The Biggest Celebrity Food Stars Of The 2010s

Over the past decade, food media and pop culture have collided into one tasty, star-filled world. Chefs are celebrities and celebrities are chefs. Food is no longer merely what we make for dinner, but what we watch on TV, scroll through on Instagram and read about in blogs, books and magazines. 

We chose the biggest food celebrities of the decade based on who sold the most books, who had the most eyes riveted on their social media accounts and who got us binge-watching their shows. Here are the superstars who dominated our feeds — both literally and figuratively.

Odds are that if you're reading this, you follow Chrissy Teigen on Twitter and/or Instagram. (It's sheer numbers; the woman has tens of millions of followers between the two sites.) So you probably know that America's favorite swimsuit model-turned-tweeter is a kitchen whiz. Even if you haven't tried to recreate one of her culinary masterpieces at home via her mega-popular cookbooks (released in 2016 and 2018), you've surely drooled over her mouthwatering photos on social media.

Tom Colicchio has dished out tough love to the cheftestants on "Top Chef" since the show premiered in 2006. Viewers love the gruff judge for his honesty — so much so that nearly a million of them follow the active tweeter on social media. Colicchio started the decade off strong with a James Beard Outstanding Chef award in 2010.

Besides being one of the most popular chefs in the world, hosting his own PBS series and making regular appearances in pretty much every conceivable form of food media, José Andrés made even more of a name for himself when he publicly criticized President Trump in 2017 for his lack of action following Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. The Washington Post called Andrés "the face of American disaster relief" and Time named him one of its 100 Most Influential People of 2018. He was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. Basically, he's the hero we need right now.

Oprah is a Celebrity with a capital C. If a celebrity list is being compiled — whether it's in relation to food, drag racing or jumpsuit-wearing — the woman is going to be on it. Her cultural influence is incalculable, so of course we want to know everything about what she's eating. From her "O, That's Good!" line of soups that debuted in 2017 to her relationship with WW (formerly Weight Watchers) to her personal chefs' best-selling cookbooks, we can't get enough of what Oprah's eating.

We first fell for Ted Allen in the early aughts as the food and wine pro on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." Then in 2009 he started doling out mystery baskets filled with chicken feet, scrapple and fiddlehead ferns on "Chopped" and our eyes just couldn't look away for the past decade.

Without the 2010s, we never would have known that Snoop Dogg hung with Martha Stewart and was such a cooking wizard. Thank goodness for VH1's "Martha and Snoop's Potluck Dinner Party," which debuted in 2016, for letting the world in on the Dogg's prowess in the kitchen. He also has his own cookbook, "From Crook to Cook," in case you just can't live another day without tasting The Doggfather's recipe for lobster thermidor.

What better recipe for brined-and-battered fried chicken than one from America's sweetheart? "Whiskey in a Teacup," the actress' 2018 collection of favorite southern traditions, let us in on Witherspoon's food world, and it's just as charming and delightful as we imagined.

Ayesha Curry has come a long way since posting a cooking demo on YouTube back in 2014. She wrote a best-selling cookbook ("The Seasoned Life"), launched her own line of cookware, starred in her own Food Network show ("Ayesha's Homemade") and hosted last summer's "Family Food Fight" on ABC. She does add a controversial ingredient to her guac, though.

Everyone likes cake, so it makes sense that we'd also like an amiable guy who makes really cool cakes. For years we watched Duff Goldman blowtorch and saw his way to creative cake creations on "Ace of Cakes," sadly knowing we'd never get a bite. These days we still like to watch Goldman on shows like "Duff Takes the Cake" from 2019 and "Worst Bakers in America," which started in 2016.

Maybe you know Anne Burrell from back in the day when she was a sous chef on "Iron Chef America." Or maybe you know her as a host of "Worst Cooks in America," which started in 2010 and is still going. Or maybe you DVR'd her show, "Chef Wanted with Anne Burrell" (2012-13). Or maybe you just know her because of her spiky blonde hair and fireball personality. Regardless, you know her.

The late Anthony Bourdain gave us many things — access to restaurant kitchens, an introduction to what people eat in far-flung places most of us will never visit, the craving for culinary adventures, his passion, an education — and we couldn't get enough. From "Kitchen Confidential" to "Parts Unknown," Bourdain captured our interest and sparked our appetites in a revolutionary new way. The Anthony Bourdain Food Trail officially opened in New Jersey in 2019, and he posthumously won two Emmy awards for "Parts Unknown" the same year. It goes without saying, but Bourdain left an indelible mark on the world of food.

No celebrity list this millennium would be complete without the Kardashians. The gals (and guy) have their fingers in the food pot, too. Kris authored a 2014 cookbook (though it didn't do very well), Kourtney launched lifestyle brand Poosh in 2019, and Kim sparked a national Waffle House craving with a double date in 2015. 

Model-turned-television personality/food expert Padma Lakshmi has hosted "Top Chef" for 13 years. Along the way she's launched a collection of frozen organic foods (Padma's Easy Exotic), had a stint on "The View" from 2015 to 16 and has written a couple of cookbooks and a food memoir. 

A food media stalwart, Tyler Florence does the TV show tour better than most. And when he's not teaching "The Today Show" hosts how to cook shrimp, he's hosting or judging a slew of shows on the Food Network, most notably "The Great Food Truck Race" (which started in 2010 and is still running) and "Worst Cooks in America." If you visit the best food truck in your state and pretend you're hosting like Florence, we don't blame you.

Ree Drummond, a.k.a. The Pioneer Woman, first appeared on Food Network in 2010 when she faced off against Bobby Flay in a Thanksgiving-themed episode of Throwdown! — and beat Flay. Before she was plastered across TV screens and magazine covers nationwide, The Pioneer Woman penned a blog (launched in 2006) where she wrote about her transition into ranch life. What started with a step-by-step guide to cooking a steak turned into her own Food Network show (on the air since 2011), five cookbooks, nine children's books and millions of fans.

Highly celebrated, highly tattooed Latin chef Aarón Sánchez first caught our attention as a judge on "Chopped," but he'd already been cooking and hosting shows on Food Network for years before that. He did such a good job assessing and evaluating that he was chosen to serve as a judge on one of TV's biggest culinary shows, "MasterChef," in 2017.

How could someone known as the naked chef not be insanely popular? Besides all of the TV shows, besides the nearly 7 million Twitter followers and besides being the second-best-selling British author (behind J.K. Rowling), Jamie Oliver has also changed the way we eat via his school lunch and real food campaigns these past 10 years.

Christina Tosi was already a food-world star thanks to the magical baked goods (hello, Milk Bar Pie) and cereal milk she whipped up at Milk Bar. But then "MasterChef" came knocking, and she became a real-world star, too. In 2018, her baking cred and TV stardom collided when she was featured in an episode of Netflix's "Chef's Table: Pastry."

The OG of celebrity chefs, Wolfgang Puck continues to charm us even into his eighth decade. The man behind more than 100 restaurants worldwide still makes the talk show and Home Shopping Network (where he sells a line of kitchen gadgets) rounds. He was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2017, the second chef to receive the honor.

He's mostly in the spotlight for his music, but the Roots drummer has a major passion and talent for food that he shares with fans via an online show ("Questlove's Food Salon"), a cookbook with famous chefs ("Mixtape Potluck," 2019) and an Instagram account dedicated to what he's eating (Questlovesfood).