From Hell’s Kitchen to Monterey

Heather West felt Chef Gordon Ramsey’s heat in Hell’s Kitchen, but now she’s feeling the oven heat as Monterey restaurant’s executive chef.

West has moved 17 times since she was announced the winner on the second season of the Fox reality show five years ago, temporarily settling in places like Seattle, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, but the Port Jefferson native decided to return to the Island.

“I wanted to be near my family,” said West, who had no communication with her family during the month-long taping of the show. “My family is really important to me.”

Once back, West applied for two jobs and within 24 hours she was offered the position at Monterey on West Park Avenue, which she started in August. Monterey closed its doors for two weeks while West revamped the menu, which is primarily made from scratch.

That’s nothing new to West, who began her cooking career at age four by baking in her grandmother’s kitchen.

“You don’t want to mess with our house when it comes to Christmas time,” West laughed and explained that her mother will bake cookies around the clock for a week during the season, making 12 dozen treats in all.

Despite being a North Shore native, West was raised in a southern household, complete with family breakfast on Sundays that included country ham and grits. Home-made fried chicken was also a staple in a home where West’s father and grandmother came from Tennessee and Georgia.

She entered the restaurant industry at 13, when she began working as a hostess and waitress, but continued to cook and bake. At 20, when her mother was diagnosed with cancer, West took on more of the family cooking responsibilities.

Asked why she didn’t pursue a career in baking, West said she did teacher herself how to create wedding cakes and all the desserts at Monterey are home made, but baking “already came really naturally to me, so I just decided to do the other [kind of cooking],” she said.

The switch paid off when Hell’s Kitchen casting crew came to visit West when she was the executive sous chef at five-star restaurant Almond in Bridgehampton and Almondito in East Hampton. “I never thought about it, to be honest,” West said about auditioning for the show. Nonetheless, she took the chance and was cast.