Chef Outfits blend sexy image with a dose of reality.

Chefs are hot, so hot, in fact, that they're taking their chef outfits off. And the publicity they are getting from posing in the buff is sizable.

A few months ago a blender company developed a wholesale advertising campaign based around a series of "famous chefs naked with their blender." It is not surprising that the ads have caught the attention of more than just blender buyers.

Articles on the new "beefcake" status of the chefs who discreetly cover their private parts with a blender for the ads have been featured in such publications as The New York limes, Elle magazine in Germany and The Arizona Republic.

Sexy Chef

The only reimbursement the models receive in exchange for shedding their uniforms is a blender or two. Still, the participating chefs admit that the free publicity has been a considerable perk.

"The press [we've gotten] out of it is amazing," says Paola Gross, the first woman in foodservice to shed her chef outfits for the blender company. She posed in the buff with her husband, Christopher Gross, her partner and chef at Christopher's Fermier Brasserie and Paola's Wine Bar in Phoenix. Paola is the front-of-the-house personality and also chief of wine at the restaurant the couple opened last fall.

For the photo shoot, Paola posed in front of her husband. And while the men in the ads had covered their modesty with a single blender, Paola says she wondered whether she was going to need three blenders. Instead, she was asked to cover one breast with her waist-length hair while she positioned the blender strategically on the other side.

For many of the 16 rolls the photographer shot, she simply crossed her legs. "I'm from South America, so I'm not as inhibited," she explains. The ad is scheduled to appear in November, 1999. These are the chef outfits revealed.