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Known for being the executive chef of Exxir Hospitality, Preston Paine has more than eight years of experience in the culinary world. He will now compete with nine other chefs from across the USA in a cooking battle on Food Network’s new show, Ciao House.
Chef Preston Paine, originally from Dallas, will have to live with the other chefs in the Ciao House and try to cook the best Italian cuisine possible. Preston is the owner of Shug’s Bagels and is known for working for Exxir Hospitality. He currently runs five concepts of the restaurant throughout the Bishop Arts District.
Chef Preston Paine has worked for Three-Michelin star restaurant Chef De Partie
Chef Preston Paine attended Tulane University under the A.B. Freeman School of Business to earn a degree in Business Management, graduating in 2015. He used to play football at the time and was a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council.
Preston learned to cook from a close family friend named Chela, who taught him various skills like using a knife, how to grill, etc. He worked at various restaurants during his time at the college and began his culinary career by writing menus and designing concepts for restaurants under the Culinaire organization.
After two years, he decided to expand his knowledge and became a traveling chef for Quarterdeck Life Ltd, for which he had to work long hours on yachts for one year.
After returning in 2018, he got a chance to work for the three-Michelin-star restaurant Chef de Partie, which is also known as the world’s number-one restaurant. However, Covid shut down the operations of the popular eatery and had to return to Dallas. He later worked for several months at the Thompson Dallas and Apheleia Restaurant Group.
Soon after, Preston Paine opened Shug's Bagel, one of Dallas' most well-known bagel shops, in May 2020. He also opened a few other restaurants in the Thompson Hotel. His introduction on the Food Network website reads:
"He is as competitive in the kitchen as he was on the (football) field, and his goal is to define himself as a chef with his own unique dishes - rather than recreating other people’s recipes."
The Food Network casting directors have been trying to get Preston on their channel for a long time. The opportunity to visit Italy, which was his dream destination, impressed the well-known chef. Paine reconnected with the directors and got involved in the interview process. He said:
"I went through the interview process and that ended up being a couple of months long. It went from 100 people to 100 people to 50 people to 20 people. And in the end, I was chosen."
He said that he learned “beauty in simplicity” from his experience in Italy. The show has also inspired Preston Paine to establish “more family ties” with the food producers and companies, like the chefs in Italy who have been buying from the same butcher shop for many years and even generations.
Ciao House helped him focus more on high-quality ingredients than modern techniques. Speaking about his time in the competition, Paine said:
"When I got there, I was was in game mode, I was dialed in. So, I’m not sure how they’ll edit it. Luckily, there were no big blow ups. Nobody threw anything, nobody cursed."
Ciao House premieres on Food Network on Sunday, April 16 at 8 pm ET. Fans will be able to stream the tough cooking competition on Discovery+ one day after the television broadcast.
