America's Most Successful Chefs

The rules are different for celebrity chefs — first of all, simply because they're celebrities and hence demand the big bucks, but also because, without exception, the most financially successful ones do lots of things at once. In fact — spoiler alert — very few of them ever actually cook in their own kitchens anymore. They're far too busy thinking up and launching new restaurants (and even, like Charlie Palmer, hotels), writing cookbooks, developing (or lending their names to) products of various kinds, and of course appearing on TV… The most successful chefs in America aren't just chefs — they're entrepreneurs, they're brands. Sometimes they're virtually whole industries. Being Wolfgang Puck, Tom Colicchio, or José Andrés isn't just a job: It's a way of life.

In drawing up our list of chefs, we decided first of all that they must actually be chefs, in the sense of having run restaurant kitchens and built their careers from there. Sorry, Rachael. Tough luck, Alton. We've included a few citizens of other countries (Alain Ducasse and Jamie Oliver among them) because they have restaurants and/or TV shows in America, though the bulk of their business is elsewhere.

In order to obtain accurate, up-to-date income figures for these fabulous food folk, we bribed an IRS official and obtained copies of their personal tax returns.

Oh, alright, no we didn't. Step back from that ledge, Gordon Ramsay. Just take a deep breath, Bobby Flay.

In fact, our researchers consulted Experian (through LexisNexis), the Orbis International Financial Database, and BookScan. We considered net worth rankings and previous salary estimates from Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and several trade publications. We scoured the popular press for news stories and rumors. Then we called up savvy restaurant pros (not the kinds who'd make the list) and got their feedback, threw in a pinch of common sense, and calculated what we believe to be a reasonable approximation of each chef's personal income for 2010.

Though we're confident that we got relative scale right, we admit that the actual figures might be merely ballpark — so, sorry kids, but no dollar amounts here. Suffice to say that the range extends from six figures to eight. Oh, and if you're on the list and think we've put you in the wrong position — or if you're not on the list but think you should be — you know where to send those tax returns that we couldn't get from the guy at the IRS.