If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

That adage holds particularly true on Hell’s Kitchen, Fox’s hit reality show cooking competition. Each season, chefs from across the country “leave their pleasantries at the door” to endure celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s “hellishly intense culinary academy, including a series of grueling challenges and dinner services.”

On the sixteenth season – premiering September 23 at 8pm on Fox – Traverse City chef Kim Ryan will be one of the eighteen contestants competing for a $250,000 grand prize and a head chef position at Yardbird Southern Table & Bar at The Venetian Las Vegas.

A graduate of Michigan State University’s hospitality program and the Culinary Institute of Michigan, 31-year-old Ryan first started her cooking career with The Cooks’ House in Traverse City. “I reached out to a lot of people trying to get a job (after culinary school), and no one took me seriously,” she says. “They told me I’d be a great little hostess, or a waitress. But Jen (Blakeslee) and Eric (Patterson) love taking in young chefs…Jen became my mentor. I couldn’t have asked for a better restaurant to start at.”

Following her training at The Cooks' House, Ryan helped launched Om Café in Traverse City (now closed) and had stints at Black Star Farms and The Filling Station Microbrewery. All were experiences she says woud later help her on Hell's Kitchen. Today, Ryan works in the kitchen with chef James Bloomfield at Alliance in the Warehouse District.

Somewhere along her journey, Ryan says she began feeling “stuck.” It was then she auditioned for Hell’s Kitchen. “I saw the application online and thought, ‘What is there to lose?’” she recalls. “I filled out this billion-page questionnaire, and thought I’d never hear anything about it. The very next day I got a call asking if I could come to Detroit for an on-camera audition.”

Ryan chuckles recalling the audition day. She almost threw up from nerves while driving downstate, and thought of “turning around about seventeen times.” When she arrived at the hotel where auditions were being held, she went to the assigned room number and found a broom closet. Thinking she’d been pranked – and angry she’d taken time off work – she called up the producers and lit into them. “They told me they were actually in the hotel next door,” she laughs. “So when I finally got to the right room, I was very sweaty and embarrassed.”

Ryan’s mistake didn’t matter – it perhaps worked in her favor – because producers were won over. When Ryan found out she’d made the show, she recalls feeling “really excited and nervous. I also felt bad, because it was the longest I was going to be away from Sophie (Ryan's daughter) and my family and friends and work. But it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”

While contestants can’t discuss many details of their taping experience due to confidentiality agreements with Fox, Ryan says the premiere episode features a “big boot camp” for all the chefs, followed by a challenge for each contestant to cook a signature dish. Ryan chose to make seared scallops with mango jalapeno salsa and spicy toasted rice crispies. In a nerve-wracking dinner service challenge, she says she was also forced to cook tableside for celebrities out in the dining room.

“I was surprised by some aspects of the show…in the kitchen there aren’t actually cameras, there are double-sided mirrors,” she says. “So you get used to that and stop thinking about (being filmed). It was tough to be with 17 other people, because you all live together…and they want to poke at you and see what egos will go against each other. I just kept reminding myself my kids and family were going to see this, so I was on my best behavior.”

Regarding Ramsay himself – who at one point is seen mocking Ryan in a trailer for the new season – Ryan says the chef is no different than many she's worked with in the industry who push cooks hard to achieve excellence. She affectionately compares Ramsay to Patterson’s training of her at The Cooks’ House. “They’re lovely men…(the attitude) is just in the kitchen, where it all comes down to the food,” she says. “I like that style, because when you get a compliment, you know it’s sincere.”

The Cooks’ House owners are equally enthusiastic about their former protégé. “She works so hard, and she’s done an amazing job,” says Blakeslee. “I’m very proud of her.” The Cooks' House will host a public viewing party for the premiere of Hell’s Kitchen at The Little Fleet September 23, and the restaurant has also invited Ryan to take over the kitchen for a special dinner October 17 (tickets are available online or at 231-946-8700).

As for how far Ryan makes it on Hell’s Kitchen this season? “My only goal was not to be the first person sent home. I can’t say whether that happens, so you’ll have to see,” she says. “But I put myself out there, out of my comfort zone, and it helped me break out of my little walls. It refocused my love of cooking. So I already proved something to myself.”