Food fight to the finish
East Rockaway chef featured on T.V.'s Restaurant Express
Adam Goldgell, 47, is in it to win it. After making it through five elimination rounds on the Food Network’s popular reality show “Restaurant Express,” he said that being a big eater has made him a better chef, adding, “A lot of chefs haven’t had the chance to sample food the way I have.”
Goldgell, a former entertainer who is now the executive chef at Reel — formerly The Fishery — in East Rockaway, said he didn’t get serious about cooking until he was 30, when he attended the Culinary Institute of America.
“I like to eat, and I like to cook,” he said. “I’m a very eclectic chef. I love cooking ethnic food, Mediterranean, Asian, Indian food … I like to use world influences.”
Goldgell grew up in the kitchens of New York. He worked alongside his father at the family’s gourmet sandwich shop in Brooklyn, and at a 200-seat cafe in Tribeca. He has worked in some of the country’s most critically acclaimed restaurants, including Long Island’s four-star Panama Hattie’s in Huntington.
“Cooking is about sharing passion and [giving] joy to people I’m feeding,” Goldgell said. “And it’s new and different every night.”
The New York Times awarded Goldgell three stars during his tenure as executive chef at Sugo, in Long Beach. He has since owned two successful barbecue restaurants and a gourmet burger restaurant. He has also run a full-service golf course catering facility and restaurant, serving his signature dishes.
Cooking wasn’t always his passion, though. For years, Goldgell, who now lives in St. James, performed as a clown, having studied with a Ringling Brothers trouper, and did magic and hypnosis. He started a production company, the New York Fun Factory, which became one of the largest special-events companies on the East Coast. He was also a card shark at age 14 — the movie “Rounders,” he said, is based on him and a dozen others like him who played in the underground clubs of New York. “They’d have a kitchen to attract players,” he said. “And I would cook for everyone.”
‘Restaurant Express’
