Captain Sandy Says Chef Dave White Is ‘the Best Chef’ on ‘Below Deck Med’ [Exclusive]
Captain Sandy Yawn has worked with eight chefs on Below Deck Mediterranean, but chef Dave White from season 7 really stood out.
Yawn noted that chef Ben Robinson also blew her away with his talent, but said White was the best chef she’s ever had. “Forget the personal [issues] aside and then Ben, because I only had Ben for two charters, but [White] is the best chef,” she told Showbiz Cheat Sheet while doing press for Chips Ahoy!
“Did you see the food?” she asked. “He’d make five breads – five breads – every morning from scratch!” Also, “His desserts were cool. If you go to his Instagram, you’ll see the bird’s nest. It’s an actual dessert that looks like eggs hatched in a bird’s nest.”
White impressed Yawn, but he said he struggled while on Below Deck Med. In fact, he almost quit because of the drama that surrounded him.
Chef Dave says ‘Below Deck Med’ was ‘one of the hardest’ things he’s done
White definitely shined in his craft, but the show and drama weighed heavily on him. He started strong, fueled by a secret romance with chief stew Natasha Webb. But when he revealed his feelings for her, she iced him out. This sent him into a tailspin, prompting him to lash out at Webb in a string of explosive text messages.
Webb brought the matter to Yawn, who gave White another chance to redeem himself. White said the entire experience of dealing with the personal and grueling professional side of the experience was tough.
“I’m not gonna lie, it was tough,” White said on Malia White’s Total Ship Show podcast. “It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, actually. Mentally it was really, really, really difficult.”
Cooking kept Chef Dave sane on ‘Below Deck’ and Captain Sandy had to talk him out of quitting
He added, “If I wasn’t good at my job, I would 100% have failed miserably. I love my job and am so passionate about cooking and it really kind of just about kept me kind of sane. It really kind of kept me together. I just could just fully focus on what I had to do.”
“Nobody would really ever understand. Imagine working on a yacht on steroids with lots of cameras following you around with a bunch of people you’d never worked with before,” White said. “Surely that should be enough to explain how hard it is to walk onto the yacht and in 24 hours you pick up charter.”
The job became so overwhelming that White almost quit at one point during the Below Deck Med season. “It’s ridiculous but that’s what happens. Some people think it’s fake, but it is not,” he said. “You are literally designed to fail. And then with some women dramas or men dramas and just being right on top of it. I kind of got through it and I’m really proud of myself. I tried to leave twice, but [Captain] Sandy [Yawn] talked me out of it.”
White also referred to Yawn as a “hero.” “Captain Sandy could have gotten me fired, she was very supportive,” White said on Another Below Deck Podcast. “Sandy’s a hero. I respect her. Sandy, what she’s achieved, it must be so hard … honestly, a captain of her status has to manage these reprobates. All I can tell you right now is what she did for me was, she gave me a chance.”
