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| Hell’s Kitchen Season 25: Where Are the Chefs Now? Updates on All Contestants. |
Hell’s Kitchen Season 25 put an unusually young group of cooks through Gordon Ramsay’s famously unforgiving kitchen, with all 18 contestants aged 25 or under. Now that the pressure of service, eliminations and Ramsay’s increasingly creative vocabulary are behind them, the chefs have gone in very different directions. Some have stayed firmly in professional kitchens, while others are balancing private-chef work, restaurants, entrepreneurship, content creation and even careers outside food. Here’s where the Hell’s Kitchen Season 25 chefs are now, based on the latest information available.
Aiden Ricklef has perhaps taken the phrase “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” a little too seriously. The California native first built an audience on TikTok in 2019 before moving into modelling, working with brands including Calvin Klein. Acting followed, and by 2022 he was pursuing professional work while studying economics. He later pressed pause on university to launch Sunshine and Semolina, a pop-up restaurant that turned his interest in food into something considerably more tangible than a social-media hobby.
Ricklef also became a co-owner of Two Top Productions in 2025 and has worked as an actor-producer on two films. In January 2026, he resumed his studies at California State University, Long Beach, while continuing to build his career. By March, he had also taken on the role of Chef de Partie at Dudley Market Venice. At 22, he is somehow juggling acting, producing, university, restaurants and travel. Most people struggle to keep one calendar under control.
Diego Sanchez has taken a much more straightforward route through the culinary world. Growing up in Allen Park, Michigan, he developed an interest in food early and taught himself cooking techniques before working in restaurants while still at school. After graduating in 2023, he committed himself to the industry full-time. He now works as a Line Cook at Grey Ghost in Detroit, a restaurant known for its cuts and cocktails.
Sanchez has repeatedly credited the people around him for helping him get this far, particularly his family, girlfriend Riley Vargas and his colleagues at Grey Ghost. His workplace also supported his decision to compete on Hell’s Kitchen, allowing him time away before welcoming him back afterwards. For a young chef trying to establish himself, having a restaurant willing to let you disappear into Ramsay’s kitchen and then return without pretending nothing happened is not exactly a bad perk.
Dylan Duffy remains closely tied to Milwaukee’s restaurant scene. Raised in Bay View, Wisconsin, he started working in food at just 16, taking a Shift Lead position at Krieg’s Lakeside Bakery in 2020. He later worked at Outpost Natural Foods Cooperative before joining Lupi & Iris, where he eventually became a Senior Line Cook. Alongside his restaurant experience, he studied Chef Training and Culinary Arts at Milwaukee Area Technical College and completed the programme in 2024.
Duffy continues working at Lupi & Iris and has also been involved in the development of Il Ponte, which soft-launched in September 2026. Away from the kitchen, the 22-year-old is a keen traveller and recently visited Norway and Iceland. He is also a cat dad, proving once again that culinary professionals apparently need to maintain a second career as full-time servants to animals.
Gabriel “Gabe” Cerease has already built one of the more substantial culinary résumés among the group. His connection to Barbados, Jamaica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has been an important part of his relationship with food, while his formal training came through Johnson & Wales University. He began working professionally at International Smoke in 2019 before moving through positions including Sous Chef and Executive Sous Chef.
Cerease later worked as an Executive Chef across several restaurant concepts, including Gekkō, the Japanese-inspired steakhouse in Miami’s Brickell area associated with David Grutman and Bad Bunny. His next major move is tied to 1123 Miami, a West African and Asian fusion steakhouse led by Tobias Dorzon. At 25, Cerease is set to serve as Executive Chef ahead of the restaurant’s planned November 2026 opening, giving him a particularly busy period ahead.
Georgiana Pahon has kept much of her professional life relatively private, but her journey to the American culinary scene is distinctive. She grew up in an orphanage in Botoșani, Romania, before moving to the United States in the early 2020s and settling in Kansas City, Missouri. She built experience through apprenticeships and appears to have worked at Rye Leawood before winning the American Culinary Federation’s John Joyce Culinary Challenge in November 2022.
Pahon later appears to have worked at The Saddle & Sirloin Club in Kansas City. More recently, the 24-year-old has been associated with private wine dinners at a local establishment. She has not made every detail of her career public, which makes reconstructing her professional path something of a culinary detective exercise, but her trajectory continues to centre on food, travel and private dining.
Haley Moss entered Hell’s Kitchen with something to prove beyond simply surviving dinner service. She wanted to challenge the idea that a woman cannot combine an interest in beauty, family life and a serious professional kitchen career. Since September 2023, she has worked as a Personal and Private Chef, turning the pleasure she found in cooking for friends and family into a business.
Moss also completed an Associate’s degree in Culinary Management through Valencia College’s culinary programme in 2025. Since then, her work has expanded into recipe development, testing, content creation and culinary-focused work. The 26-year-old is also raising her daughter, Elaina Sophia, with her long-term partner Chandler Ranonis. In other words, Moss has managed to turn Hell’s Kitchen into just one part of a much larger life rather than the final destination.
Jeyda Brooks remains focused on improving her craft in Houston. She entered Season 25 with less professional experience than many of the other contestants, but her willingness to learn became a major part of her story. Her culinary background is largely self-taught, and she appears to have discovered her commitment to the industry relatively recently compared with some of her peers.
At 24, Brooks works as a Line Cook at a Houston restaurant while continuing to develop her online portfolio. She keeps much of her personal life private, but her professional ambition is clear. She has spoken about wanting to represent neurodiverse people within the culinary industry and continuing to develop the confidence and skills she once struggled to see reflected in mainstream media.
Jonathan “Jonny” Gudino’s culinary story began at home. Originally from Kenscoff, Haiti, he was adopted when he was young, and he credits his mother with teaching him to cook when he was seven. His upbringing and multicultural background eventually led him to the Chef Training programme at Grand Rapids Community College’s Secchia Institute for Culinary Education.
Gudino graduated with an Associate’s degree in 2024, but he had already started building his own business before then. In 2022, he launched Meals By John, offering personal and private-chef services to individuals and corporate clients. Today, the 23-year-old continues to run the company while working as a Banquet Chef at ResLife Church near Wyoming, Michigan. It is a fairly busy combination, but then again, Hell’s Kitchen was hardly designed for people who enjoy having free time.
Joy Shi has followed a less conventional route into private-chef work. Raised in a Chinese-American family in Washington DC, she initially faced doubts about whether cooking could realistically become a career. She nevertheless earned a Bachelor’s degree in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management from the University of Delaware in 2022, with a minor in Event Management.
Her early professional experience included working as a Pizza Artisan at Snap Custom Pizza, followed by positions in leasing, events and hospitality. She later returned to Washington DC to work at Little Pearl before relocating to Alexandria, Virginia. The 26-year-old now works as a Private Chef, while also speaking openly about mental health and OCD. Outside work, she remains close to her siblings and enjoys travelling and attending sporting events with her boyfriend Josh Dabek. Their latest trip took them to Morocco in September 2026.
Kylie Budich has stayed on a distinctly fine-dining path. The New Jersey native began specialising in baking and pastry during her teenage years before attending the Culinary Institute of America, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Food Studies in 2022. Her experience included an internship at New York’s Crown Shy, followed by a Dining Room Manager role with Charlie Palmer Collective.
She then stepped into the kitchen at SAGA New York, working as a Chef de Partie at the two-Michelin-starred restaurant from January to November 2023. After relocating to Fort Lauderdale, she worked at MAASS Restaurant at the Four Seasons before moving into roles connected to Pier Top, Calusso and Sotogrande at the reimagined Pier Sixty-Six Resort. At 25, Budich remains firmly committed to professional hospitality, even as she and her family have dealt with the loss of her grandfather in 2026.
Serenity “Reni” Lee has something very specific driving her career: she wants her four-year-old daughter to see that ambition can become reality. The Cincinnati-based chef is the founder, owner and CEO of Chef Reni’s Cuisine LLC, a business providing catering, menu curation and private-chef services. She has also taken on clients beyond Cincinnati, extending her work across state lines when opportunities arise.
Her professional training has brought some notable milestones. Lee was named ACF Student Chef of the Year in 2025 and won the American Culinary Federation’s John Kinsella Classic Competition that same year. At 25, she is combining business ownership with motherhood while continuing to establish herself as a professional chef. For Lee, Hell’s Kitchen looks less like an endpoint and more like another item on an already crowded résumé.
Valentin Royo has combined culinary training with a strong interest in hospitality management and business. Originally from Mendoza, Argentina, he grew up in Texas and graduated from Seven Lakes High School before attending the University of Houston. Along the way, he worked across several restaurants, including Pizza Fino, Ai Fiori, Mastro’s Restaurants, Fierro and The Bastion Collection.
Royo also earned a culinary diploma from the Culinary Institute LeNotre in 2023 while continuing his university studies. After graduating from the University of Houston in May 2026, the 22-year-old moved into a Sous Chef role at KatyRing while considering his next career move. His experience gives him options across both the kitchen and hospitality sides of the business, which could prove useful as he decides where to take his career next.
Looking across the Season 25 cast, the interesting part is that there is no single post-Hell’s Kitchen template. Some contestants have remained in restaurant kitchens, others have moved into private dining or entrepreneurship, while several are combining food with completely different creative careers.
That feels particularly fitting for a season built around younger chefs, because being 25 or under leaves plenty of room for a career to change direction several times. And frankly, anyone who can survive Ramsay shouting across a kitchen probably deserves a reasonably flexible CV.
There is also something refreshing about the fact that the contestants have not all treated television exposure as the finish line. Aiden Ricklef is mixing acting, producing and food; Gabe Cerease is heading towards a new restaurant opening; Reni Lee is building her own company; Kylie Budich remains rooted in high-end hospitality; and several others are steadily developing their careers away from the spotlight. Hell’s Kitchen may have provided the pressure cooker, but what happens afterwards is far more individual.
My take is that Season 25’s most interesting legacy may not ultimately be about who performed best under Gordon Ramsay’s watch. The bigger story is how differently these young chefs are defining success afterwards. Some are chasing restaurant careers, some are building businesses, and others are treating cooking as one part of a wider creative life.
That makes the “Where are they now?” question more interesting than simply checking whether everyone is still wearing chef whites. A few have clearly found their lane, while others are still experimenting, which is probably exactly what you would expect from a group this young. The real test now is whether they can keep growing when there is no Ramsay standing nearby telling them to hurry up.
For viewers who followed Hell’s Kitchen Season 25, these updates offer a useful snapshot of what happened after the cameras stopped rolling. But careers in food rarely stay still for long, so these chefs could look very different again in another year. Which contestant’s post-show career interests you most, and whose next move would you like to see covered?