America's Most Successful Chefs Of 2012

Famed for his Michelin-starred Momofuku franchise — including four in New York, one in Sydney, Australia, and four opening in Toronto — Korean-American chef David Chang is leading the restaurant renaissance for Asian-fusion food. Chang is unapologetic and unscripted, which is particularly evident in his publication Lucky Peach — a quarterly food magazine that's equal parts poignant and profane — which was a New York Times best-seller.

He may currently have only one restaurant, the celebrated K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen in New Orleans, but this Cajun legend, who first gained fame as executive chef at Commander's Palace, has had customers literally lining up outside for years. His other enterprises include nine cookbooks, a series of cooking shows for New Orleans public television, and the seasoning company he launched in 1983. Magic Seasoning Blends has now grown to fill a 125,000-square-foot plant that ships the chef's dry spice blends, rubs, bottled sauces, and marinades across the U.S. and to 29 countries around the world, and posts something in the neighborhood of $10 million in revenues each year.

Another famous potty-mouth, Anthony Bourdain has made the most out of his bad-boy persona. Bourdain branded his bad-boy image with his first book, Kitchen Confidential, exposing classified culinary chronicles. He now maintains a tenuous link to the Les Halles restaurants as "Chef-at-Large" (the New York outpost has an estimated $3.7 million in annual sales), but the majority of his income is derived from his book sales, many live appearances (each of which earns him $50,000), his Travel Channel TV show, No Reservations, and other gigs like his writing stint for HBO's Treme.

The winner of season two of Food Network Star is a powerhouse, a celebrity whose "krew" calls him "The Guid" (as in "guido"). The host of Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and Guy's Big Bite has seven restaurants, two New York Times best-sellers, estimated book sales of $1.5 million, lines of apparel and products, a hectic schedule of lucrative public appearances, bodyguards who flank him at public appearances, and a hairstyle as distinctive in its own way as Donald Trump's. This fall, Fieri begins his 15th season of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and opens his New York restaurant location in Times Square: Guy's American Kitchen and Bar.

A fourth-generation Oklahoman isn't the obvious choice to have become an ambassador for authentic Mexican cuisine in America, but a stint in Mexico with his wife after doing doctoral work in anthropological linguistics eventually led Bayless from one Mexican-flavored culinary success to another. First there was his book Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico and his initial Chicago restaurant, the successful Frontera Grill. Since then he has published five more books, opened several other restaurants including his Los Angeles debut Red O in 2010, and launched a line of Frontera products. He's even getting into the airport act with Tortas Frontera, sandwich shops and prepared food products under the same Frontera namesake, an empire worth a reported $30 million and growing. That he was also the first winner of Top Chef Masters is just gravy.

He's not necessarily a household name, but with help from investor Oliver Grace, Palmer has slowly but surely built an empire with annual revenue estimated at more than $30 million. After a stint at the River Café in Brooklyn, Palmer gained fame as chef-proprietor of the original Aureole in Manhattan (once given four stars by The New York Times). Aureole still exists in another New York location (there is also one in Las Vegas), but today Palmer's holdings also include nine other restaurants (three of them dubbed Charlie Palmer Steak). Most recently Palmer found himself in a Twitter tiff, which included apologizing to Ottavia Bourdain (yes, the wife of bad boy chef Anthony Bourdain) for serving her "the worst steak I've ever had in my life." But despite serving said steak, Palmer has home goods store Lime Stone and the Hotel Healdsburg in Sonoma County to fall back on.

"Are you ready for a throwdown?" You'd better be if you're going to mess with the finances of this Iron Chef. He has hosted a whopping seven TV shows on Food Network, has five sit-down restaurants across the U.S. and one in the Bahamas, 11 burger joints (and counting), and 10 cookbooks. With all the TV appearances, it's sometimes easy to forget that Flay built his reputation because of good cooking, and all without a high school diploma. The king of Food Network was the James Beard Foundation's Rising Star Chef of the Year in 1993, just two years after opening his first restaurant, Mesa Grill on New York City's Fifth Avenue. 

Nobu restaurants are getting to be like Starbucks; sometimes it seems like there's one on every corner. All right, that's an exaggeration, but Nobu Matsuhisa — who virtually reinvented Japanese food for non-Japanese diners (his black cod with miso became one of the signal dishes of the 1990s in restaurants all over the country) — does oversee, with varying degrees of personal involvement, almost 30 restaurants, three with Michelin stars, in locations ranging from Aspen, Colo., to Athens and from Dallas to Dubai. Then, factor in his four cookbooks, his line of Nobu Matsuhisa Original Dinnerware, his premium sake and beer brands, not to mention his hotel opening in Las Vegas' Caesar's Palace soon and it's obvious why his presence seems ubiquitous. With all that said, his close friendship with Robert De Niro is priceless.

The portraits on Todd English's website look more like a would-be soap star's portfolio than documentation of a working chef. And English has had his share of problems lately — among other things, in May 2012 he reopened his Olives restaurant in Boston's Charlestown neighborhood after a grease fire ceased operation in 2010, while his Kingfish seafood restaurant in Boston's Faneuil Hall recently shut its doors, facing a lawsuit alleging English owed more than $1 million in rent — but he oversees a roster of restaurants nationwide (the number seems to fluctuate frequently, obviously), and his Olive Group thrives despite said setbacks. English's most recent moneymaker involved selling his culinary services via Groupon for $25,000. All that said, his cookbooks, a popular TV show, and his own branded cookware and olive oil help fill the coffers.

His countryman Joël Robuchon may be more respected by most critics as a chef, but Ducasse, who can certainly hold his own in the cooking department, operates almost 30 restaurants and three hotels across the globe, with a total annual revenue of more than $80 million. He has made missteps (his original New York City establishment, Alain Ducasse at the Essex House, closed after six years), but in both 2005 and 2010, he achieved the unparalleled distinction of having three three-Michelin-starred restaurants in the same year. Filling out his bulging résumé are a Parisian culinary school, countless cookbooks, and a thriving consulting company.

The Batali-verse is ever expanding. Though best-known as a shorts-and-orange Crocs-wearing Italian chef, the Seattle-born Batali has interests ranging from NASCAR to Spanish cuisine to a foundation whose mission is "to educate, empower, and encourage children." The diversity of both his restaurant catalogue (pizza, tapas, gastro-pub fare, trattoria food, high-class Italian, etc.) and his media presence reveal a multi-talented chef with a multi-faceted personality. He and partner Joe Bastianich have opened more than 15 restaurants, among them the elegant Del Posto, the first Italian restaurant to earn four stars from The New York Times since 1974, and the first American branch of the Italian restaurant–market complex called Eataly, with (many) more to come. In the latest edition of Lucky Peach — David Chang's quarterly food magazine — Batali boasts that the empire built by he and Bastianich is worth $200 million.

The protégé of daytime talk-show doyenne Oprah Winfrey, Ray has become quite a force herself. As the matriarch of financially conscious families and hurried home cooks, Ray made a name for herself with Food Network hits like $40 a Day and 30 Minute Meals. Following in Winfrey's footsteps, Ray now has her own magazine, Everyday with Rachael Ray, and a daytime talk show, The Rachael Ray Show, promoting carpe diem, can-do attitudes — a worthy outlet for the charismatic chef. Though she is one of the few on this list who does not own her own restaurant — as everything would have to be out in 30 minutes or less — Ray reportedly sits on a fortune that would make Momma Winfrey proud.  

This sordid Scot is known best in America for his restaurant-based reality shows — among them, FOX Network's Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares — than for the reality of his restaurants, but he is an excellent chef who has garnered a total of 13 Michelin stars and currently holds 12. It is unclear how much involvement he still has with his Los Angeles and New York eateries, but his 11 London establishments surely keep him busy. Though Ramsay still calls London home (often neglecting his $2 million Los Angeles estate), Forbesnamed him the top-earning chef in the United States in 2012.