“When high-profile chefs attend public events or hold cooking demonstrations, they inspire people,” he continues.
“People do look at you as a benchmark, as someone who has succeeded or achieved something in the field, and they want to do that too. So you actually can be there and be a role model for others wanting to come into this industry.”
Indeed the culture of celebrity chefs has done wonders for attracting fresh talent to the industry, as Radisson Blu’s Micheel notes.
“The ‘power of media’ as well as the exposure of the F&B world to consumers promotes the profession to the public, and since the culinary scene has now reached so many people around the world, the profession is much more respected and looked up to, as opposed to how it was perceived before,” he explains.
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A food-lover’s future
Obviously trends come in waves; the steady ‘celebritisation’ of chefs may not continue forever.
But hopefully, the principles that people such as Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Georgio Locatelli, Gary Rhodes, Vineet Bhatia and others teach will continue to influence consumers around the globe.
Because, as these chefs have realised, it is through building consumer understanding of food, ingredients and cooking that the industry itself will continue to grown and flourish.
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