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Oh jeez.

Look, we're crawling with "celebrity chefs" here. You can't swing a skillet without hitting a couple, if you're living in a city of any size. I'm not gonna name any names, because the whole thing has just gotten ridiculous. Google for a bit and you'll find a few candidates.

High-end dining is fucked up six ways to Sunday. When stuff like this gets played up in a very Romantic fashion, something is seriously wrong.

Fuck the Food Network for making porn out of what were once helpful cooking shows. Fuck the cult of the "celebrity" chef for the ego-stoked bullshit that it is. I sincerely hope that there is a punk-like revolution against the cult of personality that prevails at the moment.

I enjoy dining out as much as anyone, but as far as I can see the only people benefiting from the "Rock Star chef" routine are the chefs themselves. Eat at your neighborhood restaurant, or better yet, cook locally-grown food for yourself.

Not *literally* up to our eyeballs.

bmarkey, that's why I like Hugh and his whole 'River Cottage' thing. Cook with what's local, fresh and in-season... it's pretty simple. He seems to be a sort of anti-celebrity, anti-hype chef. A guy I work with raises pigs, and he recently attended Hugh's 'how-to' course... which he said was fantastic and quite affordable.

Hugh isn't some pampered celebrity chef. He's more of a crusader.

Fuck the Food Network for making porn out of what were once helpful cooking shows.

i feel the same way, but i give a pass to alton brown. i've learned more about the actual process - the science and the techniques - behind cooking from watching good eats than i have from any other television program, book or workshop. good eats is more like a copy of how to cook everything come to life, with occasional forays into snark, which i can appreciate. it gives the viewer the rudiments to experiment with and improvise on, rather than encouraging a would-be cook to ruin their food with entirely too much garlic and excessive, forceful sprinklings of prepackaged, overpriced spice blends whilst yelling BAM!! really loud. (there was one episode of good eats a while back where alton actually warned against the dangers of "bammage".)

speaking of bammage, is it just me, or is everyone in the studio audience of emeril live merely a handful of special ed clones going "YAAAAY!" every time he "kick(s) it up a notch"?

I like Alton Brown, although his he really a chef? Sort of. I mean, he went to culinary school, but he's an actor and a filmographer first, I think. That's why his show is so good.

I also liked his show Feasting on Asphalt, because it was such a celebration of local American cuisine.

It's interesting that a lot of the shows on the Food Network don't star real chefs who worked for real restaurants. There's Emeril, Bobby Flay, and Mario Batali.

Who is the best American chef?

Why aren't there more hugely famous chefs from America

Best, or famous? You're asking two different things.

This year I've tried 4 higher end places: WD40, 4 Seasons, Le Cirque, and Bouley. I liked Bouley best, more going on on the plate, lot's of textures and flavors. WD40 was fun, weird combinations and shapes, the other two were just, I don't know, good food.

Daniel Boulud, Eric Ripert, Mario Batali, Wylie Dufresne off the top of my head and I don't watch the food network so it's NYC chefs there.

(psst, stickycarpet, I hope you weren't trying WD40...) Kick it up 10 notches or so?

Thomas Keller is probably the top chef in the US right now (chef at French Laundry / Per Se) though his fame came a few years ago and I'm not sure if he's been unsurped yet.

Mario Batali is famous and top quality - he's in the top 10 probably. Daniel Boulud gets way more credit than he deserves (Daniel probably ranks among the worst dining experiences I've had - bad service, crap food, and he also was the chef that cost Le Cirque one of its stars when Le Cirque was actually a high end restaurant - it became 2nd tier awhile ago). I've eaten at Tru which is more known for their pastry chef (Gale Gand) than their executive chef. Tru is probably the best dining experience I've had - just superb.

Bouley is good but nothing to write home about - I wasn't impressed when I went there.

Morimoto (The Iron Chef) is based in Philly and he's a known name.

Masa, in NYC, is the new 4 star restaurant (and the first none french restaurant given 4 stars by the NYTimes) but I couldn't name the chef if my life depended on it.

Jacques Torres (former pastry chef at Le Cirque) is now making a name for himself with his chocolate shops in New York.

Alice Waters is also extremely famous and influencial but she has the cult-of-organic crowd surronding her and, even though help raise the bar for american cuisine, I can't stand her apologists.

Julia Childs was (and still is) a giant in the world of food.

But, yeah, celebrity chefs in the US are just that - celebrities. And they tend to have more charisma than actual cooking chops. Of all the top celebrity chefs in the US, only Mario has a 4 star restaurant - most of the others rank at 2 or below.

Best, or famous? You're asking two different things.

True, hair-splitter :-)

I would assume that the creme de la creme of American culuinary arts would have at least a little international notoriety.

*favourites stynxno's comment*

How do you know so much about cuisine? Are you a chef?

How do you know so much about cuisine? Are you a chef?

Nope. I just like to eat.

No doubt! You've certainly eaten at some nice places.

I must go to The Fat Duck now... just so I can post a review!

I think Masa is a Morimoto operation as well (his first name is Masaharu, yes?)

Given the choice between any celebrity chef and ColdChef's gumbo, I'll go blindly with the latter.

Emeril Live is the worst program on television. I am dead serious, it is totally unwatchable. Even his sycophants should find it intellectually insulting.

I don't really associate Alice Waters with the cult of organic, but rather being an originator in the USA of fresh, locally grown, and in season. Something quite common in Europe, but at the time non-existent in the USA. Of course, I've probably known of Alice Waters longer than you've been alive, and so my view is a bit different than of one who is only recently aware of her. Growing up in Northern California while the wine and food there was growing up was an amazing time. It wasn't nearly so pretentious as it is now. It's kind of typical of the USA to be more interested in talking about food and wine than actually, you know, consuming it.

I don't really associate Alice Waters with the cult of organic, but rather being an originator in the USA of fresh, locally grown, and in season.

Oh. I know what she did and I'm grateful for it. She did good work. It's her followers and cult-like-status foodies give her that I can't really stand. But I dislike that attitude when it comes to any field. I'm not big on hero worship.

Also, I'm also living in a town that has to import everything it makes and where its importation capabilities actually enhances the food offerings available. I'm into locally grown idealogy but I see value in being able to get sea bass from chile.

Yeah, I don't know any of the cooks styxno mentioned, except Batali. Outside New York, LA, and San Francisco, "fine dining" is Wolfgang Puck and P. F. Chang's.

Slightly less grumpy now...

I have to agree with eekacat regarding growing up in California and seeing food and wine there take off the way they did. As the song says, money changes everything.

Every now and again Science Girl and I toy with the idea of doing a cooking show on public access TV. Neither one of us has any training – I learned everything I know from working in a couple of kitchens and watching Jacques Pepin on PBS – but we both like to cook and we’re fairly decent at it. And that would be the point of the show: cooking is fun, and anybody can make reasonably good food if they try.