The chief stew and chef relationship is perhaps the most complicated and delicate working relationship on any yacht. Whether they work well together or not determines a lot about the success of the charter, the tip, and relations with the rest of the crew.
The careful balance between egos, job intensity, and adherence to guest specifications mounts pressure on the chief stew and chef’s working relationship, and how they handle that dynamic has gone famously bad in the past for some crew.
The drama that happens off the yacht also has a great effect on the connection between the two people in responsible leadership positions. Tensions that are exacerbated off the yacht have often taken a toll on the connection the chief stew and chef have in the galley.
Whether it has been situations of disrespect, misunderstandings, mistakes, or attitude problems, there have been plenty of Below Deck franchise relationships between the chief stew and the chef that have gone horribly wrong.
This list captures the ugly and dramatic rapport that some of the most memorable Below Deck cast members endured and that viewers had a hard time watching the dysfunction of.
1. Kate Chastain and Leon Walker
During Season 3 of Below Deck, Kate Chastain endeavored to keep her composure around what she found to be a combative attitude from chef Leon Walker. However, it proved to be an incurable struggle for both of them to be near each other let alone work in cohesion.
Kate was also underwhelmed by Leon’s repeated use of his beef cheeks dish and Leon had a short fuse when it came to Kate relaying the guest’s special requests.
Things came to a head when there was a fire in the galley after Leon had gone to bed and on Kate and Rocky Dakota’s watch. After investigations were launched, the incident was blamed on Leon by Captain Lee for not properly cleaning the oven which contributed to the grease fire. Leon vehemently blamed Kate for the dangerous incident.
That situation signaled the end of Leon’s employment on the yacht and he and Kate were arch-nemeses at that point.
2. Daisy Kelliher and Natasha De Bourg
Daisy Kelliher and Natasha De Bourg clashed professionally during Season 2 of Below Deck Sailing Yacht. Both women exhibited strong-willed independent attitudes in their leadership positions and often had disagreements and miscommunication because of it.
They also developed a lack of trust in one another after Natasha didn’t produce cotton candy from the machine for the guests despite assuring Daisy that she would make it happen. Daisy took the issue to Captain Glenn to get ahead of the negative comments that were coming their way and Natasha saw that as shady.
When the team got a bad tip, Daisy blamed Natasha which only exacerbated their tensions.
The feuding between the women has thawed now that they are not working together and they don’t have a problem with each other off the yacht
3. Hannah Ferrier and Mila Kolomeitseva
While Hannah Ferrier has a history of tension in the galley, her working connection with Mila Kolomeitseva was destined to be turbulent from the beginning when Mila could not produce food up to the superyacht quality it needed to be on Season 4 of Below Deck Med.
As a result of Mila’s subpar food, Hannah’s job pleasing the guests grew increasingly harder. In Hannah’s time on Below Deck Med, she tended to act out when someone wasn’t good at their job and her relationship with Mila was a classic example of Hannah’s fangs coming out at incompetency.
To top things off, Hannah brought news of the bad food and galley performance to Captain Sandy which compounded the already strained relationship.
Off charter, when Hannah learned of Mila’s openly homophobic stance from one of the other crew members she immediately started spreading the controversial gossip around the boat and pitting the crew against Mila.
Mila noticed that Hannah was trying to turn the other crew against her for her viewpoints and thought that Hannah’s behavior around the situation was childish. Mila was let go from the yacht shortly after that.
4.Jenna MacGillivray and Adam Glick
Jenna MacGillivray and Adam Glick quickly discovered their mutual attraction for one another during Season 1 of Below Deck Sailing Yacht, and they decided to act on their feelings.
When things were good between Jenna and Adam, both their work performances individually went well. But when Jenna and Adam were in the middle of one of their many fights, they both had a difficult time keeping up with the rigor of the job, and both the service and food quality diminished.
Jenna’s working relationship with her team Madison Stalker and Georgia Grobler, suffered from the beginning because her attention seemed to be solely focused on Adam, and growing angry when the stews below her could not guide themselves.
5. Hannah Ferrier and Adam Glick
Hannah Ferrier and Adam Glick worked together during Seasons 2 and 3 of Below Deck Med. It was never an easy relationship mostly due to both of their strong personalities and unrelenting opinions on how things should be done.
In Season 2, Adam’s defiance in maliciously putting onions in the guest’s soup after being told not to by the preference sheet and Hannah sent Hannah over the edge and Adam on the defensive.
Hannah and Adam continued to butt heads all season. Adam was attached to the idea that Hannah was lazy and went out of his way to tell Bugsy Drake, who was the second stew with chief stew experience at the time, that she would make a better chief stew than Hannah.
After Adam insulted her work ethic and established a pattern that she couldn’t trust him, Hannah was over trying to salvage the working relationship with him. Off charter, the pair shared a drunken kiss at one point before they had another falling out.
6. Kate Chastain and Kevin Dobson
Kate Chastain was rubbed the wrong way by chef Kevin Dobson after he tried to give orders and direction to her stewardesses on Season 7 of Below Deck. The service part of things continued to be the area where Kate and Kevin clashed the most.
Kate never missed an opportunity to throw shade at Kevin since he got on her bad side by stepping on her toes in the galley and tensions never subsided and only escalated situations ended up occurring after that.
On the job during the last charter, Kate purposely didn’t tell Kevin that the primary guest, who had requested an elaborate penis cake, went to bed. When he came out to debut the cake it became an awkward moment among the guests who were weirded out by it.
After learning that Kate intentionally set him up to fail Kevin felt sabotaged and carried it with him to their end-of-charter season beach celebration where he kicked sand in her face.
7. Hannah Ferrier and Ben Robinson
Hannah Ferrier and Ben Robinson worked together during Seasons 1 and 4 of Below Deck Med where they got on each other’s nerves repeatedly.
When they weren’t quarreling, they shared several moments of potential romance with the pair even going on a date together.
Their definitions and expectations for dinner service in Season 1 were famously different as Below Deck Med viewers saw during the course vs entree vs main fiasco that threw dinner service into chaos.
Ben also made a big deal out of being rushed by Hannah to pump out the dinner service instead of respecting his pace and communicating the timing with the guests during Season 4.
In the end, Hannah and Ben realized that they do not work well together but that they can get along when it didn’t involve work.
Are there any tense moments you can think of where the chief stew and chef had it out in the Below Deck franchise?
Below Deck airs Mondays at 8/7c on Bravo.