"Famous" Chefs

I always figured that to be able to call yourself a chef as opposed to a cook you needed some credentials and a history of performance. Turns out that all you need is a TV show and that famous doesn't equate to 'good'

https://upserve.com/restaurant-insider/famous-chefs/

This list of 'chef's includes the following (I put a star beside the only ones I'd agree were chefs). The order in which they were listed begs the question but then it is an entertainment oriented fluff piece.

Guy Fieri (really?)

Gordon Ramsay - yes! Even if his on-and-off blustering is tiresome

JJ Johnson - hadn't heard of him

Bobby Flay - yup, like his shows or not, he is a chef and a good one

Rachael Ray - really? (Don't get me started or it will be hard to stop!)

Sunny Anderson - I see her as an entertainer than can also cook

Wolfgang Puck - a solid chef before he ever thought of getting involved in the entertainment industry but I see him more and more now. I wonder how much cooking he, personally, still does but that could be said about any of the big time chefs, especially the ones that spin off into entertainment.

Masaharu Morimoto - excellent chef - really enjoyed him in the original Japanese version of Iron Chef. Take a look at this some time (on knife sharpening) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6dKczokYj8

Carla Hall

Jamie Oliver - always figured that he was the British version of Graham Kerr, but maybe half as interesting.

Martha Stewart - cook - OK, entertaining - meh Chef..no.

[Jenise]

No offense intended, but that's a rather silly list. As you point out, they don't distinguish between chef and entertainer. Wolfgang's a chef, Bobby's a chef, Gordon's a chef, Jamie's a chef. Sunny's an entertainer with a food obsession.

Carla and Martha were caterers who are now media personalities. That Carla is now credited with having a restaurant hardly counts, she didn't have one when she was a contestant on Top Chef and has only opened one to capitalize on her popularity on The Chew. Martha certainly knows her food, as does Carla but in a much more limited way.

Guy won a season of Next Food Network Star and has turned that into an empire. He may have had a restaurant in Santa Rosa at the time, believe so but not sure. I've never followed him. Anyway, I'd put him in the same basket with Rachel. I have no idea what his actual food skills are--I've never seen him cook!

A lot of the best chefs in this country (and yours) got their training in restaurant kitchens. You don't have to have a culinary degree to be a chef. There are a lot of people with culinary degrees but very little creative talent. It's skill and talent that make one a chef. And it sure makes a difference if you've proved that leading a full kitchen in a restaurant setting.

I wish Chef Carey were still here to add his 2 cents to this post. My understanding is that there is a ranking among culinary professionals, and you don't become a chef just because you say you're one or that you have a TV show. Julia Child was also not a chef, but despite the title of her TV show she never claimed she was one.

-Paul W.

Guy did have a restaurant in Santa Rosa. I walked in the door one time and turned right around and walked out again. Upscale McDonalds. It's been closed for some years, and the building was renovated, but between fires and plagues and recessions, nothing has opened there.

[Jenise]

John, that's what I thought. Did some digging; it was called Johnny Garlic's and Guy's "formal training" was in hospitality not culinary skills, which could include banquet service and institutional cooking, like in prisons and schools.

That said, Gordon Ramsey studied hotel management, and Thomas Keller never went to culinary school but apprenticed in the restaurants of top chefs, pretty much the way it's done in Europe. No way one can say Ramsey and Keller aren't chefs!