Chef Rock Is on a Roll

With the Clock Ticking on His 'Hell's Kitchen' Fame, He Takes On Las Vegas

HENDERSON, Nev. -- Rock Harper is psyched, he's hyped, he's restless, he's ready for his first official day as a celebrity chef.

He's also lost.

One block from his new home on the outskirts of Sin City, the cookie-cutter houses blend into a sea of desert pink, and Harper, veteran of 70-mile daily commutes to the District, can't find his way out of his own neighborhood.

"My 15 minutes are already running out," he frets.

If he's going to cash in on his fame, the winner of "Hell's Kitchen" knows, he needs to move fast. Chef Rock is already a brand name and a charitable foundation, in the rough draft of his dream. "I'm going to have a few cookbooks, hopefully. Definitely a product line. And my own culinary apparel: Food industry apparel will never be the same. There are definitely sauces and vinaigrettes I'd like to bottle. Knives, maybe. All chefs like their knives," he says.

Strategizing, not sauteing, is what ultimately won him the grand prize in last month's third-season finale of Fox's reality show. But even with a $250,000 contract as head chef at a new Italian restaurant inside the Green Valley Ranch Resort, Spa and Casino just outside Las Vegas, and even with bratty Bonnie and back-stabbing Brad and all the other "Hell's Kitchen" contestants vanquished, Harper can't stop now. A friend who's an agent back in Washington is putting out feelers for him, looking for opportunities. Hopes are raised, and just as quickly dashed, for getting on 50 Cent's guest list for the MTV Video Awards.

Harper arrives two hours before dinner service begins at the upscale Terra Verde. None of the dishes on the menu is a reprise from "Hell's Kitchen," and the 30-year-old winner will be too busy greeting fans to actually cook for them, at least initially. Eventually, he will be allowed to add some of his own specials to the set menu.

Introduced to the staff he will ultimately oversee, Harper tells them: "Do what you do. I won't get in your way. I'm not cooking tonight. In the next week or so, we'll get to the fun stuff and you'll really get to meet me." They politely applaud, and Harper later recounts this with glee while schmoozing with some diners, adding, "I don't think they'll be clapping for me in two weeks." The fans nod appreciatively, familiar with Rock's fiery side from Episode 6, when he threw a tantrum after losing a challenge and being ordered to bag mountains of the TV restaurant's smelly trash.

Resort managers say they got more than 100 calls the morning after the "Hell's Kitchen" finale, and reservations are booked solid for Harper's opening night: 200 tables, plus some open for walk-ins. A small placard announcing his arrival perches atop a penny slot machine. ( You could win again and again and again! the game promises.) Special menus with a small blurb welcoming him are printed up and left in strategic stacks around the restaurant for Harper to autograph. An eager cook holds up a plastic spoon containing sabayon for Harper to taste, and someone from corporate whispers something to the general manager about making sure Harper gets his state health card. A local TV crew shows up and asks him to pose in the kitchen "doing some chef stuff."

Diners begin flowing into the restaurant, nudging each other and waving when they spot Harper, whose mission tonight is to stop at every table. Beaming strangers wrap him in bear hugs, snap his picture and keep saying how proud of him they are. Lipstick soon smudges his new white chef's jacket. There are star-struck tourists, a tipsy gypsy in a floor-length black waistcoat, some motherly Canadians and a pair of purported music producers from London who send their waiter to fetch them Rock.

Harper's wife, Tamara, arrives with their two small children, his younger brother, both grandmothers and a family friend. Harper's 4-year-old daughter is tired and weepy and whining for shrimp; his 7-year-old son carries a tote full of the Power Rangers that his father ruefully admits are "his only friends" since the family was uprooted this summer. "It's been hard on them," Tamara acknowledges. They drove across the country in a Kia a week ago and had just moved out of the resort's VIP suite and into their new place that morning. They watch Harper make his rounds.

Harper lingers at each table, eager to connect, joking about favorite episodes and answering the same questions over and over again: No, the show's abusive star, British chef Gordon Ramsay, isn't really such a jerk; no, the diners in the TV restaurant don't pay; he and Brad are best buds now; Josh is clueless, Jen is a sweetheart, Bonnie deserved her spot in the finals with him.