Who's your favourite chef?

The way I see it these are all guys at the top of their field. Most people would enjoy most of their food, but there are a few select ones who look good on tv. I think you're all describing your favourite characters rather than their food, be honest how many people really make enough of all of their recipes? :p
 
Well, there are loads of criteria for selecting one's favourite chef, it can be for whatever reason you like. ;) But for the record, I regularly use recipes and ideas from all the chefs I listed in the first post. They're all just too tasty not to. :D
 
Greenlizard0 said:
The way I see it these are all guys at the top of their field. Most people would enjoy most of their food, but there are a few select ones who look good on tv. I think you're all describing your favourite characters rather than their food, be honest how many people really make enough of all of their recipes? :p
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I chose HFW, because of all my cook books, I use his most (Everyday, Meat book, Fish book & bread book).

I figured out the other day that I have made >60% of the recipes in Everyday, not many I can say that about!
 
Antonio Carluccio or Valentine Warner. If it was down to personality and entertainment factor alone I could have watched Julia Child all day.
 
Rick Stein, just so effortlessly charismatic and easy to watch. Jamie Oliver I like too for his unrelenting enthusiasm, you can see his brain working at 100mph, however he is annoying.

I hate watching Gary Rhodes, he often borders on being condescending/snooty when doing his travel shows, e.g. Rhodes Across India/China, numerous times he's cooking someone's recipe alongside them and he'll say something like "oh, THIS much salt? Well, ok then..." or "Hmm that's a lot of chilli oil"- Yes Gary, but it's not your dish so why make thinly veiled disparaging remarks during the process.
 
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I love Michel Roux Jr. I think he shows that you can be a very good chef without having to be a **** to everyone who works for you or is around you. He always comes across as someone who is genuinely pleasant even though he obviously expects the best.

If I worked for him I imagine I would want to produce the best food possible, because I liked him and not because I was scared of him.

I also like Rick Stein (and liked him even more when he still had Chalky) though I think whatever he eats he thinks is amazing -I saw one of his French Odyssey programmes and he was sat in a train station café eating a bit of steak and some really greasy-looking sautéed potatoes and he was saying how fantastic it was. Sometimes I wonder if he'd just like anything as long as it was food...

For comedy effect I'm loving the Two Greedy Italians, Antonio Carluccio and Genaro Contaldo - Genaro in particular just seems as mad as a box of frogs!

On the other side of the coin I can't stand Nigel Slater. Just how slow and boring are his programmes?!
 
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vicisthebest said:
On the other side of the coin I can't stand Nigel Slater. Just how slow and boring are his programmes?!
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I forgot about him! I like the concept of his programmes, however it's always basically: I've got a good idea for this dish, let's make it (very slowly, considering he never uses that many ingredients)- pauses, oops, let's go to the fridge (slowly) to add one other thing, fast forward to finished dish, he eats it (slowly), the camera stares at him ruminating over it for like 10 seconds, mmm yes that's good. Slowly.

Also, unbelievably annoying thing about Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers, the cut scenes between dishes, where the CGI graphics of his cookbook or larder etc, how the 'camera' keeps going in and out of focus- arrrrrgh
 
Like some of Gordon Ramsay's cooking but also like Jamie Oliver, Ching-He Huang, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and some of Aaron Craze's stuff looks really nice.

Don't know if anyone has been watching the Perfect... series on Good Food but some really nice recipes on that show.

Good call on Nigel Slater too...

Heh forgot Rick Stein and, like vicisthebest, I love watching Two Greedy Italians :)
 
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Delia is a national icon, learnt a lot of essential basic cooking skills from her. The How to Cook books are an essential part of my cooking book library.

Watching Rick Stein is always a nice relaxing experience as he potters around being a nice bloke.

Hugh Fearnlet-Whitingstall winds me up a great deal, especially when he gets a bunch of his pretentious middle class dad mates together and they are all carrying babies in those stupid pouches and being boring. Also hate the hairy bikers, they are the most effete girly men.

Blumenthal is fantastically entertaining to watch, but not practical. I second the comment about Nigel Slaters recipes being excellent, he's irritating as a presenter.

So Delia I think for me.
 
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Serious answer: Don't have one ;)
 
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