Philadelphia Weekly

Adam Gertler is sitting on one of the biggest secrets in town.

Thirty-one-year-old Gertler--restaurant server, karaoke enthusiast and actor--was a finalist in The Next Food Network Star, which debuts on Sunday. Joining him in representing the Delaware Valley is Aaron McCargo Jr., 36, a Camden native and executive catering chef at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

The pair, known as "The Beast From the East," signed onto the reality TV show along with eight other finalists hoping to wow the judges with on-screen charm, wit and cooking skill. During the competition, the group isn't allowed access to cookbooks, recipes, TV or the Internet. The winner receives a six- episode cooking show on the network.

Is the next Food Network star from Phillytown? No spoilers here--we're just serving up dinner from the grill.

Gertler and McCargo flaunt their talents at Gertler's South Philly apartment. The ambience is kind of like a college dorm: The Rolling Stones blaze across a gigantic flat-screen TV in the living room, a DJ turntable sits in the corner and we're eating dinner off paper plates served on fluorescent pink dollar-store trays. In the kitchen the two demonstrate their markedly different cooking styles.

Wearing a crisp white chef's uniform embroidered with his name, McCargo preps pencil-thin asparagus spears. His mise en place is pristine and orderly. In focused, efficient steps he prepares a barbecue chicken melt wrap with bacon and cheddar served alongside grilled vegetables and a creamy chipotle goat cheese lemon dipping sauce.

Gertler proceeds in an opposite fashion. In his tie-dyed apron and Batman shirt he's a whirl of energy as he mashes honey butter, roasts corn and tends to smoking rib-eye steaks out back. "He's kitchen chaos," says McCargo. "But the brother knows his smoking, barbecue and booze."

"He prays for me with his Bible," says Gertler, "and I'm Jewish."

When McCargo is asked whom he'd most like to cook a meal for, he replies, "God. There's no one on this earth that I've got to impress, or who impresses me."

Clearly McCargo aims to serve a higher purpose through his food. When not envisioning the Camden waterfront restaurant he hopes to open one day, McCargo is preparing tofu shakes for dysphasia patients or catering hospital events. He has three kids, so Hollywood seems low on his list of priorities.

Gertler, on the other hand, is a self-declared jester. He's loud and confident, and comfortably sports the optimal amount of hair gel befitting a TV personality.

In Gertler's "Finalist Profile" on the Food Network website, he speaks in passing of the Smoked Joint: A Barbecue Experience, a well-received Center City restaurant where he was the executive chef.

"As a business, we were not a success," says Gertler vaguely on tape. Probe further and herein lies one of the most astonishing, hilarious restaurant- owning stories I've come across. It involves a 24-hour around-the-clock illegal meat-smoking operation, an 18-foot chimney attached to a Home Depot shed, a series of chainsaws and armies of students cutting entire chicory trees, the fire chief, vehicle repossession, rancid meat and a collective mental breakdown by a group of well-meaning childhood friends. Tough stuff. Participating in the show has been Gertler's therapeutic reentry into the world of cooking.

It's clear he's suffered battle wounds that have made him all the stronger and instilled the type of humor in him that comes only from having lived through catastrophe. Here's hoping the Food Network tuned into the life stories of both of these men, resisted the urge to scrub them clean and let the grit of Camden and the smoke of a Roxborough shed shine through.

Sun., June 1, 10pm. Food Network. www.foodnetwork.com