Éric Ripert (rih-pair) (born 1965 in Antibes) is a French chef, author and television personality specializing in modern French cuisine and renowned for his work with seafood.

Ripert's flagship restaurant, Le Bernardin, located in New York City, has been ranked among the best restaurants in the world by culinary magazines and S. Pellegrino's annual "Worlds 50 Best Restaurants" list. It holds the maximum ratings of four stars from The New York Times and three stars from the Michelin Guide.

Eric Ripert was born in France and learned to cook at a young age from his grandmother. When he was young, his family moved to Andorra, where he was raised. He later returned to France and attended culinary school in Perpignan.

At the age of 17 in 1982 he moved to Paris where he worked for two years at La Tour d'Argent, a famous restaurant more than 400 years old. Ripert next worked at Jamin under Joël Robuchon and was soon promoted to Assistant Chef de Partie. In 1985 Ripert left to fulfill his military service, after which he returned to Jamin as Chef Poissonier.

Mario Batali (born September 19, 1960) is an American chef, writer, restaurateur and media personality. In addition to his classical culinary training, he is an expert on the history and culture of Italian cuisine, including regional and local variations. Batali co-owns restaurants in New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Singapore and Hong Kong Batali's signature clothing style includes shorts and orange Crocs.

Batali was born in Seattle, Washington, the son of Marilyn (née LaFramboise) and Armandino Batali. His family moved to Yakima, Washington shortly thereafter. When Batali was about 8, his family moved back to Seattle when his father got a job as an engineer for Boeing. His father worked for Boeing for thirty years, then, after retirement, opened a meat-curing shop, Salumi, in Seattle.

He is of Italian ancestry on his father's side, and French Canadian ancestry on his mother's side.

According to research done by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (of Harvard University, in 2010 for the PBS series Faces of America), his maternal great-great grandparents opened an Italian foods store in 1903. Batali's family roots are found almost entirely in the Western United States. Mario’s great-great-grandfather left Italy in 1899, going to Butte, Montana to work in the copper mines, but later moved west to settle in Seattle.

Wylie Dufresne is the chef and owner of wd~50 restaurant in Manhattan. Dufresne is a leading American proponent of molecular gastronomy, the movement to incorporate science and new techniques in the preparation and presentation of food.

Born in 1970 in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S., Dufresne is a graduate of The French Culinary Institute in New York. In 1992, Wylie completed a B.A. in philosophy at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

From 1994 through 1999, he worked for Jean-Georges Vongerichten, where he was eventually named sous chef at Vongerichten's eponymous Jean Georges. In 1998 he was chef de cuisine at Vongerichten's Prime in The Bellagio, Las Vegas. In 1999, he left to become the first chef at 71 Clinton Fresh Food. In April 2003, he opened his 70-seat restaurant, wd~50 (named for the chef's initials and the street address, as well as a pun on WD-40) on Clinton Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

Dufresne was a James Beard Foundation nominee for Rising Star Chef of the Year in 2000 and chosen the same year by New York Magazine for their New York Awards. Food & Wine magazine named him one of 2001 America's Ten Best Chefs award and, in 2006, New York Magazine's Adam Platt placed wd-50 fourth in his list of New York's 101 best restaurants. He was awarded a star in Michelin's New York City Guide, 2006, 2007, 2008, the first Red Guide for North America, and was nominated for Best Chef New York by the James Beard Foundation. Wd-50 has also been recognized as one of the Top 10 Molecular Gastronomy Restaurants in the U.S. by GAYOT.com.

Drew Blyth Barrymore (born February 22, 1975) is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered States in 1980. Afterwards, she starred in her breakout role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. She quickly became one of Hollywood's most recognized child actresses, going on to establish herself in mainly comic roles.

Following a turbulent childhood which was marked by drug and alcohol abuse and two stints in rehab, Barrymore wrote the 1990 autobiography, Little Girl Lost. She successfully made the transition from child star to adult actress with a number of films including Poison Ivy, Bad Girls, Boys on the Side, and Everyone Says I Love You. Subsequently, she established herself in romantic comedies such as The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates.

In 1995, she and business partner Nancy Juvonen formed the production company Flower Films, with its first production the 1999 Barrymore film Never Been Kissed. Flower Films has gone on to produce the Barrymore vehicle films Charlie's Angels, 50 First Dates, and Music and Lyrics, as well as the cult film Donnie Darko. Barrymore's more recent projects include He's Just Not That into You, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Everybody's Fine and Going the Distance. A recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Barrymore appeared on the cover of the 2007 People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful issue.

Marcus Samuelsson (born Kassahun Tsegie; January 25, 1970) is an Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised chef and owner of Red Rooster Harlem in New York City and three other restaurants.

After their birth mother died in a tuberculosis epidemic when he was three years old, Kassahun Tsegie and his elder sister, Fantaye, were adopted by Ann Marie and Lennart Samuelsson, a homemaker and a geologist, who lived in Gothenburg, Sweden. The siblings' names were changed to Marcus and Linda Samuelsson. They also have an adopted sister, Anna Samuelsson. Samuelsson's biological father, Tsegie, is a priest and father of eight of the chef's half-siblings; he still lives in the Ethiopian village where Samuelsson was born.

After becoming interested in cooking because of his maternal grandmother in Sweden, Samuelsson studied at the Culinary Institute in Gothenburg, where he grew up, apprenticed in Switzerland and Austria, and came to the United States in 1991 as an apprentice at Restaurant Aquavit. At 24, Marcus became executive chef of Aquavit, and soon after that became the youngest ever to receive a three-star restaurant review from The New York Times. In 2003 he was named "Best Chef: New York City" by the James Beard Foundation. The same year he started a second New York restaurant, Riingo, serving Japanese-influenced American food.