Most popular cooking TV show hosts

By Stacker

Published November 20, 2024 2:19 AM

Brad Barket // Getty Images

Most popular cooking TV show hosts

Rachael Ray cooking with a huge flame.

Everyone eats, which means most people cook every day. For those who have anxiety about cooking, don’t know a saucepan from a skillet, or just need a little inspiration, help is on TV.

While public broadcasts and television dramas debuted as early as the 1920s, the first national cooking show didn’t air until 1946, when caterer and cookbook author James Beard starred in “I Love to Eat” on NBC. Since then, scores of chefs have taken to the small screen, particularly after the introduction of the Food Network in 1993, which saw the rise of cooking competition shows like “Chopped” and “Top Chef.”

Cooking shows offer a way for viewers to learn about cuisines from around the world. In 1963, Julia Child brought French cooking to kitchens across the country with her revolutionary show “The French Chef,” which promoted public passion for international cuisine and techniques. In 1966, Joyce Chen became the first Asian American woman to host a cooking show. Although “Joyce Chen Cooks” only lasted one season, it introduced Chinese cuisine to many Americans.

Stacker looked at YouGov data on the most known and liked TV personalities as of the third quarter of 2024. The top 20 cooking and food show hosts were ranked by the percentage of survey respondents who recognized them and the percentage who had a positive opinion of them. Ties were broken by the latter.

With the abundance of cooking shows, not every chef made the cut. “Top Chef” is represented on this list, but not head judge Tom Colicchio. A giant in French cooking appears on this list, but Jacques Pépin, a frequent show partner, proved less memorable. Many who focus on non-American cuisine are also missing like Rick Bayless, whose television career sought to prove that Mexican food is more than tacos.

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#20. Anne Burrell

Anne Burrell.

– Have heard of: 54%
– Have a positive opinion of: 31%
– Total: 85%

Known for her spiky blond hair, this brash chef got her TV start as Mario Batali’s sous chef on “Iron Chef America,” which helped her land a cooking show on the Food Network. Anne Burrell’s first show, “Secrets of a Restaurant Chef,” lasted 117 episodes and spawned her debut cookbook, “Cook Like a Rock Star.” Continuing her drive to help ordinary people improve their cooking, Burrell started the aptly named competition show “Worst Cooks in America.” Still going strong after 27 seasons, the program sees Burrell and a celebrity chef mentoring a group of hopeless cooks.

Monica Schipper/Getty Images for The Pioneer Woman Magazine // Getty Images

#19. Ree Drummond

Ree Drummond.

– Have heard of: 56%
– Have a positive opinion of: 31%
– Total: 87%

Ree Drummond thought she’d left Oklahoma behind after attending the University of Southern California with aspirations of pursuing law school in Chicago. But fate had other plans for Drummond: She met rancher Ladd Drummond, fell in love, and moved back to Oklahoma to marry him. In 2006, Drummond started her blog The Pioneer Woman, which chronicled her life on their 430,000-plus acre ranch, homeschooling her five children, and, of course, cooking. Within five years, the blog was a hit with over 20 million page views a month. Drummond scored book deals and an eponymous TV show on the Food Network that premiered in 2011 and is still going strong.

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#18. Padma Lakshmi

Padma Lakshmi with the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

– Have heard of: 57%
– Have a positive opinion of: 33%
– Total: 90%

Model Padma Lakshmi was propelled to food TV stardom in 2006 as the host of Bravo’s “Top Chef” in its second season. Lakshmi helmed the show for 19 seasons, securing an executive producer credit along the way. In 2023, Lakshmi left “Top Chef” to spend more time with her teenage daughter and pursue other creative pursuits. Emmy-nominated Lakshmi has written cookbooks and hosted and executive produced two seasons of “Taste the Nation,” a food documentary show where she explored indigenous and immigrant foods of the U.S. In September 2024, Lakshmi announced a production deal with CBS to create a cooking competition show.

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for NYCWFF // Getty Images

#17. Andrew Zimmern

Andrew Zimmern holding a plate of food.

– Have heard of: 55%
– Have a positive opinion of: 35%
– Total: 90%

Before he became an Emmy winner and four-time James Beard Award winner, Andrew Zimmern cooked in many New York restaurants while dealing with alcoholism and addiction. After an intervention, he sought treatment, became sober, and rebuilt his life in food in Minneapolis. His work garnered media attention, which led to the Travel Channel show “Bizarre Foods” and several spinoffs.

Since then, he has created other TV shows—including MSNBC’s “What’s Eating America” and the 2024 Outdoor Channel series “Field to Fire “—and authored several books. He’s also partnered with James Beard Award winner Gavin Kaysen to create KZ Provisioning, a culinary company that provides catering to several pro sports teams in Minnesota and, thanks to a 2024 deal with Aramark Sports & Entertainment, across the country.

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#16. James Beard

James Beard holding a fish head.

– Have heard of: 59%
– Have a positive opinion of: 32%
– Total: 91%

Today, James Beard is best known as the name behind the prestigious culinary and food media awards. But he originally wanted to be an actor. After a lackluster acting career was cut short by the Great Depression, Beard turned to food. His mother, an excellent cook, had taught Beard the importance of good ingredients, and the failed thespian started a successful catering company that spawned his first cookbook about hors d’oeuvres.

In 1945, Beard was the first chef to have a cooking segment on a network TV show. Throughout the next four decades, he built a culinary empire that involved consulting, penning over 20 cookbooks, and opening his own cooking school. Behind the scenes, Beard had a complicated life as a closeted gay man during a period when it wasn’t safe to come out. Beard was also prone to using other people’s recipes without giving them credit.

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#15. Alton Brown

Alton Brown.

– Have heard of: 56%
– Have a positive opinion of: 35%
– Total: 91%

The king of “Good Eats,” Alton Brown shot to fame with his unique approach to exploring the science and history behind food, often with a dash of humor. After premiering on Chicago’s PBS station in 1998, Food Network bought the rights in 1999, and the show became a hit, running for 13 years and earning a Peabody Award and James Beard Award. Brown won another James Beard Award in 2003 for his book “I’m Just Here for the Food.” He continued to appear on Food Network shows until his contract ended in 2020, when he left the network to cohost an “Iron Chef” reboot on Netflix.

Mark Von Holden/WireImage for Colle & McVoy, Inc // Getty Images

#14. Sandra Lee

Sandra Lee holding a plate of dessert with raspberries.

– Have heard of: 60%
– Have a positive opinion of: 33%
– Total: 93%

Growing up in a low-income household, Sandra Lee had to learn the importance of resourcefulness early in life while cooking for the family and stretching dollars and food stamps. Lee managed to leverage that ingenuity into a profitable career, first with easy-to-make window treatments, then with food, writing over two dozen cookbooks.

She’s hosted multiple Food Network shows, most famously the Emmy Award-winning “Semi-Homemade Cooking,” which encouraged home cooks to combine store-bought and homemade ingredients. A breast cancer survivor, Lee was romantically linked with former New York governor Andrew Cuomo for over a decade until their breakup in 2019.

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#13. Ina Garten

Ina Garten.

– Have heard of: 58%
– Have a positive opinion of: 35%
– Total: 93%

A former White House budget analyst, Ina Garten made her foray into the food business in 1978 by purchasing Barefoot Contessa, a small food store in the Hamptons that takes its name from the 1954 Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner movie. Seeking a new challenge, Garten sold the store in 1996, reallocating her time to write bestselling cookbooks and developing “Barefoot Contessa,” a James Beard Award-winning Food Network show named for the store that started it all.

Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for SOBEWFF® // Getty Images

#12. Tia Mowry

Tia Mowry.

– Have heard of: 62%
– Have a positive opinion of: 37%
– Total: 99%

A child actress-turned-cooking ambassador, Tia Mowry burst onto the entertainment scene in the late 1990s when she and her twin, Tamera Mowry, starred on the sitcom “Sister, Sister.” As an adult, Mowry continued acting but wanted to create projects around her lifelong love of cooking. Her first Cooking Channel show, “Tia Mowry at Home,” lasted just two seasons. In her 2023 follow-up show, “Not Like Mama,” Mowry adjudicates home cooks attempting to recreate their mothers’ signature dishes.

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#11. Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver sitting at a booth table.

– Have heard of: 66%
– Have a positive opinion of: 38%
– Total: 104%

Jamie Oliver’s TV career began by chance when he caught the eye of a BBC documentary crew filming at London’s River Café. Later, the same filmmakers would support Oliver on his own TV show in 1999, “The Naked Chef.” Oliver’s brash style and stripped-down recipes made him a household name in both the U.K. and the U.S. His “Feed Me Better” campaign to make school lunches healthier spurred the British government to increase school food budgets.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution” attempted the same premise in Huntington, West Virginia, and Los Angeles, picking up an Emmy in the process. Although his restaurant group went bankrupt in 2019, Oliver still writes cookbooks and has a culinary school.

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#10. Wolfgang Puck

Wolfgang Puck holding a plate of food.

– Have heard of: 79%
– Have a positive opinion of: 40%
– Total: 119%

Austrian-born Wolfgang Puck inherited the food gene from his mother, a chef in her own right, who taught him how to cook. Puck worked in France’s best restaurants before moving to the U.S. In the mid-1970s, he opened many famous restaurants in Los Angeles, including Ma Maison and Spago. He also opened a catering company that has served the Academy Awards Governors Ball for 29 years. A seven-time James Beard Award winner, Puck’s eponymous Food Network show ran for five seasons and picked up an Emmy Award. A fixture on “Good Morning America,” Puck also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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#9. Bobby Flay

Bobby Flay.

– Have heard of: 78%
– Have a positive opinion of: 43%
– Total: 121%

A high school dropout with a love for food, Bobby Flay started cooking at a New York restaurant. He impressed his bosses enough that they sent him to the brand-new French Culinary Institute to learn the fundamentals (after earning his GED). After working in other chefs’ restaurants, Flay opened his restaurant Mesa Grill in 1991, garnering him his first of two cooking-related James Beard Awards.

In addition to running restaurants, Flay starred in over a dozen popular shows for the Food Network, including “Beat Bobby Flay,” “Throwdown with Bobby Flay,” and “Bobby Flay Chef Mentor,” the latter of which earned him a third James Beard Award. However, Flay may be known best for his 100-plus appearances on “Iron Chef,” a show that he quit abruptly in 2018 via a T-shirt message that he wore during a live taping. A four-time Emmy winner, in 2015, Flay became the first TV chef to earn a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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#8. Emeril Lagasse

Emeril Lagasse.

– Have heard of: 74%
– Have a positive opinion of: 48%
– Total: 122%

For over 30 years, Emeril Lagasse taught people to “kick it up a notch!” with their cooking. Originally from Massachusetts, Lagasse’s early days as a cook took him to French and American cities, before he settled in New Orleans in 1981, taking over as executive chef at the legendary Commander’s Palace restaurant.

Lagasse’s name became synonymous with Cajun and Creole cooking as he developed a New Orleans cooking style that he showcased through a growing stable of restaurants and cookbooks. Emeril struck it big on TV in 1995 with his third show, “Essence of Emeril.” His follow-up, “Emeril Live,” put him in front of a studio audience, where he entertained audiences with his catchphrases like “Bam!”

A three-time James Beard Award winner, Lagasse built a culinary empire, with a growing number of TV shows, cookbooks, restaurants, and cookware. He’s even served as Carnival Cruise Line’s chief culinary officer and created food for NASA astronauts to eat in space.

Larry Marano/Getty Images For SOBEWFF // Getty Images

#7. Paula Deen

Paula Deen cooking.

– Have heard of: 86%
– Have a positive opinion of: 39%
– Total: 125%

A Savannah, Georgia-based caterer-turned-restaurateur, Paula Deen brought a new style of Southern cooking to the airwaves with her butter-laden recipes. She started appearing on the Food Network in 1999, receiving her own show, “Paula’s Home Cooking,” in 2002. The bloom came off the rose in 2012 when Deen faced criticism for promoting sugary, fatty recipes while she herself lived with Type 2 diabetes.

Deen made headlines again in 2013 when she admitted to using racial slurs during a workplace discrimination lawsuit deposition. In the wake of the scandal, Deen lost her TV contract and retail partnerships, and she all but disappeared from the public eye for many years. However, Deen has since rebuilt her following through her restaurants, retail stores, magazine, and YouTube channel.

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#6. Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain.

– Have heard of: 81%
– Have a positive opinion of: 49%
– Total: 130%

A chef who found adventure in food, Anthony Bourdain burst onto the scene with his 2000 memoir, “Kitchen Confidential,” which exposed the unsavory inner workings of restaurants and touched on his heroin addiction.

An instant sensation, Bourdain moved into television and over the years starred in several series including the James Beard Award-winning PBS show “The Mind of a Chef,” the Travel Channel’s “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations,” and CNN’s eight-time Emmy-winning “Parts Unknown,” which helped build a foodie culture in the U.S. by showcasing global cuisine. Bourdain shocked the food world in 2018 when, while filming an episode of “Parts Unknown” in Europe, he died by suicide.

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#5. Guy Fieri

Guy Fieri grilling steaks.

– Have heard of: 84%
– Have a positive opinion of: 49%
– Total: 133%

The Mayor of Flavortown, Guy Fieri is a man of the people known for his celebration of American mom-and-pop restaurants. In 2006, he won “Next Food Network Star,” which got him his own TV show—and shortly thereafter, a TV empire. Known for his spiky blond hair and penchant for casual food, Fieri hosts many shows on the Food Network, including his signature “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” “Guy’s Grocery Games,” and “Tournament of Champions.” In 2023, he signed a three-year, $100 million contract extension with the Food Network, making him the highest-paid chef on TV.

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#4. Julia Child

Julia Child.

– Have heard of: 81%
– Have a positive opinion of: 53%
– Total: 134%

Julia Child brought French cuisine to America with her book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” a collaboration with French authors Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle. While promoting the book on a local Boston PBS TV show, Child made an impromptu omelet. The appearance received a positive response from viewers, prompting TV producers to award her a cooking show.

Child gained fame on “The French Chef,” which lasted for 10 seasons and included her signature “bon appétit” sign-off. Other cookbooks and shows followed, along with many accolades, including Peabody, Emmy, and James Beard Awards. Child was the first woman inducted into the Culinary Institute Hall of Fame, and her legendary Cambridge, Massachusetts, kitchen is enshrined in the Smithsonian Museum.

John Lamparski/Getty Images for NYCWFF // Getty Images

#3. Rachael Ray

Rachael Ray.

– Have heard of: 90%
– Have a positive opinion of: 49%
– Total: 139%

Rachael Ray struck a chord with busy people when she developed 30-minute meals, simple yet elegant recipes that could be put on the table within a half-hour. Ray first used this concept as a class for the gourmet food shop she worked at in upstate New York, and later, as the basis for a segment on a local news station. This led to a line of cookbooks centered on the quick recipe theme, along with multiple Food Network shows, including “30 Minute Meals,” “$40 a Day,” “Inside Dish,” and “Rachael Ray’s Tasty Travels.”

Her catchphrases “Yum-O” and “delish” and calling extra virgin olive oil “EVOO” made her wildly popular with home chefs, in addition to helping Ray launch lines of cookware and pet food. Her daily syndicated show ran for 17 years and ended in 2023. The three-time Daytime Emmy Award winner continues to work in TV with her Hulu series “Rachael Ray’s Rebuild” and the FYI series “Rachael Ray in Tuscany.”

Frederick M. Brown // Getty Images

#2. Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart.

– Have heard of: 95%
– Have a positive opinion of: 56%
– Total: 151%

The queen of living well, Martha Stewart is a model-turned-stockbroker-turned-caterer-turned media mogul. Her “Martha Stewart Living” magazine debuted in 1990 and spawned a TV show of the same name that ran from 1993 to 2004. The show ended when Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison in connection with an insider trading case. But when she was released, she launched “Martha,” which ran from 2005 to 2012, followed by “Martha Bakes,” which ran from 2011 to 2019.

A 12-time Daytime Emmy winner, Stewart is also known for her long-running—and unlikely—friendship with rapper Snoop Dogg, whom she met during his appearance on her show in 2008. Since then, the pair has collaborated on multiple cooking and food competition shows, including “Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party” and “Snoop and Martha’s Very Tasty Halloween.”

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#1. Gordon Ramsay

Gordon Ramsay.

– Have heard of: 94%
– Have a positive opinion of: 59%
– Total: 153%

Despite his penchant for excellence and 17 Michelin stars (the third highest of any chef in the world), Gordon Ramsay is best known for his vitriolic TV persona. A Scottish native, Ramsay first showcased his fiery personality on British TV with “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares,” a show designed to help restaurant owners save their failing businesses, and the competition show “Hell’s Kitchen.” In 2005, Ramsay brought “Hell’s Kitchen” across the pond, and it’s been running on American television ever since. Ramsay’s also known for other competition shows, such as “MasterChef,” “Next Level Chef,” and “MasterChef Junior.”

Story editing by Cynthia Rebolledo. Additional editing by Paris Close. Copy editing by Meg Shields. Photo selection by Lacy Kerrick.

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