THE SURFING CHEF: STEVE GELLAS

By John Streit. Photos by (credit)

While Steve Gellas has the utmost respect for celebrity chef and television host Anthony Bourdain, something seemed amiss as he watched one of his “No Reservations” episodes a couple of years back.

“Between the actual food portion of the show, he would go out into the local area and get into 20 minutes of whatever,” said Gellas, a Suffolk resident, award-winning chef and lifelong surfer. “It was all really filler stuff. It just wasn’t working for me.”

That’s when the light bulb went off in Steve’s head —  or better yet, a groundswell of inspiration. How about traveling around the world to premier surf destinations to experience culture through local ingredients and the surfers that live there, all while documenting the action for a television show? After all, with surfing being an athletic pursuit, the connection between the surfer and what fuels him or her — food — is a natural and neccesary one.

Just like that, the “Surfing Chef” television program was born, though it would take an unlikely social media connection with professional surfing superstar Jamie O’Brien before the project would come to fruition. Then a newcomer to Twitter, Steve saw a tweet from O’Brien that prompted a challenging response

“I saw Jamie tweeted out one day that Red Bull (Jamie’s main sponsor) and something else was the breakfast of champions,” Steve said with a laugh. “I immediately tweeted back that the real breakfast of champions was Budweiser and Wheaties.”

From there, the future Surfing Chef TV partners began communicating back and fourth. Steve soon learned that O’Brien was extremely interested in cooking, and with Steve coming from a championship pedigree similar to O’Brien’s North Shore accomplishments in the restaurant world, the table was set for Steve’s vision to become reality. After pitching the idea to the San Diego-based production company Horvath Group, the project finally had the support needed to begin filming.

Steve brought a lengthy and accomplished resume to the North Shore for the project’s filming period during the 2014 Vans Triple Crown of Surfing. Gellas has won nearly every imaginable award in the Hampton Roads culinary scene at his former restaurants Primo 116 and Pisces; including multiple Hampton Roads Magazine Platinum Plate awards and a Best Tasting Dish award from Taste of Hampton Roads with Pisces in 2006. He’s also enjoyed teaching culinary arts at the Art Institute of Virginia Beach.

But filming for television was outside of Steve’s comfort zone — at first.

“We were at the Reef Hawaiian Pro shooting the intro to the show, and I kept flubbing up my lines. Jamie chimed in with, ‘Hey grom, are you gonna get this?!’ Steve said. “By the end of the week, he was the one flubbing up lines, so I shot that line right back at him!”

Steve said the chemistry between him and J.O.B. was awesome throughout the shooting of the show, which is currently in the editorial process of producing an eight-minute pilot to shop to the likes of the Travel Channel and Food Network.

The project also displays the contrast in the partner’s professional prowess. O’Brien, who charges some of the heaviest and most dangerous waves on the planet, was nervous about cooking in front of the lens. Fortunately, J.O.B. proved to be a quick study as the show filmed from several local eateries and at O’Brien’s father’s North Shore abode.

But just as Steve pushed Jamie in the kitchen, Jamie pushed Steve in the powerful Hawaiian surf.

“We’re standing there looking at Pipe, and he’s like, ‘It looks pretty mellow, right?’ Steve said of the 4- to 6-foot Hawaiian conditions of the day. Needless to say, 4- to 6-foot Hawaiian packs much more of a punch than the everyday conditions Steve surfs in Virginia Beach. The session resulted in a trip over the falls and a painful impact into the reef. This was Steve’s “Welcome to the North Shore” moment. After that, Steve found his groove with the Pacific power and ended up having some memorable sessions along the Seven-Mile Miracle.

“The next time we went back out to Pipe, Jamie pushed me into a big set wave, and I got wiped out again,” said Steve, who is currently the executive chef at Chesapeake’s Off the Hook. “But I got back on the board and ended up making a few good ones! We got some where we were surfing around each other and just having fun in the surf. It made for great video!”