Top 10 Earning Celebrity Chefs

Say what you will about Rachael Ray, but the jaunty chef-next-door knows how to build a brand.
She began winning audiences with catch phrases like "EVOO" (for extra-virgin olive oil) on her first Food Network show, 30 Minute Meals, in 2001. Today, she has four Food Network programs, including Tasty Travels and $40 a Day. Her nationally syndicated, Oprah-backed talk show, Rachael Ray, is averaging 2.6 million viewers this season, and her Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine has 1.5 million readers. She endorses Dunkin' Donuts too--all to the tune of $18 million a year.
More established chefs also know how to play her game. Wolfgang Puck pulls in $16 million a year. The Austrian-born patriarch of celebrity chefdom got his start with the ritzy Los Angeles restaurant Spago in 1982. That hot spot, once frequented by Orson Welles and Sidney Poitier, now counts Brad Pitt and Jamie Foxx among its regulars. Today Puck owns 15 other fine-dining brands, including Chinois, Cut and the Source, and he also sells sandwiches to weary airport travelers at Wolfgang Puck Express. He's got Wolfgang Puck Bistros in suburbia and sells soups in the grocery aisle and cutlery on the Home Shopping Network.

Ducasse's empire includes 22 restaurants from Tokyo to Paris. The French chef's first New York spot shuttered in 2006 after critics said the food was too fussy; he opened two humbler joints there this year.
Deen, the queen of Southern cuisine, serves up butter-drenched casseroles and motherly charm on two Food Network shows. Her loyal audience laps it up, and her cookbooks, memoir and magazine are all bestsellers.
And Batali, a culinary school dropout, is now a master of Italian cuisine who owns 13 restaurants in New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Reservations at his New York spots Babbo and Del Posto are especially hard to get.
Small-Screen Standouts
Branded television shows play a big role in the success of many of the chefs on our list.
Anthony Bourdain's Travel Channel show, No Reservations, where he explores delights like roasted warthog rectum, has become the network's top hit. The Food Network's female fans swoon over Bobby Flay's Southwestern cooking. He hosts Throwdown!, Boy Meets Grill and The Next Food Network Star. And Tom Colicchio is a judge on Bravo's Top Chef cooking competition.
But none can beat Ray's network gig. Her 2.6 million viewers undoubtedly think it's Yum-O.

In Depth: Top-Earning Celebrity Chefs

Others of their sort include Paula Deen ($4.5 million), Alain Ducasse ($5 million) and Mario Batali ($3 million).