Chef Irvine Tours Fort Bragg DoWEA Schools to Champion Better Nutrition
Chef Robert Irvine, host of Food Network’s long-running “Restaurant: Impossible” and “Dinner: Impossible,” a culinary veteran with nearly 50 years of experience who began cooking at age 11, visited two DoWEA schools here to observe and engage directly with culinary staff.
Accompanied by Chef Shane Cash, vice president of concept development, and Justin Leonard, chief operating officer, Irvine spent the morning at Albritton Middle School viewing breakfast service and food-preparation operations. He then moved to Hampton Primary School, where he observed lunch preparation, prekindergarten family-style dining and the full lunch service in the school cafeteria.
Irvine, a former British Royal Navy Chief Petty Officer Cook who served a 10-year tour — including during the 1982 Falklands Conflict aboard HMS Apollo — and who later became a U.S. Navy Honorary Chief Petty Officer, said the visit was driven by his long-standing commitment to improving school and military feeding programs.
“I believe that school nutrition can be better. I believe army feeding can be better, and I believe that we owe it to our future, our kids, whether doctors, nurses, teachers, pilots, brain surgeons, we need to give them the best start possible in their life, and food is the base of the best life,” he said.
Irvine currently serves as a special consultant to the U.S. Army’s food program modernization effort. He is helping transform traditional mess halls into campus-style dining venues modeled after top university food courts — featuring fresher ingredients, greater menu variety, healthier options and flexible grab-and-go concepts. The initiative aims to boost soldier nutrition, increase meal participation and support overall force readiness.
Drawing on his decades of high-profile restaurant experience and the turnaround expertise he honed on “Restaurant: Impossible,” Irvine shared practical insights with DoWEA culinary teams on menu innovation, operational efficiency, staff training and morale-building through food service. Combined with military cooking under combat conditions and years leading successful restaurant concepts, his experience informed every conversation during the visit.
He emphasized making healthy eating fun for students, saying, “Can I tell you the kids are going to eat broccoli tomorrow? No. I tell them to try it and taste it. Have a blind taste and play games with the kids. Yes, because kids understand stuff when it’s fun. And if you make it fun and you make it attractive, they all play the game. But you’ve got to get them interested to play the game to make them learn.”
The engagement aligns with DoWEA’s focus on career and technical education pathways, including culinary arts, and supports broader Department of War efforts to enhance nutrition for military-connected children. During the visits, Irvine chatted with students during breakfast and lunch, posed for dozens of selfies with culinary staff and sat down with Hampton Primary School students for an interview in their broadcast studio.
Teresa Moon, Fort Bragg DoWEA community superintendent, said, addressing Chef Irvine and his team, “This was fun. I had a blast. I learned so much today. Just listening to you and thinking about different foods and all the different things we can do for kids. It was exciting.”
Irvine’s team expressed interest in future collaboration opportunities with DoWEA schools and installations.
DoWEA operates as a field activity of the Office of the Secretary of War. It is responsible for planning, directing, coordinating, and managing prekindergarten through 12th-grade educational programs for the Department of War. DoWEA operates 161 accredited schools in 9 districts in 11 foreign countries, seven states, Guam, and Puerto Rico. DoWEA Americas operates 50 accredited schools across two districts on 16 military installations, including Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard bases in seven states, Puerto Rico and Cuba. Committed to excellence in education, DoWEA fosters well-rounded, lifelong learners through DoWEA’s academic programs, ensuring continued innovation and excellence, while advancing a strong focus on patriotism, classical learning, and civics education in support of military-connected students worldwide.
