Adrienne Cheatham
Trained at Le Bernardin before running kitchens for Marcus Samuelsson, including Streetbird and Red Rooster in Harlem, and finished runner-up on a national seas...
“I hate things that only have one use.”
The Chef's Cut · Food & Beverage · August 2026
The two chefs were working through a list of kitchen gear, and the garlic press had just come up for judgment. Cheatham's answer was that a microplane, a grater or a knife already covers the job, and that a press earns no space in a New York kitchen. She applies the same rule a few minutes later to the air fryer.
Transcript
My problem is that. Do other people in my house use
it?
I don't think people need it. If you have a microplane, if you have a grater, if you have a knife, I hate things that only have one use. A garlic press has no other use, so it can't take up space in my kitchen. Get out of here. What you got next?
This one I know everybody is wondering what you guys think about. We have the workhorse, the air fryer.
Okay. People are going to hate me. And I don't have one. So I can't really speak on it, but I have no problem turning my oven to 475. It's an air fryer is essentially just a very hot, very small convection oven. So, I mean, I get it. You're not heating up your whole. House. It's not going to get as…
listen, I
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