Possibly the most famous chef in New York, Batali is the carrot-topped maestro of Italian cuisine behind such eateries as Babbo, Lupa, Esca, Otto, and Del Posto.

After working up from New Jersey to Le Cordon Bleu, Batali returned to New York in the early 1990s and opened Pó in the West Village in 1993. Critics swooned from the start, and Batali is still locally regarded as one of the most dominant forces in New York dining.

But it was only after Molto Mario aired on the Food Network in 1996 that Batali's public profile rose. With his signature blazingly red ponytail, year-round shorts, and orange clogs, Batali maintains his national profile with ease with a collection of Batali television spinoffs, cookbooks, a line of cookware, and a licensing deal with NASCAR. In September 2007, his TV presence subsided just a bit when a clash with the Food Network ended his decade-long run on the channel. He returned to the small screen in 2008, with a 13-part Spanish cooking series on PBS co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow and in 2011 on the ABC daytime talk show The Chew. [Image via Getty]