What Mashpee chef Sherry Pocknett said after meeting Gordon Ramsey on 'Hell's Kitchen'
James Beard Award-winning chef Sherry Pocknett, of Mashpee, is going to be on television again.
Her upcoming TV appearance, on Netflix's "Somebody Feed Phil," won't be the first time the Wampanoag chef is spotted on the small screen. Pocknett has been on TV half a dozen times over the years, and was on at least two major food shows previously.
Pockett was a semifinal judge on Season 23 of Gordon Ramsey's "Hell's Kitchen," filmed shortly after she won the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef Northeast in June 2023. In 2021, celebrity chef Padma Lakshmi cooked with Pocknett on the Thanksgiving episode of her "Taste the Nation." A film she was in, "Taste of the Indigenous," won Best Native/Indigenous Short in the 2022 Albuquerque Film & Music Experience.
The Wampanoag chef was named Best Chef in the Northeast in 2023 partly for her efforts to preserve Indigenous foods, including Indian fry bread and venison sausage. She was the first Indigenous woman to win a James Beard Award.
She is working toward opening the 200-seat restaurant she owns on Poquetanuck Bay in Preston, Connecticut after closing her eatery, Sly Fox Den Too, in Charlestown, Rhode Island.
James Beard Award-winning chef is back: Wampanoag chef Sherry Pocknett moves back to Mashpee, hopes to open new restaurant
Here's where you can find her on TV:
Pocknett was on two episodes of the most recent season - 23 - of "Hell's Kitchen", which aired in 2024. She emphatically called herself a "Gordon Ramsey fan" in one of the episodes.
'He's fun, very fun. He's not that way at all,' Pocknett said in an interview with a Times reporter, of Ramsey's reputation for having a fiery temper.
She judged the semifinals, including food from a contestant who made it to the season finale, Hannah Flora, who worked on Martha's Vineyard.
Earlier in the season, she cooked lunch — pulled turkey on top of butternut squash bread — as part of a prize for episode 11's winning team.
"Getting to shake the hand of a James Beard Award-winning chef is just a dream come true," contestant Egypt Davis said in the episode.
"Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi" went to Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard for a Thanksgiving episode in 2021, "Truth and the Turkey Tale." After visiting Wampanoag Tribe members there, celebrity chef Lakshmi cooked Pocknett's stuffed sea bass with her at Pocknett's Charlestown, Rhode Island restaurant, Sly Fox Den, Too.
Pocknett and Lakshmi shared childhood stories of eating foods that were culturally different from their classmates' foods.
"I used to be embarrassed to have racoon and stuff like that for dinner," Pocknett said. "Going to school: 'What did you have last night?" 'I had raccoon.'"
Pocknett pulled a face and Lakshmi collapsed onto the table between them laughing.
"I'm laughing because I had a similar experience, but mine was dal and rice, which, you know, Indian food is not very attractive and smelly, too, so I can imagine .... "
Pocknett filmed an episode of 'Somebody Feed Phil,' slated to air in May, she said.
Also in May, she'll be in a feature with Yankee Magazine TV.
'That's going to be a fun one. My brother is in it and the tribal daycare and language school,' she said.
Alison Bosma added to this report.
Gwenn Friss is the editor of CapeWeek and covers entertainment, restaurants and the arts. Contact her at gfriss@capecodonline.com. Join the Cape Cod Times free Facebook group, Good Stuff at Cape Cod Restaurants, to share tips and participate in food polls.
Thanks to our subscribers, who help make this coverage possible. If you are not a subscriber, please consider supporting quality local journalism with a Cape Cod Times subscription. Here are our subscription plans.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod chef was semifinal judge on 'Hell's Kitchen,' other food TV
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