A celebrity chef is a kitchen chef who has become famous and well known. Today celebrity chefs often become celebrities by presenting cookery advice and demonstrations via mass media, especially television. Several chefs have been credited with being the first celebrity chef, among them historically Bartolomeo Scappi and Marie-Antoine Carême.

In the modern era since the advent of television several chefs have been attributed the title of the "first celebrity chef", including Julia Child in the United States and across the Atlantic, Fanny Craddock in the UK. While television is ultimately the primary way for a chef to become a celebrity, some have achieved this through success in the kitchen and achieving such awards as Michelin stars while others are home cooks.

Celebrity chefs can also massively influence cuisines across countries, with foreign cuisines being introduced in their natural forms for the first time due to the work of the chef to inform their viewers. Sales of certain foodstuffs can also be enhanced, such as when Delia Smith caused the sale of eggs across the UK to increase by 10% in what has since been termed the "Delia effect". Endorsements are also to be expected from a celebrity chef, such as Ken Hom's range of bestselling woks in Europe, but can also lead to criticism over which endorsements are chosen such as when Marco Pierre White teamed up with Bernard Matthews Farms, or when Darren Simpson advised and endorsed fast food restaurant KFC.

Anthony Michael "Tony" Bourdain (born June 25, 1956) is an American chef, author and television personality. He is well known for his 2000 book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, and is the host of Travel Channel's culinary and cultural adventure programs Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations and The Layover.

A 1978 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and a veteran of numerous professional kitchens, Bourdain is currently a chef-at-large, whose home base is Brasserie Les Halles, New York where he was executive chef for many years.

Anthony Bourdain was born in New York City to Pierre (d.1987) and Gladys Bourdain, and grew up in Leonia, New Jersey. Bourdain has French ancestry on his father's side; his paternal grandfather emigrated from France to New York following World War I. Bourdain's mother worked for the New York Times as a staff editor. Bourdain was a student at Englewood School for Boys, graduating in 1973. He attended Vassar College before dropping out after two years, and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1978.

Gordon James Ramsay, OBE (born 8 November 1966) is a British chef, television personality and restaurateur. He has been awarded 13 Michelin stars in total and currently holds 12.

Ramsay is known for presenting TV programmes about competitive cookery and food, such as the British series Hell's Kitchen, The F Word, Ramsay's Best Restaurant, and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, along with the American versions of Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, and MasterChef.

Gordon Ramsay was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland, and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England from the age of 5. Ramsay is the second of four children; he has an older sister, Diane, a younger brother, Ronnie, and a younger sister, Yvonne. Ramsay's father Gordon (died 1997) was, at various times, a swimming pool manager, a welder, and a shopkeeper; his mother, Helen Cosgrove, and Yvonne have been nurses. Ramsay has described his early life as "hopelessly itinerant", as his family moved constantly due to the aspirations and failures of his father, who was violent. In 1976, they finally settled in Stratford-upon-Avon where he grew up in the Bishopton area of the town. In past public interviews, Ramsay has declined to describe his father as an alcoholic; however, his autobiography, Humble Pie, describes his early life as being marked by abuse and neglect from this "hard-drinking womaniser". At the age of 16, Ramsay moved out of the family house into a flat in Banbury.

Beef Wellington is a preparation of filet steak coated with pâté (often pâté de foie gras) and duxelles, which is then wrapped in puff pastry and baked. Some recipes include wrapping the coated meat in a crêpe to retain the moisture and prevent it making the pastry soggy.

A whole tenderloin may be wrapped and baked, and then sliced for serving, or the tenderloin may be sliced into individual portions prior to wrapping and baking. Many spices may be added to enhance the flavour; some examples are curry, allspice, any grilling mix or ginger.

The origin of the name is unclear. There are theories that suggest that beef Wellington is named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. Some theories go a step further and suggest this was due to his love of a dish of beef, truffles, mushrooms, Madeira wine, and pâté cooked in pastry, but there is a noted lack of evidence supporting this. In addition to the dearth of evidence attaching this dish to the famous Duke, the earliest recorded recipe to bear this name appeared in a 1966 cookbook. Other accounts simply credit the name to a patriotic chef wanting to give an English name to a variation on the French filet de bœuf en croûte during the Napoleonic Wars. Still another theory is that the dish is not named after the Duke himself, but rather that the finished filet was thought to resemble one of the brown shiny military boots which were named after him.

John Torode (born 23 July 1965) is an Australian-born British celebrity chef specialising in Australasian food. He runs Smiths of Smithfield and several other restaurants scattered throughout London's Smithfield market.

Torode was brought up by his grandmother after his mother died when he was four but he disliked not being with his father. He has suffered from asthma intermittently for much of his life and he also went on to develop eczema as an adult suffering with it for some 20 years. He came to the UK at the age of 25, and worked in many London restaurants, including Pont de La Tour, Quaglino's, Mezzo, and the Bluebird.

He has had numerous television appearances - his recipes are occasionally shown on Saturday Kitchen on BBC1, a show that he has guest presented since May 2008. He has a regular article in the Daily Mail on Saturdays and in Olive Magazine. He was the resident chef on This Morning with Richard and Judy for four years.

He is probably best known for co-presenting MasterChef and Celebrity MasterChef along with Gregg Wallace. He has also co presented Junior MasterChef along with Nadia Sawalha the former winner of Celebrity MasterChef.