Rick Bayless Biography
Rick Bayless is a chef and restaurateur from the United States who specializes in traditional Mexican cuisine with modern twists. He is well-known for his PBS documentary series Mexico: One Plate at a Time.
How old is Rick Bayless? – Age
He is 67 years old as of 23 November 2020. He was born in 1953 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States.
Rick Bayless Family – Siblings
Bayless grew up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in a family of restaurateurs and grocers who specialized in local barbecue. Skip Bayless, a sports journalist, and television personality is his younger brother.
Rick Bayless Wife
Deann, his future wife, and frequent culinary collaborator met him at Michigan. They tied the knot in 1979.
How much money does Rick Bayless make? – Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $30 Million. His salary is not known.
Rick Bayless Education
As an undergraduate student of Spanish and Latin American culture, Bayless expanded his culinary interests to include regional Mexican cooking, which he began as a child. He earned his master’s degree in linguistics at the University of Michigan after completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Oklahoma. He was nearly finished with a Ph.D. in anthropological linguistics at Michigan when he decided to discontinue his studies to focus on his fledgling cooking career.
Rick Bayless Restaurant
Prior to opening his own restaurant, Bayless worked as the executive chef at Lopez y Gonzalez in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, in 1980. Rick and Deann founded Topolobampo, one of Chicago’s first fine-dining Mexican restaurants, in 1989. Topolobampo has one Michelin star as of 2019. Rick and his partners launched the Frontera Foods line of prepared foods in 1995. In 2016, they sold Frontera Foods to ConAgra Foods. Bayless is still involved with the brand as a product development advisor. The Frontera restaurants were left out of the deal. He works as a visiting faculty member at the Culinary Institute of America and leads cooking and cultural tours in Mexico. Bayless, who is fluent in Spanish, prefers coastal (seafood) fare and dishes that incorporate traditional Mexican and pre-Columbian Incan, Mayan, and Aztecan ingredients native to Mexico, such as chocolate, peppers, and vanilla bean.
Rick Bayless Iron Chef
Bayless competed on Iron Chef America in 2005, losing by one point to Iron Chef Bobby Flay on the first broadcast episode of season one, which featured American bison meat as the secret ingredient.
Bayless appeared as a guest judge on Season 4’s Top Chef in Episode 3, judging both the quickfire and elimination challenges. He later went on to become a contestant on Top Chef Masters’ first season, winning episode 3 and advancing to the Champion’s round. On August 19, 2009, he won the title of Top Chef Master in the championship round.
Rick Bayless Mexico: One Plate at a Time
PBS began airing Bayless’ television series Mexico: One Plate at a Time in 2003. Over the years, Bayless and the show have been nominated for a number of Daytime Emmy Awards. Bayless was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lifestyle/Culinary Host twice, once in 2012 and again in 2017. Scott Dummler, the director of One Plate at a Time, was nominated for Outstanding Directing in a Lifestyle/Culinary Program in 2012, and the show was nominated for Outstanding Culinary Program in 2016.
Seasons of Mexico: One Plate at a Time occasionally focuses on regional cuisine: for example, season 8 was centered on cuisine from Tijuana and the Baja Peninsula, season 9 was centered on Oaxaca, and season 11 was entirely produced on the Yucatán Peninsula.
Rick Bayless Cookbook
After hosting the 26-part PBS television series Cooking Mexican from 1978 to 1979, Bayless devoted over six years to culinary research in Mexico, culminating in 1987 with the publication of his Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico, which Craig Claiborne described as “the greatest contribution to the Mexican table imaginable.”
Following Authentic Mexican, Bayless has authored a number of highly regarded cookbooks, frequently in collaboration with Deann and his daughter, Lanie. Perhaps his most well-known cookbook is Mexico: One Plate at a Time, which was published in 2001 as a companion to the first season of Bayless’ PBS television show of the same name. At least one of his other cookbooks, Mexican Everyday (2005), contains recipes that are directly related to the show.