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Alexandra Donnadio, a Hillsborough native who works for in ballistics for the Essex County Sheriff's Department, is a home chef competing on the hit FOX cooking competition "Next Level Chef."
The 24 contestants are split up into three different groups, comprised of eight chefs each: Home chefs, professional chefs, and social media chefs.
Meanwhile, Celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay, Nyesha Arrington and Richard Blais mentor them as they face "unique" challenges on three different kitchen levels — literally.
Contestants must cook their way up, literally, as there are three levels of kitchens, each kitchen better than the next with better equipment and more ingredients. The goal is to cook your way up to the top kitchen.
Only 15 of the 24 chefs will advance. They were drafted to their celeb chef's teams on the Thursday night episode, Feb. 15. The winner takes home $250,000 and a year-long mentorship with the celebrity chefs.
On Thursday, Feb. 15, Donnadio was drafted to Chef Nyesha's team.
Donnadio has been sharing hundreds of her very own recipes with her 17.5K Instagram followers. When a producer FOX reached out to her, she says she thought it was spam.
Her boyfriend pushed her to at least entertain the message, and Donnadio says she's glad she did.
"Even making it to the top 15 was a huge deal because compared to everyone else there, I feel like I'm not as good," she said. "To prove I could roll with everyone was a huge milestone — and making it out of the basement with beef tongue."
The detective said being on "Next Level Chef" not only pushed her to get an LLC for her catering company, Iron and Oak, but showed her the importance of learning basic culinary techniques, like sauce breaking — which she otherwise may not have known to care about.
"I went into police work wanting to help people and make people feel safe in not-so-good situation," Donnadio said. "So I get to help people and [with cooking] I get to feed people and make them feel good."
On March 9, Donnadio will be holding a pop-up event for Iron and Oak in Nutley. It's a five-course BBQ tasting over open fire, a showcasing of Asado-style BBQ, she said.
"The show gave me the push I needed to take things seriously and open a business, and start pushing to get my name out," she said.
As for police work? She's not planning on leaving that any time soon, and says all of her coworkers have been incredibly supportive.
Tune into FOX Thursdays at 8 p.m. to watch Donnadio on "Next Level Chef."
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