Chef Brittanny Anderson appears on ‘Last Bite Hotel’

The premise of “Last Bite Hotel” takes eight chefs to a remote, high-end hotel where they serve finicky VIP guests and are judged on their culinary execution by a rotating panel of guest judges.

The meals the VIPs request are made from a mere 13 ingredients the contestants brought with them to the set last April, when the series was filmed, that had to last for the two weeks of filming. The show is hosted by Emmy-nominated actor, musician and writer Tituss Burgess, who serves as the darkly quirky hotel manager. The winner takes home $25,000.

Richmond chef Brittanny Anderson (also of Bravo’s “Top Chef”) participated in the six-episode series. She’s the owner of Metzger Bar and Butchery (801 N. 23rd St.), Brenner Pass (3200 Rockbridge St. #100), Black Lodge (3200 Rockbridge St. #101) and the temporarily closed Pink Room (803 N. 23rd St.).

She said, “Among the 13 items, I brought a whole suckling pig, a whole striped bass, fennel, cabbage, eggs, lemons, Calabrian chilies, anchovies, heavy cream. It was literally all we had to cook with for two weeks, so you had to preserve it, and really be creative and resourceful with your ingredients.”

She took a few months to plan out what she’d be bringing with her to the show.

“I thought about it for a long time because I wanted to have things that were really versatile, that you could use in multiple ways,” Anderson said. “With the fish, I knew I could cure it, serve it raw, I could cook it, I could utilize the skin, I could make stock with the head. This is a big part of why I chose the pig as well because it has so many parts.

“You have pig ear, pig tail, pig fat, we have lean meat on it as well and can make a great stock. Additionally, we had cream — I knew I could make butter with the heavy cream, I could make buttermilk. I could utilize straight heavy cream or whip it if I needed to make some sort of dessert. It was really about versatility, and I wanted ingredients that I could use in a lot of ways, and also ones that have big flavor punches.”

The logistical end of bringing 13 ingredients in a trunk was handled by the production team.

“They shopped for you,” she said. “They ordered it all, and we were allowed to be very specific about what we wanted. If there was a specific brand or something like that, they got us those specific brands. They ordered everything for us; the culinary team was fantastic.”

Anderson is not about to give any spoilers, though. She said, “I don’t think I can say everything I cooked because that would give away what episode I made it to or am on. The coolest thing was that I did get to utilize a lot of my ingredients and get to do things in different ways. I had to sign some (stuff) and I can’t talk about what I cooked.”

Working with the cast and the other contestants was something that made Anderson’s experience in a cooking competition a lot less stressful.

“Tituss is really, really kind and very considerate of others as chefs and contestants,” she said. “Luckily for me, I did know some of the contestants already. Byron Gomez was on the same season I was on of ‘Top Chef,’ and Nini (Nguyen) was also on ‘Top Chef,’ so we had hung out a couple of times. It was nice to have friends on the show, especially this kind of show which does have some twists and turns where you can help your friends, it was a good benefit.”

The show premieres on the Food Network on Tuesday at 9 p.m. before it starts streaming on Max the following day.