WVLT’s Chef Walter passes away

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Walter Lambert, more famously known on WVLT as Chef Walter, passed away on Friday, according to his family.

Chef Walter cooked up recipes weekly on WVLT News for decades as a chef on the noon show. His last show was on Jan. 4, 2019, when he hung up his apron. When he left WVLT, Chef Walter was working on two books, was a part of the Author’s Guild of Tennessee and was creating a podcast called myunexpectedlife.

In 2017, Alan Williams sat down with him to learn more about the famous chef.

Chef Walter grew up in the Gibbs community before his family moved on to Fountain City. His family raised horses when he was young.

“I learned how to cook out of necessity,” Walter had said. “I’m the oldest of eight, seven years between my next brother. I say my folks were good at family. They raised a babysitter, then raised a family, and I had to cook because my mother was sick a lot.”

Chef Walter attended Central High School before moving on to the University of Tennessee. For the next 30 years, he worked in the Political Science Department, then as a lobbyist, spending most of his time in Nashville and Washington, D.C. He met a few presidents along the way.

Chef Walter also had a key role in bringing the 1982 World’s Fair to Knoxville.

Walter used to look completely different as well.

“I’m a classic yo-yo dieter,” he said. “My top weight was 297 pounds.”

Walter suffered from high blood pressure and uncontrolled diabetes, so he went on a life-changing diet. He started growing his beard one year when he and his wife Anne were at the beach. He said he wouldn’t shave, and he still had not after 40 years.

His beloved wife Anne passed away in 2010, six months shy of their 50th wedding anniversary. He admitted Anne looked after him and even made all the centerpieces Walter referred to on TV.

When asked what Anne would say to him if she were alive today, Walter had responded, “‘Do you really want to keep that mustache?’”

Chef Walter was on WVLT for over 30 years. His family has not yet shared funeral arrangements.