‘Below Deck’: 6 Chefs Who Worked for Captain Lee Rosbach
Captain Lee Rosbach has always had more of a hands-off approach with his chef on Below Deck. But he fired one chef when his dirty oven seemed to be behind a late-night kitchen fire.
Rosbach only fired one chef and worked with two chefs for multiple seasons. Who were Rosbach’s chefs during his 10 years on Below Deck?
Chef Ben Robinson was Captain Lee’s ‘Below Deck’ chef for 3 1/2 seasons
Robinson helped to kick off Below Deck Season 1, and executive producer Mark Cronin initially thought perhaps Robinson was going to be the focal point of the series.
“We knew we had a chef who was going to be doing Michelin-star food,” Cronin told Showbiz Cheat Sheet in 2021. “And we didn’t know, like we thought, well, how much is this a cooking show, honestly? Like, the chef in the early days [of Below Deck] was Ben [Robinson].”
“It was then we had him telling us his whole menu and what procedures he was using to sear the tuna. Because we were like on the same channel as Top Chef,” he continued. “So we thought maybe there’s a lot here with the cooking show of one guy trying to pull off restaurant-quality food in a teeny tiny closet of a galley. Maybe that’s one of the most interesting things about the show. So we would shoot that.”
Robinson appeared on Below Deck Seasons 1 and 2. He returned as the relief chef on season 3, and his last Below Deck appearance was on season 4. Robinson was also the cross-over chef on Below Deck Mediterranean.
Chef Leon was the only ‘Below Deck’ chef Captain Lee fired
Chef Leon Walker took over for Robinson on Below Deck Season 3. But he butted heads with chief stew Kate Chastain. Plus, a fire in the galley kitchen was likely caused by a dirty oven that Walker was in charge of cleaning.
“The fire in the galley was your fault,” Rosbach wrote in a blog about Walker. “Period. The clean, dry sheet pans in the oven were neither clean nor dry.” Rosbach also referred to Walker as the “single most disruptive force” he’s ever “had the displeasure of working with.”
Walker became the only chef Rosbach fired. Robinson came in mid-season to take over and finish out Below Deck season 3.
Chef Matt got the second biggest tip in ‘Below Deck’ history for Captain Lee’s crew
Chef Matt Burns took over on Below Deck Season 5. Burns was quiet and friendly in the kitchen, often turning to crew members like deckhand Bruno Duarte for support. And while Burns wasn’t a bad chef, his food was often so healthy it didn’t match the decadence of chartering a superyacht.
However, tough Below Deck guest Timothy Sykes showed his appreciation for Burns’ food when he left what ended up being the second-highest tip in Below Deck history. “I think the biggest tip in history we got, it was $35,000,” Rosbach said on the Side Piece with Melissa Pfeister podcast.
“He did it on his second trip,” Rosbach added. “Because his first trip, remember he took back five grand. Because you screwed up my 19-year-old date’s dinner.”
Captain Lee marveled at Chef Adrian on ‘Below Deck’ Season 6
Chef Adrian Martin took over after Burns. In fact, Burns marveled at Martin’s food. Burns tweeted that Martin was “awesome” and “You’re amazing! Keep killing it.”
Rosbach named Martin the “best chef” during Below Deck Season 6 too. “But it’s a real close toss-up between him and Ben [Robinson],” Rosbach told Bravo. “Adrian’s demeanor in the galley is a little more laid back and not so quite intense. You don’t have to walk on eggshells around Adrian. He just kind of rolls with it.”
Chef Kevin Dobson made a bachelorette party cake that left Captain Lee speechless
Chef Kevin Dobson was the chef during chief stew Kate Chastain’s final season of Below Deck. He and Chastain didn’t exactly get along during Below Deck Season 7, and she was behind pranking him on the infamous bachelorette party cake reveal.
Jemel Hill and friends celebrated her bachelorette party on Below Deck, and one request was to create a phallic-looking cake.
Hill went to bed early, and Rosbach joined the guests for dinner. Chastain suggested to Dobson that he serve the cake to the guests, who were having a deep discussion about charities. Rosbach and the guests looked shocked when Dobson walked into the room with the very erect cake.
Hill laughed about the moment on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen because Dobson was so embarrassed, he left the cake on the table and ran. “The number one thing that the rest of my friends had a problem with is, it’s like you dropped it and you didn’t explain anything,” she said to Dobson. “Had you explained it, it might have gone better. So that was a piece of feedback I got from everybody.”
Chef Rachel worked with Captain Lee as second longest-running chef on ‘Below Deck’
No other chefs but chefs Rachel Hargrove and Robinson worked on Below Deck for multiple seasons. Hired for Below Deck Season 8, Hargrove completed three seasons of the show.
But she also didn’t finish her first season. She temporarily quit on Below Deck Season 8 when charter guests’ requests on their preference sheets were too much. Thankfully for the crew, she returned before the charter started and also ultimately finished seasons 9 and 10.
