Star Trek: Enterprise never showed who the NX-01’s Chef was. It was a missed opportunity to surprise tie-in Chef to another Star Trek show’s legacy.
Summary
- Star Trek: Enterprise missed an opportunity by not revealing the identity of the NX-01’s Chef, who was renowned as the finest cook in Starfleet and constantly mentioned by Captain Archer and his crew.
- William Shatner rejected the idea of guest-starring as Captain James T. Kirk, who would impersonate the NX-01’s Chef and be revealed as an ancestor of James T. Kirk. Instead, Shatner wanted to play Kirk’s evil mirror universe doppelgänger.
- The Chef should have been an ancestor of Captain Benjamin Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as the Sisko family had a culinary talent and it would have been a logical tie-in to the show. A Sisko family member as the Chef would have been a pleasant surprise for fans and benefited Deep Space Nine as well.
Star Trek: Enterprise never revealed the identity of the NX-01’s Chef but, in hindsight, it should have been one of three characters. The pioneering 22nd-century voyages of Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) were relatively low-tech and stripped down compared to the miraculous Starfleet technology in later Star Trek eras. Archer’s NX-01 Enterprise lacked food replicators; like a 20th-century Naval vessel, the first Starship Enterprise needed to be resupplied for food and relied on a Chef to feed the 80 souls aboard.
Never seen nor heard, except for a brief, out-of-focus cameo in Star Trek: Enterprise season 2, episode 12, “The Catwalk,” where he was played by background actor Richard Starstedt, Chef was nonetheless a significant character who was constantly mentioned by Captain Archer and his crew. Chef was renowned as the finest cook in Starfleet, and Archer was proud to have pilfered him for the NX-01. As Commander Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer) once boasted, Chef could cook anything from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to turkey with all the trimmings. In Star Trek: Enterprise‘s series finale, Commander William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) impersonated Chef in the USS Enterprise-D’s holodeck, which was a suggestion by Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis), who noted that Chef knew the NX-01’s crew better than anyone else. Enterprise never revealing Chef was a missed opportunity, especially since Chef could have tied into the larger Star Trek canon.
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3 Captain James T. Kirk
William Shatner could have been Enterprise’s surprise Chef
At one point, William Shatner wanted to guest star in Star Trek: Enterprise season 4. One idea by writer Mike Sussman was for Captain James T. Kirk to somehow time travel to the 22nd century and impersonate the NX-01 Enterprise’s Chef. It would then be revealed that Enterprise’s Chef is an ancestor of James T. Kirk. However, Shatner rejected this idea in favor of a concept he and writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens concocted wherein Shatner would portray Tiberius, Kirk’s evil doppelgänger from the Mirror Universe.
As fascinating as William Shatner playing Kirk’s evil Mirror double and battling Captain Archer and his Enterprise crew would have been, it all fell apart over money. Perhaps William Shatner returning to pose as Enterprise‘s Chef would have been novel but less impactful; after all, Captain Kirk was never known to cook more than Ktarian eggs.
In Star Trek Generations, Kirk prepared a breakfast of Ktarian eggs for his lost love, Antonia, when he was in the Nexus.
2 Ancestor Of Captain Benjamin Sisko
The Sisko family are gourmet chefs
Star Trek: Enterprise‘s Chef should have been revealed to be an ancestor of Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Captain Sisko was a man of great depth; he was a single father, a husband, a Starfleet Captain, and the Emissary of the Prophets of Bajor. But in his spare time, Sisko liked to cook, specializing in Creole and Cajun (and later, Bajoran) cuisine. Benjamin’s culinary talent is a Sisko family trait. Ben’s father, Joseph Sisko (Brock Peters) was a renowned New Orleans chef who owned and operated Sisko’s Creole Kitchen. Whenever Ben and Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton) made it back to Earth, they would inevitably spend time in Joseph’s kitchen.
A Sisko as Enterprise’s Chef would have been logical, and a fantastic tie-in to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Enterprise‘s position as a prequel set 200 years before Star Trek: The Next Generation made it an outlier to many Star Trek fans, and the ill-advised attempt by Enterprise‘s series finale to fuse the prequel with Star Trek: TNG backfired badly. But fans learning that a Sisko family member was Enterprise’s mystery Chef would have been a pleasant surprise that made sense, and DS9 would have benefited as well by showing Ben Sisko was part of a culinary Starfleet legacy dating back to the first Starship Enterprise.
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1 Ancestor Of Captain Christopher Pike
The best Starfleet Captain/Chef of the 23rd century
If Star Trek: Enterprise were being produced today, no doubt the popular choice for the identity of the NX-01’s Chef would be an ancestor of Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Pike has been a revelation not just as the Captain of the Enterprise, but as a gourmet chef who cooks with his crew and love interest, Captain Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano), and hosts Captain’s Table dinners in his USS Enterprise quarters. Captain Pike preparing meals in his kitchen, even Vulcan delicacies in Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 5, “Charades,” have been a highlight of the show.
Of course, Captain Pike’s reinvention as played by Anson Mount didn’t begin until Star Trek: Discovery season 2, a dozen years after Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled, and Pike wasn’t revealed to be a chef in his own right until Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiered in 2022. However, if Star Trek on Paramount+ somehow revived Star Trek: Enterprise, it would be possible to drop the Easter egg that the NX-01’s Chef is a Pike ancestor. It’d be a long road getting from there to here, but that would be a fun payoff for fans of Star Trek: Enterprise and its mystery Chef.
