Love them or hate them, reality TV shows featuring celebrity chefs have become massive in recent years.
Competitive cookery shows, such as Hell’s Kitchen and MasterChef, have introduced a whole new audience to the ups and downs of running a restaurant.
Behind every famous TV chef’s public image is a real person; someone who hasn’t always been in the public eye.
1. Gordon Ramsay
Probably the most famous of them all, angry Scot Gordon Ramsay has starred in plenty of primetime TV shows and is renowned for shouting at other restaurant owners, usually with a tirade of four-letter words!
The 57-year-old Johnstone born restaurateur started out as a humble pot-washer in an Indian restaurant in Stratford-upon-Avon as a youth.
He had aspired to become a professional footballer, playing for Rangers’ youth teams, but a serious knee injury marked the end of his sporting career.
At 19, he decided to start taking the restaurant industry more seriously. He attended North Oxfordshire Technical College to study hotel management, before working as a commis chef at Banbury’s Wroxton House Hotel.
He worked as a chef at many prestigious restaurants to learn his trade. In 1998, he opened his first business, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, in Chelsea, which was later recognised as the second-best restaurant in the UK by the Good Food Guide, behind The Fat Duck in Bray. He expanded his empire by opening more restaurants.
Ramsay’s big TV break came in 1999, when he starred in a fly-on-the-wall documentary, Boiling Point. This led to his own Channel 4 show, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, in 2004, when he was called in by desperate restaurateurs to save their failing businesses.
Today, Ramsay owns seven Hell’s Kitchen themed restaurants, including one on the Las Vegas Strip outside Caesar’s Palace.
2. Nigella Lawson
Nigella Lawson, daughter of British politician Nigel Lawson, was originally a journalist. Born in Wandsworth, she was a book reviewer and restaurant critic in her youth.
She became the Sunday Times’ deputy literary editor and then a freelance newspaper and magazine reporter.
Later, she became a guest radio and TV host, frequently appearing on the Channel 4 cookery programme, Nigel Slater’s Real Food Show, in 1998.
Inspired by her mother, she had enjoyed cooking for pleasure since childhood, so published her own best-selling cookery book, How To Eat, in 1998, which led to her first TV series, Nigella Bites, on Channel 4 in 1999. Her second book, How To Become a Domestic Goddess, was published in 2000.
A series of successful TV shows followed from 2003 to 2014 including Nigella Feasts, Nigella Express, Nigella’s Christmas, Nigellissima and The Taste.
Today, although not a trained chef, Nigella, 64, still enjoys a high-profile career in cookery.
3. Heston Blumenthal
Paddington-born Heston Blumenthal, 57, had no interest in cooking until the age of 16, when he dined at the L'Oustau de Baumanière restaurant during a family holiday in France.
The superb food at the Michelin three-star restaurant in Provence, combined with the ambience of the fountains, inspired him to consider becoming a chef.
He started out by cooking recipes from the French cookery book, Les Recettes Originales. At 18, he joined Raymond Blanc’s restaurant, Le Manoir aux Quat Saisons, as an apprentice. However, he left after one week, preferring to teach himself from various French cookbooks over the next decade.
Aged 29, he bought a run-down old pub, The Ringers, in Bray, Berkshire. After relaunching as The Fat Duck, he won the Good Food Guide’s award for top restaurant in the UK, attracting the attention of food critics, who were full of praise for the menu.
He shot to fame in 2002 after making a TV series, Kitchen Chemistry with Heston Blumenthal, for the Discovery Science channel.
Today, Heston Blumental restaurants including The Fat Duck (which has three Michelin stars) are world famous.
4. Martha Stewart
Born in New Jersey in 1941, Martha Stewart is the most prominent household and cooking celebrity in the US, with her own brand of kitchenware and home furnishing products. Dubbed a “lifestyle guru”, she has created hundreds of recipes. However, she didn’t enter the hospitality sector until she was 40.
In her youth, she worked as a fashion model, including for Chanel, to pay her way through college, where she studied history and art.
She became a stockbroker in 1967, but had a change of direction in 1976, when she launched a catering business from her Westport home.
The company was invited to provide catering for an event hosted by publisher Harry N Abrams Inc of New York City in 1977. She met the head of Crown Publishing, Alan Mirken, at the gathering. Impressed by her cooking skills, he asked her to create a cookbook of her own recipes. This resulted in her first book, Entertaining, in 1982.
It was a huge success, and she earned a deal to write multiple cookery books, which led to a newspaper column and many TV appearances.
5. Ina Garten
Ina Garten, 76, is an American author and television chef known as the “Barefoot Contessa”. Born in New York City in 1948.
After marrying author and economist Jeffrey Garten in 1968, she began cooking to pass the time while her husband was serving in Vietnam. When he returned from military service, they took a holiday in France. Garten loved French cuisine, the fresh cooking ingredients, outdoor markets and produce stands.
Returning to the US, she worked at the White House in the Office of Management and Budget. It wasn’t for her, and she bought a speciality food shop called Barefoot Contessa in 1978.
Working 12-hour days to build up the business to seven-times its initial size, she employed bakers and chefs and attracted celebrity clientele such as top film director Steven Spielberg.
In 1999, she published The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, which sold more than 100,000 copies. In 2002, she debuted her own show, The Barefoot Contessa, on the Food Network.
Successful restaurants
One thing every celebrity chef will agree on is the importance of good hygiene in a kitchen. Using top quality catering supplies is a vital part of having a successful restaurant business.
On his Kitchen Nightmare show, Gordon Ramsay has had some heated arguments with errant restaurateurs after finding old food, grime and dirt festering in food preparation and storage areas.
Food hygiene policies protect customer health. Kitchen staff in food preparation areas must wear vinyl gloves to prevent any bacteria or cross-contamination blighting the food and ingredients.
Restaurateurs must also ensure all employees understand how to follow stringent hygiene policies.
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