season 3 of Fox's Hell's Kitchen with Gordon Ramsey, and was runner-up of the entire competition.
After the show ended, Bonnie started a small catering and private chef company called Bonnie Appetit!, cooking meals for busy Los Angeles families and catering small dinner parties. She recently moved to New Zealand with her husband and is currently working on bringing Bonnie Appetit! to New Zealand. She and her husband plan to open their own restaurant in the years to come. |
