Famous chefs who aren’t chefs

You become a television chef after completing culinary school and spending years being worked to the bone in restaurant kitchens, right? Not always. These are some of the biggest celebrity chefs who actually aren’t chefs.

Nigella Lawson

Nigella’s career path is completely different from that of most chefs. She studied medieval and modern languages at the University of Oxford, after which she worked as a journalist for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and Time Magazine.

Not very food-related, then. But Nigella did have a mother who loved to cook, and she herself also enjoyed spending time in the kitchen. So in Vogue, she wrote a column about food, and she also worked with Gourmet and Bon Appétit. In 1998, she published her first book: How to Eat. An instant hit and the beginning of her career as a “chef” in the spotlight.

Gordon Ramsay

Although Gordon is now a co-owner of the Aunt Mary Cookery School, he himself never attended culinary school. Gordon was actually well on his way to becoming a professional footballer, but a knee injury put an end to that dream.

So, what do you do then? The Brit decided to work in catering, and not long afterwards found himself in the kitchen. First with Albert Roux in London, then with Guy Savoy and Joël Robuchon in Paris, until he became head chef at the new Aubergine restaurant in 1993, where he earned two Michelin stars. In 1998, he opened his own restaurant in London, which received three stars in 2001. A whole string of restaurants followed, as did a television programme in 2004: Gordon Ramsay: Kitchen Nightmares.

So yes, Ramsay has certainly been worked to the bone in the kitchen, but formal training? Nope.

Martha Stewart

Lifestyle queen (and part-time gangster) Martha rakes in plenty of dollars with her cookbooks, magazines, websites, household products and cooking shows. And she does it all without any culinary training.

As a teenager, the icon of American homemakers worked as a model. She then studied art history and architecture, worked as a stockbroker on Wall Street, and eventually moved with her husband to a farm in Connecticut, where she taught herself to cook with the help of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She started a catering business, began writing books, and the rest is history.

Paula Deen

Another icon for bored homemakers is Paula Deen, known for her Southern-style cooking (read: butter, more butter, even more butter). Like Martha, Paula began her culinary career with a catering business, followed by a restaurant – The Lady – and a cookbook.

Her cooking show on The Food Network was a hit – until scandals involving racist remarks and the improper treatment of employees brought her television career to an end.