Keith Famie

Keith Famie (born February 11, 1960, in Farmington Hills, Michigan ) is an American chef-restaurateur and film director and producer.

By no later than 1987, he was the executive chef of Chez Raphael (Novi, Michigan) and wrote a travel cookbook The Flavor of Famie.

Famie opened a 200-seat American bistro Les Auteurs in the Royal Oak, Michigan, one year later in 1988.

Famie appeared alongside another chef Edward Janos in a 1988 cooking video Feathered Fowl and Game.

He was one of twelve finalists in 1988 competing to represent the United States for the January 1989 Bocuse d'Or championship.

He lost the spot to another finalist Jeff Jackson.

Between 1988 and 1993, he further established the Les Auteurs School of Cooking and a fifty-seat bar and restaurant Madison's. He also released a series of trading cards featuring chefs—a picture of a chef on obverse side; a chef's recipe on reverse side—starting in 1992.

Ten percent of gross profits of the trading cards were sent to the Rainbow Connection, a non-profit charity assisting terminally ill children.

Famie also was listed by Food & Wine in 1989 as one of the "[ten] best new chefs".

Also in early 1990s, Les Auteurs held seventy employees.

He alongside one of his recipes was featured in the 1990 Great Chefs of America calendar.

Famie established a rotisserie take-out chain Famie's Chicken in early 1990, which was eventually short-lived by no later than 1993.

He produced a five-part television series covering Japanese cooking for WDIV-TV (Detroit) in late 1990s and the 1990s Detroit-produced travel and food series Keith Famie's Adventures in Cooking, later called Famie's Adventures in Cooking, seen by about 400,000 viewers of Detroit as of 1998.

Its sales figures were $1.8 million in 1991 (equivalent to $ million in ) and $1,920,710 in 1992.

Famie closed the increasingly struggling Les Auteurs on June 27, 1993, and re-established the same site as the cowboy-themed Durango Grill in mid-August 1993.

Famie sold the Durango Grill concept in September 1994 to and then joined Buscemi International, hoping to expand the business nationwide.

Durango Grill was then closed in 1995.

Famie founded a film company Visionalist Entertainment Productions in 1995.

Famie became a chef of a brasserie Forte in Birmingham, Michigan, in no later than 1997.

He produced a documentary special From Hanoi to China Beach: A Taste of the Exotic, shown in Fox Theatre (Detroit) for a charity event International Evening: Vietnam on August 28, 1999, and then aired two days later on WDIV-TV.

Famie's Visionist and another company Mexicantown Community Development Corporation produced another film A Journey to Mexico, also called A Journey Home, which explores immigration from Jesús María and St. Ignacio of central Mexico to Detroit, in January 2000.

The film was conceptualized by Mexicantown's then-president Maria Elena Rodriguez, and its crew consisted of eleven people.

The film premiered in the Detroit Opera House on May 11, 2000.

It then aired on WDIV-TV on June 24, 2000.

Before Survivor, Famie appeared on regularly a WDIV-TV news program's cooking segment and on another television program Famie's Wild Aussie Adventures.

Famie was one of forty-eight applicants shortlisted for Survivor: Borneo.

However, he was filming A Journey Home at the time, affecting his chances to be cast.

He notoriously appeared in Survivor: The Australian Outback (2001), finishing in third place.

Famie worked in restaurant kitchens while attending high school and in hotels around the world, including Brussels, Monte Carlo, and New York City, after high school graduation.

Total amount of existing restaurants he worked globally was twenty-seven, and his prior occupations ranged from head dishwasher to head chef.

He eventually appeared on Survivor: The Australian Outback (2001) as part of the Ogakor tribe.

He often clashed with bartender/actress Jerri Manthey over position to support the tribe, much to annoyance of the remaining Ogakor tribe.

The tribe criticized his rice cooking as poorly executed but then praised his fish cooking as well executed.

However, his overall social gameplay was perceived as subpar.

After two Ogakor members were voted off, in Ogakor's third Tribal Council, votes against Famie and Mitchell Olson, who admitted at the Council being physically weaker than Famie, were tied 3–3.

In the re-vote, Famie and Mitchell were ineligible to vote.

Votes against them were tied again 2–2.

To break the second tie, vote casts in prior Councils were considered.

Famie was not voted before, but a vote against Olson was cast in one prior Council, causing Olson to be eliminated.

Thus, Manthey's alliance that voted against Famie weakened.