The idea of the celebrity chef has changed enormously in America over most of our lifetimes. Back in the 1940s, most restaurant chefs’ names were completely unknown to the general public, but by the 1990s dozens of working chefs were legitimate celebrities, usually because of appearances on television or through best-selling cookbooks. Get a glimpse into what chef culture was when you were born by exploring the best-known chefs of past decades.
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1940s: James Beard
James Beard was one of the earliest true celebrity chefs thanks to his 1946 cooking show I Love to Eat. Beard also published his first cookbooks in the 1940s, including volumes about cocktail snacks and outdoor cookery, exhibiting the range that would turn him into one of the biggest legends in the world of American cooking. Even though he passed away in 1985, Beard remains a strong presence thanks to the culinary foundation and prestigious awards that still bear his name.
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1940s: Edna Lewis
Many of America’s culinary traditions come from Black women and Edna Lewis is one of the few Black cooks from the first half of the 20th century who actually got proper credit for her work. Lewis would go on to write some very well-received cookbooks in the 1970s that introduced readers to the simplicity of Southern-style food, but she first made a name for herself in the 1940s when she opened Café Nicholson in Manhattan, attracting celebrities with her down-home cooking.
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1950s: Leah Chase
To modern-day diners, Leah Chase may be best known as the inspiration for Disney film The Princess and the Frog, but the late proprietor of Dooky Chase’s Restaurant’s real-life story is just as magical. Although the restaurant opened in 1941, Leah didn’t come on board until the late 1940s when she married Dooky Chase Jr. By the early 1950s she’d turned it into a hub for Creole cuisine that remains open and popular today.
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1950s: Betty Crocker
Most people know that Betty Crocker isn’t actually a real person, but she was the most influential “chef” in the lives of countless mid-century homemakers. Betty was first dreamed up in 1921 by General Mills and had a long run as a radio personality, but she really hit her stride in the 1950s. In that decade she had a television show (an actress played Betty) and a number of best-selling cookbooks, including 1950s Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book.
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1950s: Willie Mae Seaton
Another New Orleans-based chef whose lasting mark was first made back in the 1950s, Willie Mae Seaton was the force behind Willie Mae’s Scotch House, a restaurant that is still open and run by Seaton’s great-granddaughter. Seaton opened the restaurant in 1957 and set the standard for what has been recognized by many as America’s best fried chicken. Seaton passed away in 2015 but received plenty of recognition within her lifetime, including a James Beard Award in 2005.
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1960s: Julia Child
Possibly the most famous food personality in American history, Julia Child’s rise to superstardom started in the 1960s after the release of her groundbreaking 1961 book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Child’s celebrity was almost instantaneous – as famous as she is now, she was absolutely ubiquitous throughout the Sixties, thanks to her TV show The French Chef, which let Child just be herself, charming audiences with her signature exclamation of “Bon appétit!”.
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1960s: Joyce Chen
Joyce Chen didn’t single-handedly introduce Chinese food to America, but she did teach many American home cooks how to make healthy Chinese-inspired fare at home. Chen was born in Beijing but moved to the States in the 1950s and soon opened her own chain of Chinese restaurants in the Boston area. In 1962 she published Joyce Chen Cook Book, which led her to hosting a cooking show on PBS (using Julia Child’s set) that started in the late 1960s.
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1960s: Justin Wilson
He might be best known by most for the potato chip commercials he starred in the 1980s, but Justin Wilson was also instrumental in popularizing Cajun food in the 1960s, and his name and face are still on a line of sauces and seasonings today. The cook and humorist published the first of 10 books in 1965 and went on to host a nationally syndicated show on PBS that showcased both his cooking skills and his regional Cajun humor.
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1970s: Alice Waters
One of the first real celebrity restaurant chefs, Alice Waters and her Berkley, California restaurant Chez Panisse set the foundation for the modern farm-to-table and market-fresh cooking movements. The restaurant first opened in 1971 and seemed like a bit of a utopian experiment, but the kitchen managed to work wonders with seasonal ingredients and an always-changing menu. Chez Panisse is still open and Waters is recognized as a huge influence on the way many of us eat today.
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1970s: Martin Yan
Like Joyce Chen before him, Martin Yan moved to America from China and quickly positioned himself as a Chinese food educator. He actually first arrived in Canada, where he started appearing on local TV and writing cookbooks in the 1970s, helping to spark the popularity of wok cooking. Yan’s PBS show Yan Can Cook debuted in 1982 and since then, he’s never really stopped appearing on TV and teaching America the ins and outs of Chinese cuisine.
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1970s: Rick Bayless
Rick Bayless is still a driving force in the world of Mexican cuisine, but he got his start in the late 1970s with his PBS program Cooking Mexican. At the time, there weren’t many famous Mexican-American chefs (and countless cooks weren’t given mainstream recognition), but Bayless’ passion and thorough research introduced a lot of viewers to the diversity of Mexican cuisine from the country’s many regions. After that first show, Bayless only got more famous, especially after opening his Frontera Grill restaurant in Chicago in 1987.
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1980s: Ken Hom
Despite a close association with the British BBC, Ken Hom is actually American, having been born in Arizona and educated in California. He skyrocketed to fame in 1983 with the debut of his BBC program Ken Hom’s Chinese Cookery. Nearly 40 years later, Hom is an international presence: he continues to make television and write books, but he also owns a restaurant in Brazil and has a line of cookware.
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1980s: Jacques Pépin
Closely aligned with America’s other great ambassador of French cooking, Julia Child, the French-born Jacques Pépin was introduced to American audiences in 1982 through his PBS show Everyday Cooking and an accompanying cookbook. Pépin was already an accomplished restaurant chef and had written a couple of books on technique, but through television, viewers really embraced him and his approach to delicious French cooking.
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1980s: Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart’s career has been so robust that she can be strongly identified with many decades, but it was in the 1980s that she transformed herself from a former stockbroker into America’s master of everything domestic. Stewart’s breakthrough book Entertaining came out in 1982 and by the end of the 1980s she had published several more and was making regular appearances on national television. All of this paved the way for the Martha Stewart Living empire, which blossomed in the 1990s.
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1980s: Wolfgang Puck
Many Americans are familiar with Wolfgang Puck’s name even if they’ve never stepped foot in one of his restaurants. Spago in Los Angeles was filled with celebrities from the day it opened in 1982 and the restaurant was largely responsible for the addition of toppings like smoked salmon to California-style pizzas. Puck continues to be a force in the California restaurant scene and is still one of the most recognizable restaurant chefs in all of America.
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1980s: Paul Prudhomme
Chef Paul Prudhomme opened his New Orleans restaurant K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in 1979 and he spend most of the 1980s enjoying not only the success of his business, but also as a cooking personality. His 1984 book Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen was hugely popular and familiarized many Americans with Cajun cooking techniques, as well as the awe-inspiring dish known as turducken – a chicken stuffed into a duck, stuffed into a turkey. Prudhomme passed away in 2015, but K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen lives on.
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1990s: Sara Moulton
Sara Moulton may not be as well-known as some of her contemporaries but she had a major impact on food education in the 1990s and beyond. A protégé of the great Julia Child, Moulton is a prolific recipe developer, having worked as the on-air food editor at Good Morning America from 1997 to 2012, and also as the executive chef at Gourmet magazine throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Moulton’s strength lies in her passion for teaching and helping regular Americans to become better home cooks.
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1990s: Bobby Flay
Celebrity chef culture changed forever in the 1990s with the advent of the Food Network and Bobby Flay was one of the biggest stars of the channel’s first decade. Flay was already an accomplished restaurant chef but in the early 1990s his career exploded as he opened multiple restaurants, wrote several cookbooks and seemed to constantly be on television teaching hungry Americans how to get the most out of their backyard grills.
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1990s: Emeril Lagasse
The other chef to dominate those early years of the Food Network was Emeril Lagasse, a restaurant chef from New Orleans who became a household name, partly thanks to his trademark yelps of “Bam!”. Over the years Lagasse has hosted more than 2,000 episodes of Food Network programming, all while also opening restaurants and writing cookbooks. He was basically inescapable in the Nineties, bringing a taste of the Cajun food he loves everywhere he went.
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1990s: Thomas Keller
Thomas Keller isn’t a flashy Food Network star and his cookbooks aren’t exactly approachable for the average home cook, but the sheer number of awards and commendations he’s earned have made him a very well-known chef. Keller opened world-renowned restaurant The French Laundry in Yountville, California in 1994 and the accolades, including the 1997 James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef: America and a three-star Michelin rating, came flowing in soon after.
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1990s: Christopher Kimball
Some home cooks like the flashiness of Food Network while others prefer the more serious and technical approach of Christopher Kimball. Kimball’s public career spans back to the 1980s when he started Cook’s Magazine, but he really took off in 1993 when he co-founded America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Illustrated magazines, both dedicated to the nuts and bolts of cooking. Kimball has since parted ways with ATK and is now behind the Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street brand.
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1990s: Eric Ripert
As the chef at ultra-prestigious Le Bernardin in New York, Eric Ripert isn’t the most likely celebrity cook, but the restaurant’s reputation and Ripert’s appearances on TV (often with his late friend Anthony Bourdain) pushed him into the public realm. He took over the kitchen at Le Bernardin in 1994 and helped to secure its place as one of America’s most celebrated restaurants.
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2000s: Ming Tsai
Ming Tsai rose to prominence towards the end of the 1990s when he opened his flagship Blue Ginger restaurant in the Boston area and launched his East Meets West TV show on PBS. Tsai appealed to America’s hunger for Asian fusion dishes, drawing on his experiences as an American with Chinese heritage. He was also an early adopter of allergen-free dining, as a result of his son’s severe allergies.
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2000s: Ina Garten
One of America’s most beloved home cooks, Ina Garten struck a chord with viewers and readers who appreciated her elegant and effortless approach to cooking. Her landmark The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook came out in 1999, named after a store in the Hamptons that she ran. Garten really gained traction in the early 2000s though, as she continued to write cookbooks and launched the Barefoot Contessa television program.
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2000s: Marcus Samuelsson
Many American chefs and writers have worked to raise the profile of African cuisine in America and Marcus Samuelsson has done so with a focus on his personal Ethiopian heritage, in a distinctively 2000s style. He was named the best new chef in New York by the James Beard Foundation in 2003 while working at Aquavit, and brought his vision into home kitchens in 2006 with his book The Soul of a New Cuisine. Samuelsson was also asked to cook at Barack Obama’s first state dinner in 2009.
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2000s: David Chang
David Chang is probably the most well-known new restaurateur to emerge over the last 20 years. While a lot of his public profile is based on more recent TV productions and his (now-defunct) Lucky Peach magazine, it all started for Chang back in 2004 when he opened Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York. Chang originally positioned himself as a “bad boy” chef but has since publicly examined his anger management and mental health issues in his 2020 memoir Eat a Peach.
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2000s: Anthony Bourdain
Most of Anthony Bourdain’s time as a working chef took place before he rose to fame in 2000 with the release of his tell-all book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. The book led to a series of travelog TV shows including A Cook’s Tour, No Reservations and Parts Unknown, all of which used food to connect viewers with cultures around the world. Bourdain passed away in 2018 but his spirit lives on through his legacy of curiosity and empathy.
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2000s: Rachael Ray
While food-focused television and restaurant chef cookbooks were great for aspirational foodies in the 1990s and 2000s, by the time Rachael Ray came along in the mid-2000s, Americans were ready for simple but delicious meals to cook at home. Ray struck gold with her “30-Minute Meal” approach, writing cookbooks full of recipes that were low on effort but high on flavor. Her empire grew into a magazine, multiple TV shows and several cookbooks.
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2000s: Cat Cora
Many American foodies loved the 1990s Japanese series Iron Chef and were thrilled when Food Network launched an American version in 2005. Chef Cat Cora was one of the original Iron Chefs, appearing on the show’s first 10 seasons. Cora’s career has thrived both in front of and behind the camera: she’s opened 18 restaurants over the years and spends much of her time promoting wellness and sustainability, while also mentoring young women in the food industry.
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2000s: Deb Perelman
The blogging age opened the door for many talented home cooks to turn their passions into full-time media careers. One of the greatest blogging success stories was Smitten Kitchen, a recipe website operated by a writer named Deb Perelman, based in New York City. Perelman offered home cooks trustworthy recipes and charming commentary, a formula that eventually expanded into writing for major magazines and the publication of two cookbooks.
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2000s: Christina Tosi
David Chang is the biggest star to come out of the Momofuku family of restaurants, but pastry chef Christina Tosi is a close second, thanks to her whimsical inventions like cereal milk ice cream and compost cookies. She started to work with Momofuku in an administrative role, but in 2008 Chang asked her to open Milk Bar, where she could exercise her creativity to create desserts for his restaurants. She’s since become a pastry superstar, with many of her desserts now considered classics.
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2000s: Carla Hall
Cooking competition shows became a phenomenon during the 2000s and none were bigger than the still-popular Top Chef. Carla Hall, a chef originally from Nashville, wasn’t the big Top Chef winner when she competed in 2008, but she did end up scoring a spot hosting The Chew, based on her skill and personality. Hall’s philosophy is that one should always cook with love, which is a cornerstone of her popularity and has led to work as a motivational speaker.
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2000s: Marcela Valladolid
Marcela Valladolid is from San Diego but has spent much time cooking and learning on the other side of the border in Tijuana, where she could better explore the traditional Mexican cuisine that she’s built her career on. Her first TV show was in Spanish, but she crossed over to English-speaking audiences in 2009 with the release of her book Fresh Mexico and her career has only grown since.
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2000s: Ree Drummond
Few food bloggers have been able to cross over to mainstream audiences as successfully as Ree Drummond, better known as The Pioneer Woman. While many well-known food personalities have leaned toward fancier fine dining fare, Drummond’s speciality is home-style country recipes. Drummond started the site in 2006 and published her first cookbook in 2009, expanding to TV in the early 2010s.
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