This Puyallup chef ‘lost everything.’ Now, she’s cooking with Gordon Ramsay
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kartes and her husband rebuilt food careers after 2011 restaurant closure and bankruptcy.
- Kartes competed on Season 5 of Next Level Chef after being selected in 2025.
- She writes cookbooks under Rustic Joyful Food; her husband runs its photography.
In 2011, Tacoma chef Danielle Kartes lost everything.
The restaurant she owned with her husband Mike at 604 Fawcett Ave, Mineola, shut down. Afterward, the couple had to file for bankruptcy. They lost their home and their cars.
Now, she’s a contestant on a national cooking show with Gordon Ramsay.
“I decided I would never cook again, but God had other plans, and he used that time in our lives to give us a completely new reboot and career,” Kartes told The News Tribune.
Kartes is one of 24 contestants on Season 5 of Next Level Chef, which first aired on Jan. 29 and will continue airing until mid-May.
The show includes three judges: Ramsay, Nyesha Arrington and Richard Blais. Chefs complete cooking challenges and are eliminated one after one until only one gets to don the title of The Next Level Chef.
Kartes and her husband, Mike, started their business Rustic Joyful Food in 2014 as a way to turn a new page after Mineola’s closure. She described Rustic Joyful Food as a “boutique, food photography and lifestyle company.”
The couple — who now live in Puyallup — have different roles in the business. Her husband, Mike, takes photos and videos of food for magazines, publishers and publications, while Kartes writes cookbooks under the name.
Since 2016, Kartes has made several appearances on The Rachel Ray Show, Pickler & Ben, The Kelly Clarkson Show and The Today Show.
“I had no idea that when we opened that restaurant it was going to give way to this incredible career that we enjoy now,” Kartes said.
Next Level Chef
Kartes first applied to compete on Next Level Chef in April 2025.
“The fine folks at Fox reached out to me and invited me to apply for Gordon Ramsay’s show because I do work on television and I have a pretty robust social media presence and I said, ‘OK, you know what? I’m up for the task,’” Kartes said.
In August, she found out that she had been selected — a statistically rare chance, because Fox told her there were 12,000 applicants vying for 48 spots in two separate seasons.
“I was very excited and very nervous because I’m about to be 44 years old and these competitions are for young kids,” Kartes said. “... What if I get on there, and these people are making a mushroom out of a piece of sirloin and then rehydrating it? I’m not a molecular gastronomy chef by any means, and what if this is what they’re looking for?”
Despite her fears, Kartes went into the show determined to give it the best chance she had.
“On the flip side, I was like, ‘I’m just going to go and make the food that I know and it’s going to turn out incredible,’” Kartes said.
The show’s set is divided into three kitchens, top to bottom:
- The top level kitchen, with state-of-the art equipment that Michelin-level chefs use.
- The mid-level kitchen, which is supposed to represent a standard commercial kitchen.
- The bottom level, known as “the basement,” with lower-quality equipment.
Each season starts with 24 chefs and the chefs complete cooking challenges until nine of them have been eliminated. Once there are 15 chefs remaining, they are divided into three teams of five – one team for Ramsay, Arrington and Blais, respectively.
Kartes was on Arrington’s team.
At this stage of the show, the chefs host regular cooking challenges with a platform that stretches from the top kitchen to the bottom. Contestants have 30 seconds at the start of each round to collect ingredients.
“If you lose a challenge [and end up in the basement], you have to make beauty out of these garbage ingredients — you have to make something gorgeous and palatable out of the leftovers on the platform,” Kartes said.
Chefs then have 45 minutes to complete the cooking challenge, and are eliminated one by one.
“In the team version, you’re all sort of working together to make sure that someone on your team has the top dish, because then you’re saved from elimination and you work on the top level on the next challenge,” Kartes said.
When there are only seven people remaining, they compete individually until only one remains.
She said Fox filmed the fifth season in Ireland last fall. The News Tribune asked her how long she was in Ireland, and Kartes said her contract with Fox won’t allow her to say when and how long she was filming because it will spoil the season.
Kartes said that she is not usually “a star-struck person” because of how often she encounters celebrities on the job — but this was not the case with Ramsay.
“Gordon Ramsay’s different because he works on my craft, that made me feel a little more intimidated. ‘Here comes Gordon Ramsay, and I hope that when he tastes my food, it’s not trash, that he’s not disappointed, that he doesn’t flip a plate or cuss me out,’” Kartes said. “But the thing about Gordon Ramsay is he is so kind and measured in person. When you meet him, all of those fears about what could happen completely went away and he does make you feel very comfortable and confident in your cooking ability, which is something I wasn’t expecting.”
One of the best things about being on the show, Kartes said, was being able to grow as a chef. She used the example of a gastrique, which is a French sauce with sugar and vinegar.
“I’ve never made a gastrique before the show and let me tell you, your girl knows how to make a gastrique,” Kartes said with a hearty laugh. “I don’t even know if I could tell you what a gastrique was before the show and now, you know what? I can make a gastrique in my sleep.”
Earlier this year, Kartes went on The Today Show and The Kelly Clarkson Show to promote her appearance on Next Level Chef.
Next Level Chef airs on Fox at 8 p.m. every Thursday and streams on Hulu the next day.
The beginnings of Rustic Joyful Food
Kartes’ restaurant, Mineola, had lines stretching out the door. The News Tribune wrote about the restaurant’s opening in 2009, describing it as “a rustic wine bistro with a kick-back vibe.”
But in 2011, they were forced to close when she became pregnant with their son, Noah, and developed preeclampsia – a condition that involves dangerously high blood pressure.
As a result, Kartes wasn’t able to serve as the chef during her nine months of bed rest – and that was a fatal blow to the business.
In 2011, Mike put an ad on Craiglist, and the couple sold the last of what they had.
“I remember… people just coming in and buying everything that was in the restaurant, and we made $10,000 and Mike brought home all the rest of the wine and all the pound cakes in the freezer, and we just cried on our bed like it was the end of an era,” Kartes said. “We made $10,000 and paid it directly to the State of Washington for our sales tax and never looked back.”
The couple moved to Issaquah to be closer to Mike’s new job, which involved delivering bread at night. Kartes went back to her old job as a makeup artist and swore her days as a chef were over.
“We were so broke and I had this tiny little baby,” Kartes said. “Noah was 16 weeks old when I went back to work and that was really, really difficult – just working and having a brand new baby.”
Noah refused to eat the baby food that Kartes would buy for him – except for a specific pouch she bought at $2 apiece, which mostly consisted of roasted plums and zucchini. To save money, she started making it herself, and she realized she missed cooking.
Then, she set her eyes on a new dream: to write a cookbook. Meanwhile, Mike was starting to teach himself photography.
In 2014, Kartes wrote her first cookbook, “My Heart’s Table,” and self-published it under the name “Rustic Joyful Food.”
“I needed a name and I was like: ‘What do I do? I make rustic food and I make joyful food.’ And then I just started calling it Rustic Joyful Food,” Kartes said. “It just sticks and it’s funny too – even in Next Level Chef, all the contestants, they would find out I had social media, learn what I did, and they’d be like, ‘Come on, Rustic Joyful!’”
She made her first TV appearance on New Day Northwest, a morning talk show in Seattle, in 2013. In December 2016, she made her first national television appearance on The Rachel Ray Show to promote her book.
The Rachel Ray Show didn’t pay for their tickets to New York, Kartes said, so the family was living off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches she made for the trip.
“I remember at one point, Rachel raised my hand up and said, ‘I love this girl because she knows what it’s like to choose between toilet paper and potatoes,’” Kartes said.
What’s next for Rustic Joyful Food?
Over the years, the business has become a success.
In 2017, Kartes self-published her second cookbook, “Generations,” before finding a publisher in 2018. Now, she has written 14 books in 15 years.
“Mike [became] a photographer, he is completely self-taught, and now he is award-winning and highly sought after. People love his videography and just the way that his mind works and the way that he presents his art is so inspiring to me,” Kartes said. “So, we make the best team. He’s like the gas and I’m the hype, and we just work it together.”
In 2020, the couple moved from Issaquah to Puyallup to be closer to family during the pandemic – but the business keeps them traveling frequently. They have hosted workshops around the country, and Kartes also does private chef work for various athletes and celebrities.
“I was backstage [at The Today Show] with my kids a couple months ago and Tyra Banks is just patting on my son’s head saying, ‘We should get you some ice cream,’ because she’s promoting her ice cream stuff,” Kartes said. “And it’s like, this is such a crazy life that I’m living.”
Now, they have their sights set on more projects.
Kartes told The News Tribune she and her husband are eyeing a purchase of the Alderton General Store near the intersection of 96th Street East and state Route 162. It has a Puyallup address, but lies in the unincorporated community of Alderton, between Sumner and Orting.
“We’re working toward purchasing the Alderton General Store … and reviving that 155-year-old store. It’s basically just been rotting for the last six years and we’re bringing that back and adding and bringing that grocery store back to life,” Kartes said. “It’s been going on for the last six to eight months, we were making strides forward and I’m excited.”
She emphasized that it’s not a restaurant, though it will serve food.
“It’s going to be a market that serves food, that whole gourmet grocery store,” Kartes said. “[We’re] settling down in the Orting Valley, I’m so excited to see how things grow.”
The couple also launched a wine business, French for Water. Their wine will be sold in Costco stores across Washington state soon.
Kartes will also be releasing a memoir, “Overcooked and Underdone,” in the spring of 2027.
‘Joy can exist amidst any sorrowful experience’
Kartes said that at the end of the day, Rustic Joyful Food is about bringing hope and joy through food and photography. She said after Mineola’s closure, the business saved her marriage to Mike and gave both of them a renewed sense of purpose.
“It’s been one foot in front of the other — spreading hope and joy and that life is good today, not if, or when, it gets good,” Kartes said. “Life isn’t good when your marriage is perfect, life isn’t good only when you have a pantry full of food. Life can be good today and joy can exist amidst any sorrowful experience”
What would she tell herself if she could go back to 2011?
“Don’t give up, don’t despair,” Kartes answered. “Because it’s going to get really good.”
This story was originally published March 2, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
