Gordon Ramsay

Some two decades ago, I attended one of a series of meals at a Classic French restaurant in Los Angeles, cooked by fabled chef Roger Verge of Le Moulin de Mougins. That he was cooking in Los Angeles was a momentous occasion – tout le monde filled the room to taste his "cuisine du soleil."

And the food was wonderful – the antithesis of the heavily sauced French cuisine that was the standard in Los Angeles, and much of America – up until the arrival of the Army of the Nouvelle.

I remember asking the restaurant's owner how Verge was doing in the kitchen – was he comfortable working in a space not his own, using American equipment, and American ingredients? I was told he had brought many ingredients with him, and he was adjusting well. I asked if I could go into the kitchen and watch him cook. But I was told he was far too busy to have anyone extraneous crowding the small space.

That seemed fair enough. Or at least it did until I noticed Verge quietly entering the restaurant in tie and jacket about halfway through the evening, and slipping into the kitchen. A few minutes later, eyes twinkling, white mustache perfectly trimmed, he emerged from the kitchen wearing a chef's jacket with his name embroidered on it. It was spotlessly white – not a stain, not a smudge. He walked from table to table, accepting the accolades of his apostles.

We praised his cooking, and he thanked us for the praise. Though, of course, he hadn't been in the kitchen cooking. It was a perfect celebrity-chef moment.

If you type the term "celebrity chef" into Google, you'll get 642,000 responses – which is only slightly more than the number of chefs who claim the title these days. If you type the same phrase into Wikipedia, you'll find an entry that includes the following: "The term celebrity chef applies to a class of chefs who are well known for presenting cookery advice and demonstrations via mass media, especially television. The term is sometimes also used in a derogatory way – implying someone who has 'sold out'...who has not learned the craft through years as a working chef in a restaurant...The term may also be applied to a historically famous chef such as Antoine Carême and Martino da Como."

"You do know that they just want to make money as easily as possible, no matter what they say," says GQ's famously testy restaurant critic, Alan Richman. "The primary excuse given by famous chefs who no longer cook is that they are too old and tired to stand at stoves all night. [Instead] they spend the remainder of their days attending food festivals and standing at bars all night. Famous chefs who cease cooking consider themselves visionaries, so they go on television. Some, like Jacques Pépin, are brilliant and beloved. Others, like Anthony Bourdain, compete for the title of village idiot of the food community."

Or perhaps, they're just really good at re-creating themselves – the essence of any successful business. A chef who stands at the grill flipping steaks makes no more than what's left over after all the expenses are cared for and everyone else is paid. But a chef who can re-create himself...well, the sky's the limit. As Wolfgang Puck is fond of saying, his greatest skill is hiring chefs who cook better than he does.

And indeed, at no point in the past have chefs done such an amazing job of cloning themselves as they do now. Gordon Ramsay has turned into a verb, with more than two dozen restaurants, half a dozen TV shows and nearly 20 cookbooks. Alain Ducasse, who was actually in the kitchen cooking at that legendary Roger Verge dinner, has no TV shows. But he has 26 restaurants, two cooking schools, various culinary-centric hotels, inns and châteaux, and a publishing house to grind out his many cookbooks. The restaurants of Mario Batali, Emeril Lagasse and Puck are points of entry for their numerous frozen products, cookware, coffees and clothing. Batali has probably done more to popularize rubber shoes than anyone else in history. And orange rubber shoes at that.

The question is: does it matter? The answer is a definite "yes"  –  and a definite "no." The Food Network was at the heart of the rise of the modern celebrity chef. But in recent years, the network has been pink-slipping less-telegenic restaurant chefs (bye bye, Emeril) for hyper-telegenic hotties like Rachael Ray. Are Padma Lakshmi and Nigella Lawson on TV because they can cook – or because sex sells? Or is the complete package what's really needed?

The truth is, we're now dealing with a metaphysical dichotomy. There are chefs who have become celebrities. And there are celebrities who have found their fame through cooking. And then, there's the reversal of the whole process – with celeb wannabes from shows like Top Chef and Next Food Network Star opting to actually work in a real restaurant kitchen. In Los Angeles, Top Chef finalist Stefan Richter opened Stefan's at LA Farm. Top Chef winner Ilan Hall sometimes answers the phone at his recently opened restaurant, The Gorbals. And in Chicago, Food Network Star winners the Hearty Boys have opened Hearty. In time, they may return to television. They may put out a line of frozen entrees. They may sell golfwear. But for the moment, they're standing over hot stoves, doing real work, cooking real food. Fame is fleeting – but a good meal stays with you for a long, long time.

– Merrill Shindler