World-renowned chef, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Robert Irvine has traveled all around the world with his Food Network show, Restaurant: Impossible. In each episode, he helps restaurant owners turn their businesses around in seemingly hopeless situations. As a veteran himself, he has also created businesses and charitable organizations that support the men and women who fight for our country in the military.
Robert currently has one open restaurant: Fresh Kitchen by Robert Irvine within the Pentagon. He is also the owner of FitCrunch, a protein bar, powders, and snacks company, Robert Irvine Foods, which makes prepared, restaurant-quality dishes available in grocery stores, and Boardroom Spirits, creators of handcrafted vodka, rum, whiskey, and more.
A portion of proceeds from all of Robert’s businesses benefit the Robert Irvine Foundation. Created in 2014, the foundation gives back to our servicemen and women and first responders. The funds raised go towards training service dogs, making mental health services available to veterans, providing mobility devices for the disabled, among many other resources.
While touring with the United Service Organization (USO), Robert performs around the globe for servicemen and women with Robert Irvine LIVE. The show allows guests to have an interactive and chaotic cooking experience, intertwined with magic and unknown challenges.
For many years of his culinary career, Robert worked on the Norwegian Cruise Line as a chef. For the first time since his exit from cruise living, Robert was invited onto Chefs Making Waves, a culinary festival on the sea, as a guest chef. We met with him and touched on his work with USO, how he stays fit while traveling, and the hardest part about being an executive chef on a cruise ship.
You mentioned that you’ve worked on a cruise ship, and you actually worked on this cruise ship, the Norwegian Pearl. What’s the hardest part for being an executive chef on a boat like this and what don’t people understand?
Well, you work 18 to 20 hours a day, literally, with the amount of feeding that goes on. I worked here many, many years ago, so it’s even changed since then. There used to only be main dining facilities, like the main dining room for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now they’ve got independent restaurants or individual restaurants, specialty restaurants that we never had.
The staff works so hard here. I don’t think people realize how hard it actually is. I loved it. I made great money. I was single, I saw the world, literally.
Cruising is in my blood. I was in the Navy. I love the water. It’s nostalgic. You have to see each person that works on this particular ship, how good they are. Whether it’s the butler, whether it’s the bartender, all the people, they just want to please you. I think that’s really special because we don’t see that much in the world anymore. The world is lost. I worked on Norwegian, Celebrity, and I worked on Crystal. So, for me it’s almost like coming home. I haven’t been on a cruise ship since I left it. It’s been a long time.
I love what you said about the hospitality because it’s sometimes hard to find.
It’s all over the news, restaurant workers making minimum pay and all that stuff. I’m not a fan of that. I think they should be paid a great wage. But I also think tips should be based on service, sorry, I do. We shouldn’t be putting tips into the check. I disagree with that. If I have bad service, I’m going to tell you It’s bad service and I’ll tip you accordingly.
I saw you last night with Culinary Chaos and you had the video about the military and everything that you do there. I know you’ve talked about this many times, but why is that important to you?
I think America has lost its passion for our military and that makes me sad. You know, with 20 years of war, we’ve lost a lot of folks there. I was in Afghanistan and Iraq, 16, 18 times. My team’s been there. We cooked there. We’ve done that show, that particular show in that format in Afghanistan for the soldiers and sailors and airmen and Coast Guard Marines. For me, as a service member of the Royal Navy, to see these young kids that put on the uniform is meaningful.
I travel 150 days a year just with the military. I’m helping modernize the feeding platform right now. If you imagine, I travel 345 days a year and 150 of those are just in the military to say thank you for what they do. We just came back from Cuba. We were on the USS Eisenhower. Next week I’ll be in the Norfolk Naval Yard. The military is a big part of my life. I want to make sure the American people don’t forget not only the men and women who serve our nation, but the families and our first responders.
What’s been your favorite cruise moment so far?
I think the whole thing. I loved Buddy’s party on Friday. I was dancing for two hours, which I never do, by the way. I loved dinner on Friday. Seeing Maneet, Marc, Scott Conant and Andrew Zimmern. People think we spend all the time together. We don’t. We’re all across the globe. They’re doing their thing. So to get together for a little time and have fun, it’s just nice. I don’t stop like this. I never stay in a place for more than two days. I get there, do my thing and get out. So to be on a ship for three days with your friends is pretty awesome.
You’ve traveled all over the world with the military and filming Restaurant: Impossible and all these shows. Any hidden gems you’d tell people to visit?
I can tell you stuff in Iraq, Afghanistan, Poland, Spain. There’s just so many great places that I get to go into that some of your readers can’t get to. I have the best restaurant that nobody knows about that serves 28 million people a year inside the Pentagon in D.C. But nobody can go.
I live in Tampa, there’s Ulele, Sunda in Chicago is another great restaurant. There are so many great restaurants.
It’s a sad feeling right now because with the increase of pay, the inflation the way it is, we can lose a lot of restaurants this year. We can’t afford to pay the people. You can’t put the prices up even though the food is expensive. I feel that we are going to lose a lot of mom-and-pop restaurants this year. I’ve made a business out of saving businesses, right? I work with fortune 500 companies on their cultures, on their systems. Everybody’s having a hard time.
Not just mom-and-pop businesses, big companies. It’s going to be interesting. It’s very sad. 1 in 4 of our active duty men and women are food insecure. How can we do that in this age? In America, 1 in 6 of the outside world is food insecure. We’ve got to figure something out. I’m really focused on the military right now and how do we feed them? How do we get them more money to be able to feed their kids?
I know Food Network does No Kid Hungry and other things.
Food Network does a great job. But the chefs individually are amazing human beings. I’ve got a charity, Marc Murphy works with kids, all those dyslexic kids because he was dyslexic. I think chefs are the biggest philanthropic people in the world. They work hard, they drink hard, they play hard, and they give. It’s like musicians. I think we’re all the same.
How do you travel and stay fit?
It’s discipline. It really is. Number one, I’m married to a wrestler.
Could she beat in a match if required?
Oh, absolutely. I’m scared to death of her. She’s the only one I am scared of. I jumped out of planes at 15,000ft. She didn’t get exhilarated about that. She jumps off a 28-foot cage through a table, and that’s exciting for her.
There’s one thing and it all goes back to food, right? Our food 20 years ago was very different from our food today. The additives that we have, the nutritional value of food is really zero. For me, health and fitness and food all go together. If I’m going to be filming I’ll get up at 3:00, 4:00 in the morning. I do my one hour and 30 minutes, and I feel great. I go to work. Sometimes I get a jog in, and sometimes I don’t.
The eating piece for me is hard, not the training. If I’m doing a photoshoot for a magazine, I’ve got to get cut and I can get cut in four weeks. But when I’m not, I like beer and tequila like everybody else.
I just found out about FitCrunch and love it.
We started FitCrunch about ten years ago. It’s really a big company in that we donate a lot of money. That’s one of the 11 companies that we have.
What’s different about it?
Well, it’s the only baked bar in the world. It’s a healthier bar. I wanted to make something different. We make them in Pittsburgh. We have two big plants in Pittsburgh. Our liquor is made in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. Our clothing is made in LA. We do clothing for the military like underwear, socks, shirts, all the uniform stuff.
What is your favorite Irvine’s Spirits vodka cocktail?
Two things I love. The vodka is vodka cranberry and a splash of orange juice. My gin is a Collins Old Fashioned. That product line, that is about people. The distillery is in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. They’re all about people. That’s why I love it. All my products go into a charity. We make a FitCrunch Strawberry strudel for Susan G. Komen. It’s all about people. People think when I say that it’s a joke, but actions speak louder than words. You see what we do every year.
I saw on your schedule that you are partnered with Big Dog Ranch. How did you get involved?
It’s kind of random. We have a dog program with the military. It’s called PAWS for People. It’s in North Carolina. I also have a school there that I take care of. They actually rear the dogs there, then they’re trained. Then we match the dog. We put five puppies in a room with you. One will naturally come to you. We’ll take that out, put it with another four and put you in the room. See if that same dog goes to you, that’s the dog you have to be trained with. It’s kind of a process.
We give away five, six, sometimes more dogs a year, $50,000 each. I was at the West Palm Beach Food and Wine Festival, very small, very intimate. I met an owner of a broad line food distribution company. His wife was on the board of this Big Dog Ranch. I said, ‘I can help you, as long as you’re helping people, we’ll do it.’ So that’s how I got involved with them. I’ll give them half the money, and then I will give my foundation half the money.