And the Winner of Season 3 of 'Next Level Chef' Tells Parade...

Zach Laidlaw, Gabi Chappel, Christina Miros

For the third straight year in a row, a woman has won Next Level Chef when Team Gordon Ramsay’s Gabi Chappel—his second win—walked away with the $250,000 prize and the one-year mentorship that comes with the title.

“I think what it means is that it totally drowns the stereotype that you have to be [a man] in this very patriarchal, male-dominated culinary world to really know how to cook and how to create flavor,” Gabi, who says it was the “ultimate honor" to be chosen by Gordon for his team, told Parade in this exclusive interview.

The 29-year-old social media chef from Brooklyn, NY, competed against professional chef Zach Laidlaw from Maui, HI, and home cook Christina Miros from Dumont, NJ, in the finale. Her strategy was to stick to what she knows and what she excels at, and it paid off.

“I recognized that throughout all of my cooks and throughout the whole season, the days that I did the best were the ones that I entered this flow state, where I just allowed myself to do my thing, not overthink it, and allowed what I love and the flavors I love,” Gabi said. “Not trying to imitate something else or trying to make something fancy for fancy’s sake, but truly just make the things that I love and allow that to shine. And so, I felt that going into the finale, if I could do that, then at least the bare minimum, no matter what, I’d have no regrets.”

Gabi’s strategy paid off with more than the prizes. As part of her mentorship with Gordon Ramsay, she will be joining the Bite network with her own original series, Gabi's Next Course, so while she will be getting direction from the best, she will also be able to expand her social media presence in Zoom chats with Gordon, Nyesha Arrington and Richard Blais.

“I feel like the mentorship will have those [Zoom] elements absolutely, but then I think it will also come more in the form of being able to be exposed to opportunities because of these chefs and being able to work with them in ways that are a bit more nuanced,” Gabi continued. “For example, if I want to host a pop-up, I’ll be able to say, ‘Hey, Chef Arrington, this is my menu. What edits can I make or what are you thinking? Is there anything that is sticking out to you?’ Being able to work that relationship in a way that again allows me to strengthen what I’m doing as a chef.”

Related: Next Level Chef Season 3 Results Tonight: Who Survived Night 12 of the Eliminations?

During our Chat, Gabi also talked about the biggest challenges she faced on Next Level Chef—including the platform drop, what we don’t see in the final edited version of the show, her dream which was influenced by Julia Child, and more.

On MasterChef, the home cooks have access to the kitchen, they can go back and forth. What makes this show harder is each week's cook depends on what you grab, and what do you have, like 10 seconds? What you grab can make or break you. What is it like when you go up to the platform and in 10 seconds you have to come up with a dish in your mind from what you can get your hands on?

For me, I feel like the platform grab, and a lot of times it happened to me at the beginning of the season, I was so focused on the veggies. I’m like, “Okay, I want to see what veggies I can make, and try and tie it together with the meat, but then I had to reassess that strategy because then you’re left with bottom of the barrel [protein-wise]. So, I learned that pretty well through my audition episode and I caught on pretty quickly.

But for me being at that platform, I feel like I would take a protein that I was feeling more comfortable with or that I felt would go well with the theme, and then from there, the rest I really enjoyed. Because like I said, I love cooking with vegetables, I love cooking with fruit, I love marrying interesting flavor combinations together and creating dishes that are a little bit more unique in that sense, that the veggies and whatever else is on the plate, the sides really shine.

And so that ended up helping me at the platform a lot because it brought the vision together. It was never grab randomly, it just was like, “Oh, this could work together.” It would build from the platform, and so I think that the platform grab actually ended up being something that always worked in my favor. I don’t think there was ever really a time, other than street food day where I grabbed a block of cheese at first, but other than that, the grab really was something that was the most stressful, yet it always gave me what I needed.

Related: Next Level Chef's Nyesha Arrington on Why She Has to Stay on Her Toes Working with Gordon Ramsay

If the platform grab wasn’t the most difficult part for you, what was?

I think for me the most difficult part was being able to keep that composure and that sort of confidence in thinking that really any time I entered into that arena is when I would absolutely crumble, and it didn’t happen too often thankfully. But, for me, the hardest part was to stay laser focused, to not allow myself to panic or think, “Oh, my gosh, the wheels are falling off.”

Anytime I would go into that area, I’d have to just bring myself back, and it’s hard to do because we doubt ourselves and we compare ourselves. I’m here with all these other professional chefs and really good home cooks, and a lot of these people, home cooks have a whole lifetime of experience, you know? And so, there’s really these other factors that are trying to contradict that confidence, and so, for me, it was just being able to maintain that level of focus and composure.

Home cooks may have a lifetime, but Zach was a professional chef and you beat him.

It really felt surreal because I looked up to him the whole competition from day one. I remember even before being officially on the show, just watching him and seeing what he does and being truly in awe. He really leans in on French-style cuisine and techniques, and his whole vernacular around cooking is like a foreign language to me. And so that was amazing to watch through the season.

And to know that even though I’m not executing these more refined cooking techniques, basically using my own style and putting what I find interesting and intriguing and good combinations and different ways of approaching food, to know that it stacks up against someone like that, because he’s very clearly incredibly talented. It really was a boost to my confidence and to my whole ability to think of myself as someone who’s a really good contender in this competition.

Do you get any instruction off camera that we don’t see?

Oh, no, nothing. There are moments that [get edited]. They can’t really [show] the whole episode, but Chef Ramsay’s mentoring us the whole time, all the mentors are on each level. They’re there for us if they see we need something. There were moments where it’s like, “Chef, this is what I’m thinking,” like a gut check. And they’ll either be like, “Yep, run with it. That’s great,” or “Maybe reconsider this.” And so those became valuable learning moments, too.

I think that that was some of the most wonderful parts of the show and the value of the show in that you have these mentors, and [the audience doesn’t] always get to see all those interactions. For example, the episode before the finale, the semi-finals when I was working with Richard Blais, I remember saying it felt like it was a dinner party and I had a guest over. And I wanted the guest in the kitchen with me cooking and riffing off of it like, “Ooh, what do you think about this?” And like, “Ahh, I love these flavors together.”

We had such a wonderful rapport that day, because it was the only time I ever cooked one-on-one with one of the mentors. It was sad because, of course, the drama takes precedent, but that whole cook we were together and we’re creating this synchronicity together to try and make this dish beautiful.

Related: Richard Blais on How Next Level Chef Will Serve Up Tears, Emotion and Anger as Well as Great Food in Season 3

When the you three finalists walked into the top level to start the final challenge, it looked as if there was already water boiling because there was steam coming up. Because of the tight time limit, do they do that?

Yes, they do. They have some boiled water. That’s actually in every episode, if you look they have water boiling on our stations for us, which is so nice.

Anything else?

Not really. We do have the opportunity when we get to the kitchens to set up our station, so it’s not like we start immediately. We can get our pans on the stovetop and heated up and ready to go, so we’re not waiting for anything to heat up, and we don’t have to go scrounge for different utensils and stuff. We at least can start at a normal point because 30 minutes is nothing, so they do help out a little bit in that way, so everything is hot and ready to go, which is really nice. That is a luxury of the competition for sure.

Now that you’ve won, what’s the dream? The money is great, but so much of it will go to taxes. What are your plans? Not all chefs work in restaurants, there’s so many more options these days.

I think for me what’s really beautiful about social media is that it gives me the opportunity to incorporate things in my past that I’ve been incredibly passionate about, for example, journalism. I studied journalism in undergrad, and so, hopefully, now I’m the storyteller and will get people more interested in cooking their own food in general, being more interested in creating their own dishes and creating their own style.

I want to take the Julia Child approach of I really want people to trust me and to want to learn from me as I continue to learn myself and learn more about where I stand as a chef. And so, I think that I’m going to continue to grow that in tandem with growing my own ability to learn. And whether that looks like an opportunity to study on a farm somewhere and learn a bit more about that side of food and where food comes from, and these more nuanced and grassroot ways of looking and thinking about food, that’s my goal.

Related: Gordon Ramsay Has Lots of Help in the Kitchen! Get to Know His 6 Kids

I’m a student for life. I will always be a student, and so I have this insatiable curiosity about food that I want to continue to feed, no pun intended. And beyond that though, I want to pay it forward and, hopefully, have other people along for that journey so that they can learn as well.

Will winning Next Level Chef allow you to make a living in the culinary field full time or were you doing that before?

I was doing that before to a degree, and it’s been a tough journey. I worked in production before I went to culinary school and graduated from a plant-based program. And after that I knew I never wanted to work in a restaurant necessarily, because I know that there’s so many other outlets out there, and New York’s the perfect place for it. You can create pop-up dinners, you can work events, you can create experiences for people.

I did also work in a catering kitchen all last summer for a farm-to-table, female owned and operated catering company in Brooklyn, and so I had a summer of experience under my belt creating a ton of food for weddings. It was really humbling to go from a career that I had built my way up in over the course of five years or so, and then starting from scratch again and being in the trenches so to speak. Getting heat rash in 90-degree weather and kitchens with no AC, but I loved it.

There’s something so therapeutic about cooking all day long and just being able to be in a healthy community of, especially women who cook. And so, I think that a lot of those experiences paid off in wonderful ways. Obviously, it paid off in a really great way.

Now that Season 3 of Next Level Chef has wrapped, Gordon Ramsay will return with return with the premiere of MasterChef: Generations on May 29 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.

Next, MasterChef Returns for a 14th Season with the Theme: Generations