How Five Top Chefs Found Success in the Kitchen

From Manhattan to Seattle, Napa Valley to New Orleans, America has truly grown infatuated with its celebrity chefs. By now we know them by name, we recognize their faces in glossy advertisements and may even watch their shows or eat at their restaurants.

But long before these chefs were name brands with loyal followings and multiple restaurants, they were just young and hungry cooks with a passion for cuisine and a desire to make their stamp on the world of food.

Check out these stories of five top chefs for an idea of what it takes to make it big in the competitive world of the culinary arts.

Tom Douglas: Pacific Northwest

Tom DouglasTom Douglas is probably Seattle’s most famous chef. And he’s not just well known in those parts, he gained national recognition way back in 1994 when he won the James Beard Award for Best Northwest Chef. Since opening his acclaimed restaurant Dahlia Lounge in 1989, Douglas has opened many eateries in the Seattle area including a Greek restaurant, a pizza restaurant, and a seafood house.

Born in Delaware, Douglas began cooking at the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington before moving west to the Emerald City in 1977. For cooks wondering if success in the kitchen requires cooking since childhood, the answer is no. Douglas wasn’t always a fixture in the kitchen. In fact, he tried his hand at building houses, selling wine, and even repairing railroad cars before settling into his career as a professional chef.

Douglas never attended cooking school, but was able to learn his skills by working in kitchens like the DuPont and the Café Sport in Seattle. Douglas is credited for using his “taste memory” to help him develop a unique Northwestern style. Today Douglas is known for turning local ingredients into a signature Seattle cuisine.

Thomas Keller: California Coastal

Thomas KellerThomas Keller is the only chef in America to claim not one, but two 3-star Michelin restaurants.

Keller was the winner of the Best California Chef in 1996 and Best Chef in America in 1997 from the James Beard foundation. Today his empire spreads from Napa Valley’s French Laundry to New York City’s Per Se.

Keller was born to a Marine drill instructor in Camp Pendleton, California but moved with his family to Florida after his parents divorced.

Working at the Palm Beach Yacht Club as a dishwasher, he quickly moved up to cook. He then spent summers cooking in Rhode Island where he was discovered by a French chef who influenced Keller greatly and taught him classic French techniques.

Later, Keller cooked in New York’s Hudson valley, before eventually moving to Paris. In France, Keller got invaluable kitchen experience by taking cooking apprenticeships at Michelin-starred restaurants like Guy Savoy and Taillevent in the early 1980s.

Returning to New York, Keller worked in several solid kitchens before opening his own restaurant, Rakel.

As the stock market cooled in the late 1980s, Keller left Rakel and moved to California. In 1994, Keller opened the French Laundry. Today Keller is a world-famous cook, who – despite starting out as a dishwasher – was able to climb to the culinary heights of high cuisine.

Charlie Trotter: Creative Chicago

Charlie TrotterChicago’s famed Charlie Trotter didn’t grow up in a family of cooks.

Instead, he became interested in cuisine in college while at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Halfway through his university experience he decided to take a break and read a large amount of cookbooks; during the time off he took a job as a waiter.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, Trotter toured around Europe and the United States dining at some of the world’s best restaurants to gain insight into how these establishments had become so successful.

When he returned to Chicago, he began cooking and catering for friends and family. After practicing his techniques on his inner circle, he opened his eponymous restaurant with his father in 1987. Since its opening, the restaurant has become a Chicago destination, earning two Michelin stars in 2010.

Trotter never went to cooking school, as a self-taught chef he learned how to cook by working extensively with food and at restaurants like Sinclair’s on Chicago’s north shore.

Tom Colicchio: New York, New York

Tom ColicchioBorn in neighboring New Jersey, New York super chef and television star Tom Colicchio has been cooking since childhood alongside his mother and grandmother in his Italian-American home. As an enthusiastic teenager he learned the fundamentals of technique out of cookbook classics like La Methode by acclaimed French master Jacques Pépin.

Following the advice of his family, he decided to pursue cooking as a career and began working in kitchens at age 17. He moved to New York and worked at a bevy of big-city restaurants including Gotham Bar & Grill and Rakel (see Thomas Keller). While cooking at Mondrian, Colicchio was named one of America’s 10 Best Chefs by Food & Wine Magazine.

In July 1994 Colicchio opened Gramcery Tavern with famed restaurateur Danny Meyer, and in 2000 he was awarded the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef New York.

After leaving Gramercy, Colicchio opened Craft and a suite of other Craft restaurants and joined the popular television show, Top Chef as the head judge.

 

Emeril Lagasse: Southern Melting Pot

Emeril LegasseBefore he was a big name chef and television star, Emeril Lagasse was a kid growing up in small town Massachusetts with his Portuguese mother and French-Canadian father.

As a teenager, he worked at a local Portuguese bakery where he grew interested in cooking. In vocational high school he took culinary arts classes where he was also an excellent musician. He graduated high school with a scholarship to attend the New England Conservatory of Music, but realized that cooking was more of a passion than music. He turned down the full scholarship and instead enrolled in cooking school at Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island.

To pay for school he worked at a restaurant after classes. After culinary school he moved to France where he cooked in Paris and Lyon before returning to work in top kitchens in the Northeastern United States.

In 1982, Lagasse took over the helm of the legendary New Orleans restaurant Commander’s Palace. And then in 1990 he opened his first restaurant, Emeril’s.

In 1993, a struggling television channel called the Food Network took note of Lagasse and, over the next few years, took him from regional prominence to national fame. Today, thanks to his line of cooking products, handful of restaurants and successful television career, Lagasse is a firmly established celebrity chef.

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