PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: cooking
American chef, television personality, and author
Ina Garten is an American chef, entrepreneur, author, and television personality. She is best known as the founder of the Barefoot Contessa brand, which began as a gourmet food store that she owned and...
Sioux chef, activist, ethnobotanist, and educator
Sean Sherman is a chef, activist, ethnobotanist, educator, and member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe. Sherman garnered attention for spotlighting traditional North American Indigenous foods and their...
American chef and restaurateur
Thomas Keller is an American chef and restaurateur whose restaurant the French Laundry, in Yountville, California, consistently ranks among the best in the world. Keller is the first—and as of 2024 the...
Spanish chef, restaurateur, and humanitarian
José Andrés (born July 13, 1969, Mieres, Spain) is a highly decorated Spanish chef, restaurateur, author, and humanitarian. He initially gained fame for popularizing the tapas style of dining; but Andrés’s...
Ethiopian-born chef
Marcus Samuelsson is an Ethiopian-born chef, restaurateur, author, and television personality. In 1995, as executive chef of Aquavit, a Scandinavian restaurant in New York City, Samuelsson, at age 24,...
American culinary expert and cookbook author
James Beard was an American culinary expert who championed regional eating and simple American cuisine using fresh products. In 1946 he became a television pioneer as the first chef to demonstrate cooking...
American chef, author, and television personality
Anthony Bourdain was an American chef, author, traveler, storyteller, and television personality who championed indigenous foods and promoted cultural cuisine and traditions. Through his books, television...
Indian-born actress, chef, and writer
Madhur Jaffrey is an Indian-born actress, chef, and writer who parlayed movie stardom into culinary fame, both in her native country and abroad. As an author, Jaffrey is best known for expanding Americans’...
American chef
Paula Deen is an American chef who popularized the cuisine of the American South through restaurants, cookbooks, and television programs. Aside from her culinary creations, her appeal lay largely in her...
Catalan chef
Ferran Adrià is a Catalan chef who, as the creative force behind the restaurant El Bulli (closed in 2011), pioneered the influential culinary trend known as molecular gastronomy, which uses precise scientific...
Danish chef and restaurateur
René Redzepi is a Danish chef recognized internationally for his unique reinterpretation of Scandinavian cuisine. His recipes are representative of the “New Nordic” food movement—cuisine that is distinguished...
American chef, television personality, and author
Mario Batali is an American chef, television personality, author, and restaurateur who was one of the most well-known food celebrities of the early 21st century. Batali developed a passion for cooking...
American cook, author, and television personality
Julia Child was an American cooking expert, author, and television personality noted for her promotion of traditional French cuisine, especially through her programs on public TV. Julia McWilliams was...
French chef
Auguste Escoffier was a French culinary artist, known as “the king of chefs and the chef of kings” who earned a worldwide reputation as director of the kitchens at the Savoy Hotel (1890–98) and afterward...
American chef
Grant Achatz is an American chef whose culinary innovations made him a leader in Modernist cuisine and a trailblazer in the use of molecular gastronomy. Achatz grew up in a small town in eastern Michigan,...
Scottish chef and restaurateur
Gordon Ramsay is a Scottish chef and restaurateur known for his highly acclaimed restaurants and cookbooks but perhaps best known in the early 21st century for the profanity and fiery temper that he freely...
American restaurateur, chef, and activist
Alice Waters is an American restaurateur, chef, and food activist who was a leading proponent of the “slow food” movement, which billed itself as the healthy antithesis to fast food. Waters studied French...
American chef and television personality
Rachael Ray is an American chef and television personality, who promotes quick, easy-to-prepare meals through her television programs, lifestyle magazine, and extensive line of cookbooks. Ray had experience...
British chef
Jamie Oliver is a British chef who achieved worldwide fame with his television shows The Naked Chef (1999) and Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution (2010–11) and as author of a number of cookbooks with a variety...
American chef and restaurateur
Bobby Flay is an American chef, restaurateur, and television personality who was best known for his frequent appearances on the cable station Food Network, where he first garnered attention as one of the...
American chef
Emeril Lagasse is an American celebrity chef, author, and television personality who by the early 21st century was one of the most recognizable chefs in the United States, known as much for his cooking...
American welfare worker
Lizzie Black Kander was an American welfare worker who created a popular cookbook that became a highly profitable fund-raising tool for the institution she served. Lizzie Black graduated from Milwaukee...
American editor
Fannie Farmer was an American cookery expert, originator of what is today the renowned Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Farmer grew up in Boston and in Medford, Massachusetts. She suffered a paralytic stroke during...
French chef
Marie-Antoine Carême was a French chef who served the royalty of Europe, wrote several classic works on cuisine, and advanced the notion of cuisine as both an art and a science. He is often cited as the...
Japanese chef
Kurihara Harumi is a Japanese chef, lifestyle expert, and television personality who in 1994 founded the media and home furnishing corporation Yutori no Kūkan (“A Place to Relax”). Kurihara was taught...
British chef, restaurateur, and television personality
Keith Floyd, was a British chef, restaurateur, and television personality who starred in a score of TV programs, beginning with Floyd on Fish (1985), and created a more spontaneous, improvisational style...
American author and chef
Edna Lewis was an African American author and chef, renowned for her traditional Southern cooking that emphasized fresh and locally grown foods and later in life for her recipes. Having encountered racial...
French chef
Paul Bocuse was a French chef and restaurateur known for introducing and championing a lighter style of cooking. Scion of a long line of restaurateurs, Bocuse apprenticed under several prominent chefs...
French chef
Nicolas Appert was a French chef, confectioner, and distiller who invented the method of preserving food by enclosing it in hermetically sealed containers. Inspired by the French Directory’s offer of a...
Indian-American fashion model, television personality, and author
Padma Lakshmi is an Indian-American fashion model, television personality, and author best known for her role as the host of the cooking competition show Top Chef (2006–23) and of the food and travel series...
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