Anne Burrell was an American chef, television personality and former culinary instructor, who presented Worst Cooks in America, a series which can be watched on Amazon Prime Video
Anne Burrell – a celebrity chef on Food Network – has died aged 55.
Paramedics rushed to the popular chef’s home in Brooklyn, New York City, where they reportedly found Anne unconscious. Doctors were unable to revive the woman, and declared her dead at the scene.
“Anne was a remarkable person and culinary talent — teaching, competing and always sharing the importance of food in her life and the joy that a delicious meal can bring,” a spokesperson for Food Network, owned by Warner Bros Discovery, said today.
Anne had an extensive career in the industry, alongside work on Food Network since Secrets of a Restaurant Chef debuted in 2008. Since then, she appeared in various other programmes on the channel, available in the UK as well as the US, including The Best Things I Ever Ate.
But her big TV breakthrough came in 2010 when, aged 40, Anne and Beau MacMillan first started hosting the brutal Worst Cooks in America, which saw the professionals take contestants through a “culinary boot camp” on their journey to become better chefs. It has since had 28 seasons, many of which can be watched on Amazon Prime Video.
Alongside this, other projects – mostly on Food Network – have included Chef Wanted with Anne Burrell, a series which saw the no-nonsense pro put chef candidates through the toughest job interview of their lives for a role at some of the best restaurants across the US.
Over the years, the star has won programmes and contests in order to donate money to charity, including Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. She won the fourth installment of the Chopped All-Stars tournament in 2015.
In October 2021, Anne married Stuart Claxton after getting engaged the previous year. However, she leaves him behind following her death on Tuesday in Brooklyn. A cause of death has not yet been established.
Born on September 21, 1969, in Cazenovia, New York, Anne studied English and Communications at Canisius College in Buffalo, graduating with the BA (Hons) in 1991. She also studied at the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners in Asti in the Piedmont region, which accelerated Anne’s desire to forge a career as a chef.
And she remained in Italy, cutting her cloth at various restaurants in her early 20s. These included La Bottega del ’30, a small restaurant in Tuscany with one seating each night. She returned to the US to further her culinary career and worked under celebrity chef Lidia Bastianich at Felidia, before becoming the chef at Savoy.
Her TV career soon followed as, through connections in the industry, she first hosted Secrets of a Restaurant Chef in 2008 at the age of 38. Her episode of The Best Things I Ever Ate soon followed and saw Anne recount her favourite dishes, including her beloved Italian meals.
But her big hit – Worst Cooks in America – made Anne a household name across the US as she and Beau pulled no punches in transforming some hapless cooks into talented culinary whizzes. It has had celebrity spin-offs and, as of earlier this year, nearly 200 episodes of Worst Cooks in America have aired.