Preston Paine is the executive chef at Exxir Hospitality and has more than eight years of culinary expertise. He will now engage in a culinary competition with nine other chefs from throughout the country on Food Network’s new program, Ciao House. Chef Preston Paine, hailing from Dallas, will have to live at the Ciao House with the other chefs while attempting to make the finest Italian food possible. Preston is the proprietor of Shug’s Bagels and is well-known for his work with Exxir Hospitality. He presently manages five restaurant concepts in the Bishop Arts District.
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Chef Preston Paine formerly worked at the three-Michelin-starred restaurant Chef De Partie.
Chef Preston Paine earned a degree in Business Management from Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business in 2015. He used to play football and was a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council at the time. Preston learned to cook from a close family friend called Chela, who taught him numerous skills such as how to use a knife and grill. During his undergraduate years, he worked at several restaurants and started his culinary career by composing menus and devising ideas for restaurants in the Culinaire group.
He opted to broaden his skills after two years and became a traveling chef with Quarterdeck Life Ltd, for which he had to work long hours aboard boats for a year. After returning in 2018, he was offered a position at the three-Michelin-starred Chef de Partie, also regarded as the world’s number-one restaurant. Covid, on the other hand, had to close the renowned diner and return to Dallas. He then worked for Thompson Dallas and Apheleia Restaurant Group for many months.
In May 2020, Preston Paine launched Shug’s Bagel, one of Dallas’ most well-known bagel businesses. In the Thompson Hotel, he also established a few more restaurants. On the Food Network website, he is introduced as follows:
“He is just as competitive in the kitchen as he was on the (football) field, and his goal is to define himself as a chef by creating his own unique dishes – rather than recreating other people’s recipes.”
For a long time, the Food Network casting directors have been attempting to get Preston on their network. The chance to visit Italy, his favorite destination, pleased the well-known chef. Paine contacted the filmmakers again and became part of the interview process. He stated:
“I went through the interview process, which took a couple of months.” The number of people decreased from 100 to 50 to 20. And last, I was picked.”
He said that his time in Italy taught him “beauty in simplicity.” Preston Paine was also inspired by the episode to form “more family ties” with food suppliers and enterprises, such as the chefs in Italy who have been purchasing from the same butcher shop for many years, if not generations.
Ciao House assisted him in focusing on high-quality components rather than cutting-edge processes. Paine said of his time in the competition:
“When I arrived, I was in game mode, dialed in.” As a result, I’m not sure how they’ll change it. Fortunately, there were no major explosions. Nobody cursed or hurled anything.”
