From Foster Homes to Top-Rated Chef: Integrity, Hustle, and Heart at World Food Championships

A bad fish shows up two hours into the final. Cameras are rolling, adrenaline is high, and the plan is crumbling. Chef James tosses the Opa in the trash, pivots to halibut, and tells the judges the truth. He misses the grand prize by a quarter of a point...and walks away with something he’ll never trade: a compass set to integrity.

We sit down with James at the World Food Championships to unpack how a career built on competition transformed into a life anchored in purpose. He traces his path from Miami to Hawaii, where the culture reshaped his leadership: listen first, care for the land, build your team, and measure success by the stage you create for others. That shift shows up everywhere, from bringing a Make-A-Wish teen onto the biggest cooking platform, to the way he runs high-volume catering with Michelin-level detail so the 3,001st plate still feels like the first. Along the way, he shares the designer-crafted chef coat that helped him find his voice again after losing both parents, a reminder that symbols can carry us through dark seasons.

The craft talk gets deliciously tactical: how to engineer surprise without gimmick (hello, pop-rock shrimp), why guests can taste an aggravated plate, and the simple equation that fuels his kitchen: fun translates to love, and love translates to flavor. We dig into mindset and language—“I can, I will”—and the gritty backstory of twelve foster homes before age five, proof that perseverance and perspective are skills you can train. Rapid-fire questions reveal the essentials (paring knife), the forever ingredient (lemongrass), the intimidating technique (sous vide), and the seat he calls the limo (expo), all wrapped in a mantra worth stealing: embrace the uncomfortable and run at it.

If you’re hungry for an honest, high-energy conversation about leadership, resilience, and food that lingers long after the plate is cleared, pull up a chair. Subscribe, rate, and share with a friend who needs a spark...then tell us: what brave swap would you make when the plan falls apart?

Welcome to the show! Burnt Hands Perspective

Chapters

• 0:00 Live From World Food Championships
• 1:31 Chef James’s Origin and First Win
• 2:24 The Opa Fiasco and Radical Honesty
• 3:59 Humility Learned in Hawaii
• 5:39 Purpose, Team, and Giving Back
• 8:04 The Designer Chef Coat Story
• 9:44 Loss, Recovery, and Regaining Voice
• 11:39 Competing to Grow, Not to Beat
• 13:54 From Foster Care to First Place
• 15:34 Mindset: I Will, I Can
• 17:09 Catering at Scale with Finesse
• 18:54 Joy, Hospitality, and Emotional Food

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:34

Here we are with a fucking phenomenal day today, coming right out of my mouth, excited. That's what happens when I get excited. You're really excited. Oh, yeah, I go right to it because that's how we do it. We're in the kitchen in most of our lives, and that's how we talk. Kristen, introduce us today.

SPEAKER_02: 0:47

All right, so we're getting ready. World food championships. I'm echoing what's in the background right now. We're in sync today, which is great.

SPEAKER_01: 0:53

It's live.

SPEAKER_02: 0:53

And they had a really cool thing here where they were doing this tasting and they brought in chefs that were previous winners of the competition. So you are a first place winner. So go ahead, introduce yourself and the accolades that kind of came along with this competition.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06

Awesome. Thank you for having me. I'm Chef James Abtikin, born and raised in Miami, head out to California. It took me to Hawaii, and that's why I got a phone call to do this World Food Championship. In 2016, knew nothing about it, and uh had two weeks to get my recipes together, fly to Orange Beach, Alabama, and figure it out. Did the top 20, got first place two days later, trying to figure out what I'm doing again, got first place again to top 10, and then it moved over to final table, freaking out like, where am I gonna get my OPA from?

SPEAKER_00: 1:35

Yeah, uh, it was it was so they give they give you uh back then and even now, they give you a subject basically. You show up, you cook, you don't expect to go to the finals, so you didn't have a plan B. Correct. You go to finals, and now they're gonna tell you, okay, this is what you're cooking this time, and here's your ingredients, and you're like, shit, right?

SPEAKER_01: 1:52

It's it it's uh well back then I had my menu picked out, but I wasn't thinking I'm gonna win. Yeah, and OPA was what I had picked. So I have to stick with that. So what's funny is the final table, I get the OPA flown in from five different directions, just throwing needles to see if anything sticks. And then my friend drives up halibut. The OPA shows up two hours into the four-hour final table, and it's shit. I'm I literally throw it into garbage in front of everybody. I know the film got that, and then all of a sudden I get in front of the judges and they're like, tell us about your OPA, and I'm like, Well, it was halibut. What happened was, and I missed the grand prize by uh 0.25 of a point, and I'm like, you know what? Integrity is so much better than Lion, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny. But I mean, it it the journey, it's about the people you meet, the brotherhood, the sisterhood, the family, um, the backstories. I always say the backstories are so much better than the actual story. It's it's what happens behind it, nobody ever hears about or sees.

SPEAKER_00: 2:47

Yes, the OPA, for instance. So there are people out there, and there are judges out there who will know halibut when they taste halibut. Yes. You know what I mean? So it's not that you're lying, Major, the integrity was real because you it made yourself look like a more knowledgeable chef than not. And that's what's important because you carry that on the rest of your life. Correct. And uh, we start when we're young, we start in the chef world, but we're still full of gumption. We have all these ideas about the competitions, and then we just want to be the best, and we want the people around us to know we're the best, and we compete and we compete and we compete. And we even compete with ourselves, right? Yes. We even tell ourselves when we're younger that we're actually better than we are. Am I wrong? That it happens. Yeah, yeah. It's not say you get hit in the head a couple times. Humility humbleness kicks in. That comes with time and knowledge and experience. Yes, right. When did you notice yourself as a chef getting humbled? What time frame is that in your chapters in your career?

SPEAKER_01: 3:35

It had to have been about 2010, but moving to Hawaii in 2012 changed me as a human being, a father, a chef. It taught me how to listen before I speak. It had to be taught me how to nurture, support, and empower a team, how to think differently, how to slow things down, but it really gave me humility and humbleness. What was it? What was the factor in that though?

SPEAKER_00: 3:55

Was it Hawaii as high? The culture, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 3:57

Your Juliana is your purpose to take care of the land, it goes without saying. You're a kumo right away, you're a teacher. And that humility and humbleness, it's not about being great, it's about your team being great. It's about others, it's selfless acts of others. And and that, I think, the spirit of giving back the philanthropy, the doing all those special events to support and help people. I brought a make a wish, Adrian Avalar, the next year in 2017. Instead of trying to focus on the whim, my whim was getting him in front of the large, bigot, the world's largest cooking stage. And when he went to interview me, I pushed him in front because I had my turn. But to see him like that was like chicken skin all over. To me, those wins are more powerful than holding a trophy, a ribbon, or saying, I did it.

SPEAKER_00: 4:41

Yeah, yeah. That's uh when when you know when you and I met him yesterday, yeah, the first vibe we got from you was that is that you want to that you want to put back. And I said, We gotta, we well, actually, she said we gotta talk to him. And I said, You're absolutely right. That'd be a great story because you have this charisma about you that it exceeds what's actually expected in the kitchen. In the kitchen, we talk a lot about the the you know, the cussing, the swearing, the yelling, the screaming. That all comes with stress. That that's not doesn't mean it's who we are. And it depends on what kitchen you're in, at what level that's gonna be, correct? Correct. How many people you're serving, what's going on, and what steps of service you have. That all those are all factor into the level of debauchery that comes out of your mouth and yelling and screaming and buffoonery and all that shit. So you have a somewhat of a zen about you that's contagious. You know what I mean? And I appreciate that. That's that's very important in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_02: 5:26

Yeah, and we notice because immediately with your chef coat, you when we asked about it, you have a special story about it. Obviously, it reflects the culture in Hawaii. So tell everybody what what happened and what that represents.

SPEAKER_01: 5:37

I I'm doing a dear friends uh breedment party, and it's about 250 people there. And about an hour before the event ended, this gentleman from uh this gentleman from Nicholas, rove re-enowned designer, did not know this at the time, comes up to me and starts talking shop with me. And he goes, I really like your chef coat. Do you mind if I take your chef coat? And he has he was so charismatic and so charming that I'm just like, here. And then I go up to my friend Helen, I'm like, Helen, I'm so embarrassed. I'm walking around your party with all these guests with a t-shirt. I I am so sorry. I gave my chef coat to that guy over there. She goes, Do you know who that is? And I go, No. And she told me he's a role Rionon designer, it's her cousin. She's like, You should be honored that he took your jacket. Now I feel like, okay, I feel I feel better. So I get an email like, hey, give me some pictures of your tattoos. And I told my wife, if this goes any further, it's gonna creepy. But but but I tell you what, I tell you what, two months later, I received this package in the mail, best gift I've ever got in my life, with a card, and his whole team hand drew everything on here from the pictures. It's a one-off. And he made silk in the inside. He goes, I want it to be a second skin for you and fluid. He goes, When I saw you, you were fluid in the kitchen, and I wanted something to resemble that, and tattoos are too beautiful to hide. And he goes, Anybody who helps my cousin Helen, I wanted to help you.

SPEAKER_02: 6:59

And I'm like, You're full tattoos, but externally, so over the show, which is so cool.

SPEAKER_01: 7:08

And now I can share my story with people instead of like, hey, underneath I gotta do it.

SPEAKER_02: 7:12

Yeah, here's what let me show you my nipple. It's okay.

SPEAKER_00: 7:16

So you're carrying this thing on with you whenever you need that inspiration, that fuel. I have my uh my my deal is my father was a chef, he passed away. I have his necklace, I carry that as my fuel when I'm doing these things. So I'm gonna go judge and be responsible for the outcome of some people's lives right now. And and after this recording, I'm going to do the final judging for that. And and I feel that I'm gonna have any influence I can have to help me come down in the Zen urine so I can make sure I don't fuck up their dream of what it is they're putting their work into, right? Make sure the proper thing. So we have what we need, and that seems to be yours.

SPEAKER_01: 7:49

You know, and I always say, but God puts people in our lives for certain reasons, and that day I really needed it. I did this at a very VIP event. It was interactive, cooking class, all that. I went through something dark in 2018. I lost my parents to suicide. I can talk about it now, coming out of the light. I dropped off the social media, that's why I stopped competing. And I came back in and um sorry, I lost my concentration there. Um when I put this coat on, I I I used to be charismatic in front of 300 people, just feeling like myself, and I was scared. And when I put this on, that energy came back in, and I and I called them immediately after that and I said, Thank you. You gave me my old self back. I I felt myself again. I was inspired, inspiring others.

SPEAKER_00: 8:33

And and I Well, I don't know who you were before, but I know who you are now, apparently, and that charisma is there. You know, it's uh you're charismatic, and it's really you have good.

SPEAKER_02: 8:42

You stopped competing, but you competed as well with the other show. So tell us about that because you had another competition that you did outside of the World Food Championships.

SPEAKER_01: 8:51

Um, so I've actually done several competitions, been on guys' grocery games, been on uh different things, but it the funny thing is, competitions for me, I'm not trying to beat another chef or say I'm better or I hold a title to something. I have a very um a backstory where I well, I was in 12 different foster holes by the age of four, and I was told I'd never melt anything, and I went learned to read or write like other kids because I was abused. But I took those lemons and made Tito style, Michelin style lemonade out of it, took those crutches that like gave me and made magic wands out of it, and just I have to work 10 times harder than everybody else. But I'm trying to be better than I was yesterday. I was trying to be a better version in my first part of my life because to know you can do something is very powerful when you're told you can't. And I think the recipe is somebody believes in you, you believe in yourself, you get a spark, you get inspired, you get motivated and driven with passion on something, you're freaking effing unstoppable. Because if there's a roadblock, I don't see doors and windows. I see opportunity, blow it up, dig a tunnel, go around it. I will be there. And then it's like military, right? It's done or not done. Nobody knows what happens behind the scenes. I could have a million great excuses why I can't do it. Nobody wants to hear that. So the fracture of what we do to ourselves mentally and physically to get there and smile like it's nothing. The backstory is that strength we gotta find within us to never give up, persevere. And and I called it Bill Bellamy. In 2008, I went on a uh food network catering. I'm talking to Bill Bellmy in a business um uh like little office after working, street clothes for an hour. He goes, by the way, what are you doing? I don't even know who he is. And he, I'm like, I'm trying to get on this food network thing. I got like uh two days to get all this stuff done. And he's like, dude, save your money, you already lost. I'm like, what? Turn around, I'm like, Bill Bellmy. He's like, yeah, and I'm like, you're right, cool, cool dude. And I go, what are you talking about? And he goes, use words like I will, I can. Those are powerful. Your mind's more stronger than your body. And I did that. And people go, How'd you win? And I go, I don't know. I wrote on God's shoulders and used words like I can and I will. We won by 54321. I see him the next week, I buy him and his entourage uh a beer, and I'm like, how can I ever repay you? And he goes, candlelight that shit. And I've been candlelighting that shit since 2008. Nice.

SPEAKER_02: 11:05

So you won, and that was Food Network. Which competition was that one?

SPEAKER_01: 11:08

It was a catering challenge. That was the catering challenge. They never had another one, so I hold the number one spot in the catering challenge.

SPEAKER_00: 11:12

You're there, you're gonna my advantage, you know. Yeah, I like that. So now you're catering now as a profession. That's what you do, and you have a catering company. So when you're catering, your company, what what is it? Your what numbers are you looking at? You doing anything between 50 people to 300? Where are you at at your level?

SPEAKER_01: 11:28

Um, I'm doing volume. We're doing about 350 right now, but the place is gonna be set up to do a thousand soon. So my background is high volume, sure, but I also spent time in the Michelin kitchens. So what I do is I take that Michelin standard of attention to detail, the hospitality, that high background and that finesse, and I do comfort food on steroids. So if I'm doing I I've done up the 3,000 and more. So if you're the 3,000 and one customer, you're gonna think I cooked from my kitchen, plated it to you within 10 minutes, as you were the first person or 3,000 and first person. It's so perfect. And it's all logistics, kind of strategy. People call it insanity. Why do you want to work that hard? When people come up to you and smile, that's why I want to work that hard.

SPEAKER_00: 12:10

Right, and I and people ask me that all the time, but I don't find it hard work. The hard work is when it's not coming together, like you said, behind the scenes and everything like that. But what drives us is that that energy and that the look on their face, and that last person getting their food smiling as big as the first, right? Yes. And you go to a lot of banquets, you go to a lot of facilities, you gotta go to weddings, and you can tell that the staff is burnt out. And how can you be burnt out? It's only one event. It's the first day of this event. I know people who do this three times a day and they're still putting out that power. You know what I mean? So if I'm going to a wedding and by the last dish comes to the table, and if you can tell it's a little tired, how can it be tired when this is all the only thing you had to do today in your life as a chef or in the restaurant industry? Correct. So it's frustrating being on this side of it, going to those events because we really know what goes on behind the scenes, and a lot of the times maybe it shouldn't have happened, but we can put those pieces together, right? 100%. And it helps us. Well, or does it help us? I don't know. Maybe maybe it doesn't. Your energy, everything you're doing is amazing, and and and we wanted you on the show, both of us, because of that. Because you just have to do it.

SPEAKER_02: 13:14

And and the shrimp was banging because that was good. Like literally pop it. Yeah, pop rocks on the show.

SPEAKER_01: 13:25

And I had so many people come up to me and I hid those pop rocks.

SPEAKER_02: 13:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 13:29

And I had a lady 30, I had a lady 30 minutes later come behind the wall and go, am I crazy? Was there a pop rock in there? Yeah, there's a pop rock in there. She goes to her husband, I told you there was a pop rock in there. The fact that somebody's talking about my dish 30 minutes later is why we do it. Exactly. Coming up here, there's this guy goes, by the way, I had your shrimp yesterday. What was that popping thing? And I go, Why did he goes, why did you do that? That's kind of weird, but I loved it. And I said, Because it's a day later and you're still talking about it. Right. Which is a good sweetness and did what I had to do. It did. And that's what I did. I substituted the sugar for that, kept it neutral, but I also evoked that emotion from you when you were a kid the first time you had a pop rock had excited. And so you have adults going, What? I had fun.

SPEAKER_02: 14:13

It's a party in your mouth.

SPEAKER_01: 14:16

But you gotta do it, it's already a mommy bomb explosion, so your brain's already trying to figure all that stuff out. Then you have an actual pop going off, so your brain's like a secondary going, What just happened? It was a cool layer. That was effective.

SPEAKER_02: 14:28

I can chase the Hawaiian, like I mean, that influences it. Yeah, it was it was beautiful. So that was one of our favorite things. So I have to say that.

SPEAKER_01: 14:34

So I I get asked this a lot, and I think the secret, I met somebody yesterday for the first time, and he had this aura about him. He had this passion about him, and he's had the medal. And I said, Did you make the top 10? He goes, I got first place. And I go, Of course you did. The secret weapon and ingredient is being driven, passion, but the fun, the most important is have fun. If you are having fun, that translates into love. Love is food and you feel it. It comes in your plate.

SPEAKER_00: 14:59

Hospitality is not something you do, it's something you feel. You can taste an aggravated dish. Thank you. And when it's aggravated, it's because it wasn't made with the fun, it wasn't made with love, and the passion became a job. And once it becomes a job is when it becomes aggravated. Hundred percent. When that plate comes out to you and it's just tastes aggravated, it brings you down. It doesn't bring you up.

SPEAKER_01: 15:18

I teach my teen to put different lenses on. Life is 10% what happens to us, 90% how we react, so make it a great one. If you see the glass, I go like this. I take a glass of half water, half air, and I'm like, guys, what is it? Half full, half empty. I get three answers. I'm like, get some full glass. They're like, what are you talking about? Half full of water, half full of air? To me, that's it's how your perspective. That's a full fucking glass.

SPEAKER_00: 15:40

Like go champion it, you know. Since you get asked questions all the time, we're gonna ask you a few right now.

SPEAKER_02: 15:44

So we have like rapid fire questions we've been asking everybody. So you can answer with like one one or two words on these, so we'll go through them. All right, besides a kitchen knife, what is your go tool? Can't live without kitchen tool.

SPEAKER_00: 15:56

Parry knife. I do everything with parry knife because it's a kid.

SPEAKER_02: 15:59

He's like he's not giving up on the knife.

SPEAKER_00: 16:01

Parry knife is a different tool, and not enough people use them. Guaranteed, not enough people use them. No.

SPEAKER_02: 16:08

What puts you in the mood more? Smell or visual?

SPEAKER_01: 16:12

Whoa.

SPEAKER_02: 16:13

Whoa. Uh for being visual.

SPEAKER_01: 16:16

I'm a visual. Visual cool.

SPEAKER_02: 16:19

All right, the worst position in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_01: 16:22

I would say dishwasher, but I it's therapeutic. I enjoy it. Yeah. But most people would say dishwasher.

SPEAKER_02: 16:27

Yeah. Best position in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_01: 16:29

Oh gosh, expand idea. You're in the limo, baby. That is the popular answer, by the way.

SPEAKER_02: 16:36

One ingredient you could never live without lemongrass.

SPEAKER_01: 16:39

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_02: 16:40

All right. Are there any methods of cooking that still intimidate you?

SPEAKER_00: 16:45

Sous-vine.

SPEAKER_02: 16:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 16:48

I've been waiting for someone to pull up. Nobody said it yet. We've waited for the same thing. What about like sous videos? They never say it. Because a lot of people don't do it, so they don't even know about it, right? Sous vide is intimidating.

SPEAKER_02: 16:58

For a guilty pleasure, favorite fast food restaurant.

SPEAKER_00: 17:01

In and out burger.

SPEAKER_02: 17:02

In and out burger. Alright, if you're if your kitchen was a car, what kind of car would it be?

SPEAKER_00: 17:07

A Ferrari.

SPEAKER_02: 17:09

We finally got a Ferrari. We're waiting.

SPEAKER_00: 17:11

We're gonna hold dump trucks, we had like everything.

SPEAKER_02: 17:16

We had all sorts of answers on that one. Okay, baking, yes or no?

SPEAKER_01: 17:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 17:20

Okay, first alright. Um, gloves or wash your hands. Wash your hands.

SPEAKER_01: 17:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 17:25

Perfect.

SPEAKER_02: 17:27

If you could cook with anyone, who would it be?

SPEAKER_01: 17:38

Oh, that's amazing. Um I didn't get to cook with Joe Robert Schoen when I was there, and he's not around, but I thought it would be my that would be my dream.

SPEAKER_00: 17:49

There's an intimidating factor. Yeah. Right? That'd be a little intimidating itself, wouldn't it? Yeah. I would feel that way just because of what that word's what those that name is, period. And everything he's brought to the culinary world. You have to be somewhat intimidated without being afraid. There's two different stories there. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01: 18:05

You know, I have this saying um that made me better as a chef six years ago. Embrace the uncomfortable and run at it. Because there's there's stuff that chefs that we give away to people, and that's why we're not good at everything. Because we're we never want to learn it, we don't like it, so we don't even try. But if you embrace that, you become an expert at it, even though you fucking scared out of your mind, you hate it. But embrace the uncomfortable, run at it, and grab onto it. And sooner or later, there's less things you fear in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_02: 18:30

I love it. Well, thank you, Chef James. It was awesome having you on.

SPEAKER_01: 18:33

To your lemongrass, I'm basil.

SPEAKER_02: 18:38

Where can everybody find you online?

SPEAKER_01: 18:40

Uh, Instagram, Facebook, uh James Aptican. I I don't have any fancy titles, just James Abdogan. All right.

SPEAKER_00: 18:47

Chef, thanks for your time. It's really a pleasure on here. Thank you. Catch us out here at the W uh World Food Championships, let's say it in full. Uh, we're having a great time meeting amazing people like this. Appreciate you. Chef, keep up the good work. We keep inspiring because you inspired me. I can't wait to get home and have that energy. I'm gonna bring it back to my kitchen. Thank you very much. Ciao for now. Love you. Keep the passion alive.