Next Level Baker star Carla Hall reflects on the pivots that turned an accountant into a culinary icon

Carla Hall is tracing the long, winding path that led her from accounting ledgers to the mentor’s tower on Next Level Baker — a journey shaped by abrupt turns, self-discovery, and a refusal to stay anywhere her spirit could not thrive.

The Next Level Baker star is now preparing for the debut of her one-woman stage show, a project that mirrors her career’s defining pattern: leap first, trust the landing later.

Hall, now one of the most recognizable culinary voices on television, says the road that led her to Next Level Baker began with disappointment. She recalled her earliest pivot and said, 

“I felt rejection from theater. I liked my accounting teacher. So I said, Okay, accounting …I was so afraid of being 40 and hating my job.”

The fear of stagnation drove her abroad, then into modeling, then into cooking — each step a new turn, each turn a new doorway.

Her willingness to pivot repeatedly eventually placed her across multiple television platforms and, most recently, into the role of mentor on Next Level Baker. 

For Hall, each chapter has held a lesson about confidence, reinvention, and claiming the right moment to speak up.

Carla Hall’s philosophy of reinvention shapes her role on Next Level Baker

Hall’s current season on Next Level Baker unfolds alongside the preparation of her most personal project to date: a live 80-minute show titled Carla Hall: Please Underestimate Me, premiering at the Olney Theatre in Maryland.

She describes the production — framed like a cooking talk show — as the realization of the dream she’d carried since childhood, when she imagined herself as “the black Carol Burnett.”

Its path to the stage began five years ago when she began writing the show herself. She said,

“A lot of times you mention your dreams and people say, ‘Oh, it just happened, just fell into your lap.’ No. But sometimes you need to have the party in order to clean your house.”

That practicality wrapped in humor is the same voice she brings to contestants on Next Level Baker, where she guides home bakers, professionals, and social media creators through challenges designed to push technique and temperament.

Her presence on Next Level Baker extends a career in which risk-taking is not instability but a method — one mirrored in the contestants’ own attempts to stretch beyond the familiar.

Hall’s personal evolution began with the kind of detour that could have ended her creative path before it began.

After leaving accounting, she traveled to Paris and discovered cooking. Her return to the United States led her to culinary school, restaurant work, and eventually television. And yet, nothing about that progression was guaranteed.

A self-described “seven on the Enneagram,” Hall calls herself “the adventurer,” a framework she says explains the constant desire for new challenges.

One of those challenges came at age 42, when she allowed a friend to sign her up for Match.com. Her username — “Scrabble Girl“ — was an intentional signal to attract the right match.

It worked; Matthew Lyons, her first match, later became her husband. It was Lyons who encouraged her to audition for Top Chef, launching her into the national spotlight long before Next Level Baker.

Lessons learned before Next Level Baker

Hall’s longest television chapter before joining Next Level Baker came with her seven-season run on ABC’s The Chew.

That period included both acclaim and difficult learning curves. She recalled being told after the first season that “the guys were better,” adding, 

“I think something broke in me.”

Later, when Gladys Knight appeared on the show to cook smothered chicken, Hall hoped to host the segment but was passed over. She confronted the executive producer directly:

“‘If you didn’t think about that, I would want to cook with Gladys Knight because I’m from the south and with the same background, that is your report card, and you fail. And if there was some reason that you didn’t want to have me there and you didn’t share that with me, that is your report card, and you fail.’ I think in that moment I really had the F-its. Because if I’m fired after this, I don’t want to sit at home and say, I wish I had said whatever.”

After The Chew ended in 2018, Hall co-launched Chewed Up, a self-funded podcast and YouTube show with Michael Symon and Clinton Kelly. She said,

“It is 30-minute shows, three episodes a week, and it is absolutely the best time.” 

On the independence the format gives her, she joked, 

“God forbid if the networks pick it up, I’m out. I don’t want to have a bunch of bosses.”

Hall has also launched The MeMenu, a coaching platform for women — especially those 50 and older — who have spent years putting themselves last. She said,

“We have taken care of the family, we’ve taken care of our jobs, but at the end of the day, we’ve taken care of everyone but ourselves.” 

The work reflects a philosophy she applies as a mentor on Next Level Baker: that growth requires investment. She said, 

“Whatever you put in is the thing that you’re going to get out.” 

A mentor shaped by momentum

As Next Level Baker continues, Hall’s presence on the tower anchors the season’s structure of mentorship. Her career — one built through sharp pivots, open-handed risk, and a willingness to start over — offers a blueprint for the bakers competing beneath her.

Each contestant, like Hall before them, faces a moment when a leap becomes necessary: a twist in a challenge, a dish that requires improvisation, or a setback that forces them to try again.

Hall’s legacy across Next Level Baker, Top Chef, The Chew, and her stage work remains consistent: know when to leap, and trust that the landing will shape the next chapter.

Stay tuned for more updates.