chefessay

Wow! Thanks for the feedback everyone. Just as an update and to clarify a few things: The focus of chefs I am looking for is anyone who has and an important/influential innovations(s) that made a global impact on fine dining. It's intentionally broad with no specification on region. However, the fact it must be fine dining/gourmet cuisine I think naturally gave it a Western bias. I went out and found a series of rankings by chefs and food critics and took those list and aggregated and will be looking into the 8 chefs who appear most frequently on the lists. For anyone curious the list ended up being: Alexis Soyer Augsuste Escoffier Paul Bocuse Alice Waters Joel Robuchon Alain Ducasse Marco Pierre White Ferran Adria And the articles came from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/drosengarten/2012/10/29/top-ten-most-important-chefs-of-my-lifetime/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-2011767/Marco-Pierre-White-Heston-Blumenthal-The-greatest-chefs-Raymond-Blanc.html#ixzz1RrDDjFxV http://www.amazon.com/Great-Grand-Famous-Signature-Dishes/dp/0980466725 http://forums.egullet.org/topic/53445-restaurant-magazine-top-20-chefs-of-all-time/ http://www.rantlifestyle.com/2013/12/07/top-20-chefs-time/ http://www.thebraiser.com/a-brief-history-of-celebrity-chefs/#2 http://1hautecuisine.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/most-influential-chefs-of-all-time/ http://www.life123.com/career-money/careers/chefs/most-famous-chefs-of-all-time.shtml If anyone has any more sources (or better ones!) I can still revise the list. Just need something to back it up.

Right, I should clarify it's focusing on innovators and chef's who add something new that influenced the field. Not people who are market leaders/made money/won contests (although the two may overlap sometimes)

Hello, I'm a college student currently trying to do research for a paper topic that looks in depth into any creative field to try and identify what leads to creative success. I've chosen to study the culinary arts and as part of the process am attempting to find rankings, lists, surveys done that list the top chefs of the recent history (1900-present). Ideally, these would be more academic/professional in nature (i.e. not focused on Top Chef contestants). If anyone had any knowledge on any lists made by food publications it would be tremendously helpful!