Grand Rapids Chef Makes Hell’s Kitchen History As First Haitian Contestant

An alum from Grand Rapids Community College is currently competing on the newest season of Hell's Kitchen with Gordon Ramsay.

On Friday on Fox, Hell's Kitchen Season 25's debut featured Jonny Gudino, an alum of Grand Rapids Community College and a locally renowned chef who will be competing with many other great chefs this season, all of whom are 25 or younger.

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Jonny is only 23 years old and is the first contestant to ever hail from Haiti, before he made his journey to Grand Rapids to attend and graduate from Secchia Institute for Culinary Education.

Currently, he’s working as a personal chef and food service worker at ResLife Church, and it can be assumed that the show was filmed some time ago. But even landing a spot on the Hell's Kitchen series is an amazing accomplishment.

Potential cast members go through a slew of questions, and they are probed heavily into their personality and their personal taste in order to even be considered to be on the show.

Kitchen Nightmares In Michigan, Which Restaurants Appeared

On the official Hell's Kitchen casting page, you’ll find a welcome video of Gordon Ramsay followed by dozens of questions about your personality, your cooking style, your creativity, and any other questions that let the creators know what kind of a person you are.

While scrolling through, you see that filming for the show took place between May and July 2026, so it was a pretty quick turnaround for the program. We recently discussed how many Michigan restaurants that Gordon Ramsay has tried to save through his show Kitchen Nightmares, with only one Michigan restaurant surviving after his visit.