Chef Johnathan Shillingford came extremely close to getting fired after he served a charter guest food that could’ve killed her on Monday night’s new episode of Below Deck Mediterranean.
The group’s first dinner on the yacht started with tuna carpaccio. However, one guest was unable to eat it due to a condition called iron overload, which she described as a “mutation where [she] can’t eat raw seafood because it could kill [her].” According to the guest, she stated that she couldn’t have raw seafood multiple times in her preference sheet.
Captain Sandy Yawn, of course, was fuming.
“I’m really fucking pissed,” she said in her confessional. “Never in my 35 years at sea have I had a chef feed a guest something that could actually kill them. This is a fireable offense. So now I just have to look for a replacement chef.”
Chief stew Aesha Scott, on the other hand, took some of the blame for not being able to oversee Shillingford.
“This is such a huge fuck-up because I should be double-checking everything for Jono,” she said. “That’s a thing that I usually do. But I am just spread so insanely thin right now. I don’t know how I can functionally do that.”
The chef admitted to feeling “terrible” over the ordeal, before adding, “I don’t know how I let that slip. I think I just have too many things on my mind. I also have the rest of the dinner to get through so I’m trying not to let it throw me off too badly. But I can’t help feeling shitty.”
Despite his remorse, this was the last straw for Yawn, who swiftly put in a call for a new chef after Shillingford’s “unacceptable” mistake.
But just as she was getting ready to fire him, she got word that a replacement chef was not available.
“I can’t let him go, there is no replacement chef. I can’t be stuck with no chef,” she said in her confessional, before referencing the time Chef Mathew Shea left the boat. “With Mathew, we had no chef and the crew was cooking and it was the worst meal the clients ever had. For now, my best bet is to keep Jono.”
Shillingford, for his part, said he was “devastated” over the situation.
“I was prepared to be fired,” he added. “All the hard work I put into this season, I feel like I ruined it. I am so disappointed in myself.”
Below Deck Med airs Monday nights at 9/8c on Bravo. New episodes are available to stream the next day on Peacock.