Top 10 Celebrity Chefs

I love food. Food is fucking brilliant. Can't say I'm a fan of cookery shows though. Cooking programmes are mostly dull and tedious, but there are exceptions where the chefs become bigger than the food itself with their unique personalities, creating great entertainment. These chefs combine culinary excellence and charisma to bring their creations to life, and here are my ten personal favourites.

#10 Hannibal Lecter

Okay, I'll be serious now.


#9 Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Look at that hunk of a man. The immense sexual chemistry between this man and his food is always prevalent in his signature 'River Cottage' series, which without this man's legendary charisma would be like watching a simpleton cooking some poncey and uninspired food in a rural setting. Hugh has taken the idea of cooking on a farm and transformed it into a format with a fair share of entertainment. In no other cookery show can you see chefs that happily eat roadkill, and even on one occasion boil and eat a fucking human placenta to make into pate for his fucking family. How appetising. Maybe Hannibal Lecter wasn't a stupid suggestion for this list after all. Hannibal Lecter however has nowhere near the banter of Hugh, neither is he anywhere near as likeable, although Lecter is a serial killer so that's not much of an achievement. Hugh is a man who loves to get back to nature, is all for the sustainable and free range slaughter of livestock, and hates unsustainable uses of food. He's clearly a man of principle, yet tries to avoid dictating this hippy approach in his programmes. So overall a great guy with some great banter.


#8 Wolfgang Puck

Wolfgang Puck is an Austrian born American chef who shot to fame through his signature restaurant 'Spago', which is now located in Beverly Hills with two Michelin stars. That's very impressive, but what's even more impressive is that Puck is annually invited to cook for the world's most famous stars at the Oscars. If that still wasn't enough to convince you of this guy's talent then you might also like to know that Puck is a successful chef, businessman, and entrepreneur. He owns a successful fine dining, catering, and restaurant business, that are together worth a few hundred million bucks. If for some reason that still hasn't impressed you then you can watch this man in Frasier and the film 'The Weather Man', or just watch the man cook on his own Emmy award winning cookery show. And anyway, how can you hate anyone with the name 'Wolfgang'?


#7 Bobby Flay

I'll admit that this guy's on here for one reason, and no that reason is not the enthusiasm about mayonnaise in the picture above, but rather his appearances on 'Iron Chef America', which is undoubtedly one of the most dullest and yet entertaining shows in history. Seriously, behind all the camp and overdone presentation is proof that Flay can damn well cook, and he' taken the title of 'Iron Chef' on multiple occasions. Flay has also been the host of numerous other US cookery shows, but none of them are 'Iron Chef America', so I just don't care. I suppose his cookery shows are watchable considering he likes to grill everything, and as someone who thinks grilling meat is a category on PornHub I really can't complain. In fact just watching his cooking is giving me a food boner. Flay actually has a Michelin star in grilling beef, so as you can imagine this guy is a hero to me.


#6 Nigella Lawson

Watching a Nigella Lawson cookery show is just watching a collection of poorly timed innuendos. Honestly I couldn't give a shit about her cooking, which maybe a good thing considering she has no professional culinary experience, but the way she describes her creations in ever ounce of detail is so entertaining, especially when she brings out the innuendos. Even making scrambled eggs becomes an erotic novel with Nigella; only it's an erotic novel being directed at you. Not surprisingly it's her writing rather than her cooking that's made Nigella famous, and she was even named as the best author in Britain for 2001, which actually makes her a more credible author in 2001 than JK Rowling. This must be why so many people give a shit about her cooking, specifically 3 million people worldwide who fancied the opportunity of being chatted up whilst reading one of her books.

Away from her highly successfully writing career Nigella has also presented multiple extremely popular television shows, that usually revolve around tours through her massive house and insights into her overly lavish dinner parties to host some of her abusive husband's friends. The television shows are where the flirting of Nigella is turned up to the max, becoming just low rent porn for middle aged men to gawp at and still feel cultured, whilst simultaneously working as aspirational fodder for women who've given up on the good life. In fact that video proof above is the only reason she's on this list.


#5 Heston Blumenthal

Heston Blumethal is bat shit crazy. If he's not creating the most ridiculous creations with the aid of science he's creating dishes so bizarre it's nothing short of a miracle he's not in a mental asylum. So obscure is his cooking that he's a fellow at the Royal Society of Chemistry, which not a lot of chefs can brag about. So scientific is Heston's approach that he actually compares the molecular level of foods, pairing otherwise preposterous combinations that include white chocolate and caviar, or putting crab in an ice cream. Heston calls this modern and scientific approach to cooking 'multisensory', although I prefer the term 'insane'. Heston claims that this approach to dining is because he encourages the use multiple senses when consuming his food, and has even gone as far as to get guests to listen to sounds of the sea whilst eating seafood.

Amazingly the creations on his television shows are even more mental, usually involving stuff you find in a university chemistry lab. As you can imagine most of his recipes don't get replicated in many households, with people preferring to eat at his various restaurants. His stupidly named signature restaurant 'The Fat Duck', which was first opened in 1995, now has three Michelin stars, and was even named the best restaurant in the world in 2005. That's some random pub in rural Berkshire, not Beverly Hills, so to say Heston's restaurants are damn impressive would be an understatement. Heston's not all success though. He decided to buy the service station food chain 'Little Chef', which if you didn't know is well known in Britain for still having absolutely shit food. Maybe Heston should just stick to being the mad scientist.


#4 Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain is a man who rose from being a dishwasher to one of the most respected chefs in the world. In that time Bourdain has also become one of the most iconic celebrity chefs famed for talking his mind, and that's a good thing considering he knows what he's talking about. Bourdain is a man that can describe food in ways many people can only dream about, which is great to watch irrespective of whether the food is of Michelin star quality or shit that nobody would ever want to try. Bourdain is willing to try any delicacy for television, whether it be warthog rectums or seal eyeballs, although he still claims the worst thing he's ever eaten is a chicken Mcnugget.

Bourdain's various anecdotes are fantastic actually. He knows his shit, and isn't afraid to throw some salt at other chefs who don't know their shit. Bourdain has probably eaten just about everything there is to eat in the world, and now every one of those experiences is converted into opinionated and humorous tales. This no holds barred attitude has seen Bourdain become something of a badass in the culinary world, and his history of freely admitting to being addicted to drugs and alcohol in the early part of his career has only expanded this perception. Aside from cooking Bourdain has even become a published fictional author, and he's also a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, so I'd rather not slag him off over the internet; especially considering this man would destroy me on any food related topic.


#3 Marco Pierre White

How fucking cool does that guy look? Just by looking at that picture you can deduce that this chef is going to be suave and arrogant. And in fact Marco is all of those things combined with a natural talent for culinary excellence. He's the youngest ever chef to receive three Michelin stars at the age of 33, although in the end he ended up returning them for whatever reason. Marco is seen as the first celebrity chef, and is also responsible for many other notable chefs, creating the now infamous Gordon Ramsay. Allegedly he created the monster that is Ramsay by pushing him to the very limit. Can you imagine how hostile that kitchen must have been to create Gordon Ramsay? Marco clearly takes no shit from anyone. Anyone who does offend him gets instantly thrown out of his restaurant, and any complaint is taken literally, such as when one of his employees claimed the kitchen was too hot causing Marco to cut open his clothes with a knife. Under all this tough guy persona is a playboy chef at heart, and he even allegedly had sex with a customer inbetween courses. I wouldn't believe that story normally, but then this is Marco Pierre White we're talking about.

#2 Ainsley Harriot

The internet legend that is not only responsible for some of the world's greatest memes, but also the man that fronts 'Ready Steady Cook', simultaneously the greatest and shittest cookery show in the history of television. If the memes don't turn you on then Ainsley's legendary energy at even the smallest things are just infectious. I get as excited watching his programmes as Ainsley appears to be getting about his food. And remember lads, give your meet a good old rub.


#1 Gordon Ramsay

Although Ramsay may have the tendency to come across as overly aggressive outside of the kitchen, this celebrity chef is a living legend to me. He's funny, intelligent, and just seems like a great guy outside the kitchen; although try telling that to those in the culinary business. Ramsay has a quite astonishing 16 Michelin stars obtained at a variety of restaurants, which is incredible considering some of the most talented chefs in the world spend their lives work in getting just one, and even then often failing.

However if there's one thing that trumps Ramsay's food then it has to be his amazing insults. Most of them are so good they're actually funnier than the internet memes that try and take the piss out of him. I never knew I wanted to see food compared to Gandhi's flip flop or a bison's penis, but now I know I do. I also love seeing trainee chefs repetitively called 'donkeys' and 'sacks of shit', so any cookery programme that Ramsay stars in is a guaranteed hit with me. Having cocky chefs repetitively put in their place is what I call fucking great entertainment, and Ramsay has become a legend in my eyes for his foul mouthed antics. Ramsay has always been like this in the kitchen, even when he was based in Britain, but now over in the colonies he's evolved into a whole new boss from hell. Ramsay clearly has superhuman standards when it comes to food, but that's got nothing in comparison to 'Hell's Kitchen' and 'Kitchen Nightmares' which are both TV gold with every episode.