Did You Know a Wolfeboro, NH, Chef Is Competing on ‘Hell’s Kitchen’?

I don't know why I feel like this one has completely slid under the radar, but we have a local chef doing BIG THINGS right now and getting national exposure. (Granted, that's no shock since we've had local chefs doing big national things for months now, but this is a network TV big national thing.)

Chef Nikki Hanna from Wolfeboro, New Hampshire is one of 18 chefs (well, it started off as 18, but there have been a couple of eliminations since -- not saying who or when or how many, but all I'll say is it started off as 18 when the show kicked off a couple of weeks ago) competing on Season 19 of Hell's Kitchen on FOX. The winner of the show gets the head chef position at Gordon Ramsay Hell's Kitchen Lake Tahoe at Harvey's Hotel and Casino and a sweet little $250,000.

According to an article that ran in the Laconia Daily Sun, Nikki now lives in Stony Point, NY, but grew up in Wolfeboro and spent most of her life there. She went to Kingswood Regional High School and graduated in 2011. She was actually still in Wolfeboro when the show began filming (pre-COVID at the end of 2019), working as a chef for two years at Wolfe's Tavern inside of Wolfeboro Inn on North Main St in Wolfeboro.

The cool part of all this (other than if she wins, obviously) is that Nikki literally did nothing to try and be part of the show. She told The Laconia Daily Sun that it was actually the show that reached out to her on Facebook Messenger, and she had no clue how they found her in Wolfeboro.

Nikki is only the second chef to ever compete on Hell's Kitchen, the first being Chef Jim McGloin from Nashua, who competed way back on Season 6. Not only is Nikki improving her chef skills currently (Wolfe's Tavern was actually only her first restaurant job), but according to her Instagram page, she's also the CEO of YellowJacket Chef Wear, which specializes in women's chef wear.

You can watch and see if our local girl Nikki scores the $250,000 AND head chef position at Chef Ramsay's Lake Tahoe restaurant every Thursday night at 8p on FOX! Go get 'em, Chef Nikki! We're already proud of you, but take it home and make us the MOST proud!