10 Chefs Whose Professional Career Didn’t Begin in the Kitchen

Typically, when we think of someone who has chosen to enter the culinary world as either a cook or a chef, we often think of people who have had a deep love of food from early on in life, those who have a refined pallet and find joy in creating meals that are just as beautiful as they are delicious, and those who chase after their dreams, heading straight for a career in cooking.

Although some did, in fact, have a great love of food, a passion for cooking early on, and some who even began the process of culinary school, the cooks and chefs on this list (both in the restaurant and on television) ironically, did not start their careers in the kitchen. However, whether it was working for the CIA, aspiring to be a model, building music studios, or pursuing a professional sports career, each of these people came from a very unique starting point, proving that culinary greatness can sometimes come from the most unexpected places.

Related: Ten “Foreign” Foods That Are Actually American

10 Julia Child

Famous chef, author, and television personality Julia Child revolutionized the culinary world by presenting an approachable version of sophisticated French cooking. For four decades, Child provided tips and lessons on how to prepare food in a way that was both simple and easy, and she was also one of the first women to host her own cooking show on television. However, despite all of her success in the culinary world, Child was not born a foodie—someone who has a refined interest in food—and also had very different ambitions for her career.

Born Julia Carolyn McWilliams on August 15, 1912, in Pasadena, California, Child was the oldest of three children and lived a privileged childhood. Her father, John McWilliams, Jr., was a banker and landowner, and her mother, Julia Carolyn Weston, was an heiress of the Weston Paper Company in Massachusetts. While many famous chefs credit a parent for inspiring their love of food, that wasn’t the case for Child. In fact, Child later revealed that her mother rarely (if ever) cooked while she was growing up and actually hired a chef to prepare the family’s meals. Child, however, originally had aspirations of becoming a famous author and didn’t find her love of food until much later in life.

In 1930, Child enrolled at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Although she enjoyed writing short plays and regularly submitted unsolicited manuscripts to the New Yorker. Unfortunately, none of her early work was published. After graduating from Smith College in 1934, later moving to New York, and being fired from her job in the advertising department of home furnishings company W. & J. Slone for “gross insubordination” in 1939, Child moved to Washington, D.C., at the onset of World War II.

In 1942, Child volunteered her services to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a newly formed government agency that would eventually become the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While Child was never actually a spy, she undertook a variety of positions at the OSS and was sent on assignments around the world in locations such as Kunming, China, and Sri Lanka. While she was in Sri Lanka in 1945, she began a relationship with fellow OSS employee Paul Child, and the two were married in 1946.

Although Child fell in love with the local cuisine while working on wartime assignments in China, it wasn’t until Paul was reassigned to the American Embassy in Paris and the couple moved to France in 1948 that Child began to take cooking seriously. There, at the age of 37, Child went on to enroll at the infamous French cooking school Le Cordon Bleu in 1950 and earned her Diplôme de Cuisine in 1951. After graduation, Child, along with two other Le Cordon Bleu students, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, formed the cooking school L’Ecole de Trois Gourmandes (The School of the Three Gourmands). Together, the three women also published Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961, a cookbook that took nine years to complete and was Child’s first cookbook at the age of 49.

To promote her new cookbook, Child appeared on a live TV program in 1962, and following the enthusiastic response, she was offered her own show, The French Chef, which premiered in 1963. Between 1970 and 2000, Child continued to author cookbooks and host numerous other television series. Child was also the recipient of numerous honors during her career, and in 1993, she became the first woman inducted into the Culinary Institute Hall of Fame. In 2001, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History also unveiled an exhibit featuring the kitchen in which Child filmed three of her popular cooking shows.

Sadly, Child passed away on August 13, 2004, due to kidney failure, just two days before her 92nd birthday. Despite not knowing where her passion for French cuisine would take her, Child pushed ahead, carving a path for the many women who would follow her, and proved that it’s never too late to discover your passion in life.^[1]

9 Alvin Leung

With multiple Michelin stars, a slew of restaurants around the world, and a TV job as the judge on Masterchef Canada to his name, chef Alvin Leung’s career is the stuff of culinary dreams. Known as the Demon Chef, his larger-than-life personality and unmistakable “rocker turned chef” look that includes color-streaked hair, cross earrings, sunglasses, and a black uniform are all hallmarks of his brand. However, despite becoming a global star, the self-taught chef actually spent the first two decades of his career working as an engineer prior to entering the culinary world.

Leung was born in London, England, to Chinese parents and was the oldest of four children. His father’s work as an engineer took the family to Toronto, Canada, where Leung was raised. Unfortunately, Leung described his mother as a “horrible cook” and stated he was often forced to cook for himself if he wanted to eat well. However, despite his love of food and cooking, Leung’s father was very rigid, and he claimed that starting his life as a chef would have been a disgrace to his family. In light of this, Leung returned to London to study acoustic engineering and environmental science at South Bank University.

Leung went on to oversee his family’s business, working as an acoustics engineer for 20 years, designing music studios in Hong Kong until, at the age of 42, he packed up and decided to pursue his culinary passion. In 2003, during the SARS respiratory disease outbreak, when the real estate market was in a slump, Leung bought an underground speakeasy called Bo from a friend for $3,862 (HKD 30,000). Leung rebranded the restaurant Bo Innovation, which he describes as “X-treme Chinese” cuisine. There, Leung unleashed his creativity and delved into the world of molecular gastronomy—a movement that incorporates science and new techniques in the preparation, transformation, and artistic presentation of food.

In addition to Bo Innovation, Leung also operates the contemporary Cantonese eatery Forbidden Duck in Hong Kong and Singapore, Bo Shanghai and Daimon Bistro, 15 Stamford by Alvin Leung, a Korean eatery called Bibs N Hops, R&D in Toronto, Canada, and Demon Duck in Dubai.^[2]

8 Carla Hall

Carla Hall was born on May 12, 1964, in Nashville, Tennessee, and from the age of 11, her passion was acting. Hall attended Nashville Academy Theater Camp every summer and also took acting classes in high school. By the age of 17, Hall was sure that her future was at Boston University’s School of Theater. Unfortunately, Hall did not get in, so she decided to enroll at Washington, D.C.’s Howard University, where her sister was a student. There, she earned her degree in accounting. However, after two years as an accountant and auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Tampa, Florida, Hall decided that career path was not for her.

In the late 1980s, Hall followed a group of young models she met to Paris. Relying on skills she’d learned at college fashion shows and low-stakes modeling she did for stores in Tampa, Hall began to pursue work as a runway and print model. It wasn’t until she was modeling in Europe, having Sunday dinners with friends, and watching them trade cooking knowledge they’d learned growing up that Hall’s passion for cooking was sparked. Hall, however, knew she did not possess the technical knowledge or skills to cook.

After several years of modeling in Paris and London, Hall returned to Washington, D.C., with a newfound interest in cooking, so she started a lunch delivery business—Lunch Basket. Hall went door-to-door in the Washington, D.C., area—salons, doctor’s offices, and florists—selling sandwiches and building up her clientele for the next five years.

Then, in 1995, at the age of 30, Hall decided to go to culinary school and enrolled at L’Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Hall’s first job after graduating from culinary school was at the Henley Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., where she was later promoted to executive sous chef. From there, Hall went to work as a chef at L’Enfant Plaza Hotel and The Washington Club before leaving to start her own catering company, Alchemy Caterers, in 2001. Since then, the company has evolved into an artisan cookie company renamed Alchemy by Carla Hall, where she creates “petite bites of love.”

Hall eventually became a media personality as well, starring as a contestant on the reality TV series Top Chef from 2008-2009, where she was known for her trademark shout, “Hootie Hoo!” Hall also co-hosted The Chew until it ended in 2018, joined the Halloween Baking Championship as a judge in 2021, and has also served as a guest and judge on several Food Network shows such as Worst Cooks in America, Chopped, Beat Bobby Flay, and Holiday Baking Championship. In addition to her hosting duties, Hall has also taken on the role of author, having published several cookbooks—Cook with Love: Comfort Food That Hugs You, Carla’s Comfort Foods: Favorite Dishes from Around the World, and Carla Hall’s Soul Food: Everyday and Celebration.

While Hall did open her own restaurant, Carla Hall’s Southern Kitchen, in 2016, the restaurant unfortunately closed just a year later.^[3]

7 Björn Frantzén

Like many professional chefs, Björn Frantzén can trace his obsession with food back to a single, eye-opening moment. For Frantzén, his epiphany came at the age of 12, and to this day, he still remembers that one steak served with french fries—”gilled beef, crunch french fries, bearnaise sauce, and a tomato and red onion salad with a perfectly balanced balsamic dressing”—that would inspire him to a career in the restaurant industry decades later. However, what’s unique about Frantzén is that despite the clarity of his ambitions of becoming a chef, had it not been for an unusual heart condition, he may never have become a chef at all.

You see, until his late teens, Frantzén was, in a sense, leading a double life as an aspiring chef studying at a catering college but also playing sports as a promising footballer. However, the thing that young Frantzén was obsessed with was football, and he was good at it. Frantzén was signed by Stockholm’s biggest club, AIK (Allmänna Idrottsklubben), and as he rose through the ranks, football overtook cooking as his primary career ambition. After leaving school, Frantzén played for AIK for two more years, but at the age of 20, fate intervened.

It was discovered that Frantzén had a congenital heart condition that could cause his pulse to race to more than 200 beats per minute. That meant that Frantzén couldn’t continue playing football without a pacemaker, which ultimately blew the whistle on his dreams of a senior contract. Frantzén then decided it was time to walk away from his football career and instead turned to his plan B, enrolling in culinary school and becoming a chef in the Swedish Army.

Frantzén began his professional career as an intern with chef Christer Lingström at Edsbacka Krog in Sollentuna, which was the first restaurant in Sweden to get two Michelin stars. Frantzén continued to explore working at other prestigious kitchens—Chez Nico’s, Dining Lettoine, Pied a Terre, L’Arpege, and Le Manoir aux Quatˊ Saisons. Then, in 2008, Frantzén and his then-business partner—pastry chef Daniel Lindeburg, who Frantzén met at Edsbacka Krog—opened the restaurant Frantzén/Lindeburg, which was later renamed simply Frantzén. The restaurant received its first Michelin star in 2009, a second in 2010, and in 2018, Frantzén became the first Sweden-based establishment to be given three Michelin stars.

Frantzén now operates several other restaurants around the world, including Brasserie Astonia in Stockholm and Singapore, Villa Frantzén in Bangkok, Zen in Singapore, and Studio Frantzén in London. Throughout his extraordinary career, Frantzén has embraced a culinary philosophy that combines the exploration of Nordic flavors with innovative techniques, making him one of the most influential chefs in Nordic cuisine.^[4]

6 Ina Garten

For over 20 years, Ina Garten has built an incredible career, sharing her comforting and foolproof recipes with the world through her beloved cookbooks and the Barefoot Contessa cooking show. Despite having built a multimillion-dollar empire teaching people how to host intimate dinner parties and roast the perfect chicken, Garten’s career didn’t start in the kitchen. In fact, long before Garten became a Food Network star, she wrote budgets at the White House and ran a specialty food store.

Born Ina Rosenburg, Garten attended Syracuse University but dropped out of college to marry her husband, Jeffrey, who’d been drafted into the Vietnam War. While Jeffrey was serving his four-year military tour, Garten began to dabble in cooking and entertaining as a way to occupy her time. (Link 40) After Jeffrey completed his tour of duty, the couple went on a four-month camping trip to Paris in 1971. There, Garten experienced open-air markets, produce stands, and fresh ingredients for the first time, leading to her love of French cuisine. When Garten returned to the United States, she began cultivating her culinary abilities by studying Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

In 1972, Garten and her husband moved to Washington, D.C., where Jeffrey found work at the State Department. Garten went back to school and took business courses at George Washington University, eventually earning her MBA. Garten then took a job as a low-level government aide in the Federal Power Commission but climbed the political ladder to the Office of Management and Budget, where she was the senior analyst for nuclear energy.) There, Garten helped write the nuclear energy budgets during Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter’s presidencies. Despite the prestige, Garten grew restless, so in 1978, shortly after she turned 30, Garten gave up her D.C. life and decided to buy a small specialty food shop in the Hamptons called Barefoot Contessa.

Garten, however, had no experience in the food business, or any business for that matter, and success didn’t come easy. Garten began working 18 to 20-hour days to turn the store into a success and brought on chef Anna Pump to help. By the end of the first summer, things had turned around, and the line was out the door! In 1996, after 18 years of serving customers, Garten sold Barefoot Contessa to her chef and manager. Once again, Garten knew it was time to switch things up in her career.

Garten took over an office above the store and decided to try her hand at writing a cookbook to document the story of Barefoot Contessa and some of her most popular recipes. In 1999, at the age of 51, Garten published The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, catapulting her career and leading to offers from Food Network. Garten turned them down multiple times, but after 18 months of trying to convince her, Garten eventually agreed, and the Barefoot Contessa show debuted in 2002.

Garten has since written 13 cookbooks, won six Daytime Emmy Awards for her Food Network shows, and published her memoir titled Be Ready When the Luck Happens.^[5]

5 Vicky Lau

Hong Kong native Vicky Lau moved to the United States at the age of 15 and attended a boarding school in Connecticut. As someone who has always enjoyed creating beautiful things, whether it be ceramics or origami, Lau found the process of taking an idea and transforming it into something real both interesting and exciting. Therefore, Lau decided to utilize her skills and go into graphic communications at New York University.

After graduating from college, Lau spent the next six years working in various creative roles within the publishing and advertising sectors of an advertising agency in New York called Green Team Advertising and then as head of her own design agency, Design Department, in Hong Kong. Lau, however, still felt like something was missing. It was at Design Department that a friend of Lau’s mentioned a new Le Cordon Bleu culinary and hospitality school in Bangkok. The two decided to enroll in a 3-month program, but Lau fell in love with cooking and the adrenaline of being in the kitchen, so she stayed for the entire 9-month course.

After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu Dusit Culinary School in 2010 and making the decision to change career paths, Lau went on to hone her new culinary skills at the Michelin-starred Céphage in Hong Kong under the tutelage of chef Sebastien Lepinoy. After serving as executive chef at Céphage for 18 months, Lau decided to combine this experience with her designer skills. So, in 2012, Lau opened her own 26-seat restaurant, Tate Dining Room and Bar, in Hong Kong, where she serves a fusion of French and Japanese cuisine.

In addition to the elaborately designed dishes, the menu at Tate Dining Room and Bar was inspired by the book All the Odes by Pablo Neruda. The menu was designed to create “edible stories” that express appreciation and celebrate the ingredients used. To further the story effect, the menu itself is hidden within a book, telling different “Odes,” which allows the diners to unfold each chapter of the book throughout their meal.

In 2013, Lau received her first Michelin star and then a second in 2021, making her the first female chef in Asia to receive such an accolade. In 2015, Lau was named the Best Female Chef in Asia by Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants. In 2020, Lau opened a lifestyle store and bakery, Date by Tate, followed by the French-Chinese restaurant Mora in 2022. Lau was also named Chef of the Year at the Tatler Dining Awards in 2023.^[6]

4 Heston Blumenthal

Heston Blumenthal was born on May 27, 1966, in Shepherd’s Bush, London, to a Jewish family and developed his interest in cooking throughout his teenage years. However, it was one particular family trip that truly ignited Blumenthal’s love affair with food.

Instead of the family’s usual vacation on the south coast of England, the Blumenthals spent the summer of 1982 on the European mainland. There, 16-year-old Blumenthal and his family dined in a Michelin-starred restaurant—L’Oustau de Baumanière—for the first time. After experiencing the taste of red mullet with sauce Vierge, leg of lamb in puff pastry with green beans and potato gratin, and crêpes Baumanière, Blumenthal decided to become a chef.

After school, Blumenthal headed straight for the top, securing an apprenticeship with Raymond Blanc at the French Chef’s famous Le Manoir Aux Quat Saisons. However, things didn’t go as planned, and Blumenthal left after just one week, assuming the kitchen wasn’t for him after all. Blumenthal spent the next 10 years working a variety of different jobs—credit controller, repo man, office supplies salesman, and accountant at his father-in-law’s company—all while reading On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee and teaching himself how to cook classic French dishes at night after work.

Blumenthal went on to open his first restaurant, The Fat Duck, in Bray, Berkshire, in 1995, with just one other employee—the dishwasher. However, using molecular gastronomy and a scientific approach to cooking, Blumenthal transformed The Fat Duck into one of the most talked about restaurants in the UK. The gourmet mecca has since been awarded with some of the most desirable culinary honors and has also been awarded three Michelin stars. Blumenthal also owns The Hinds Head in Bray, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal at the Mandarin Oriental in London, and The Perfectionists’ Cafe at Heathrow Airport.

The restauranteur is also the author of several cookbooks and has made many television appearances, both presenting and co-hosting various series for BBC and Channel 4.^[7]

3 Nigella Lawson

If you have any interest in fine food and dining, then you’ve probably heard of Nigella Lawson. The British celebrity chef is an internationally renowned food writer and TV cook, celebrated for her ability to elegantly blend home cooking with a touch of sophistication. Lawson is the bestselling author of 14 cookbooks as of 2024, which, altogether, have sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. She has also starred in a string of successful series in the U.S., UK, Australia, and beyond—Nigella Bites, Nigella Kitchen, and Nigella Express—was a judge on three seasons of The Taste, and made several appearances on Master Chef Australia and My Kitchen Rules. In total, Lawson has hosted, judged, and presented for eighteen different cooking shows. At one time, she even had her own iPhone app!

Despite her success, Lawson’s foray into the culinary world was almost accidental. In fact, Lawson never trained as a professional chef and doesn’t like being referred to as a celebrity chef at all. Instead, she describes herself as a “kitchen klutz” and believes that cooking is something she simply does for her family and loved ones. So then, how did Lawson, someone without any academic background in the culinary field, carve out a prominent place for herself as a television chef and bestselling cookbook author?

After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in medieval and modern languages and literature, Lawson embarked on a career in journalism. In 1983, at just 23 years old, Lawson joined the staff of The Spectator as a book and restaurant reviewer. In 1986, Lawson moved on to the Times of London, where she rose to become the Deputy Literary Editor of The Sunday Times at the age of 26, which was followed by a successful career as a critic and op-ed columnist, writing for a range of newspapers including The Times and The Guardian.

However, after attending a disastrous dinner party where Lawson saw a friend in tears because her crème caramel had failed to set, she was inspired to write her first book. In 1998, Lawson published her first cookbook, How to Eat, which was a huge success. With its countercultural idea that cooking should be simple, fast, fun, and reflect the flavors and ingredients that the chef likes, the cookbook was more about the pleasure of eating and didn’t contain one single food photograph. Lawson did, however, weave personal tales throughout the cookbook, sharing stories about her mother, Vanessa, who died at 48, and her sister, Thomasina, who passed away at 31—both from cancer—as a way to keep their memories alive.

From the cookbook came her first television show, Nigella Bites, which aired in 1999. Lawson then published How to Be a Domestic Goddess in 2000, which won her the British Book Award’s Author of the Year Award in 2001. From there, her popularity only grew. However, rather than worrying about crafting the perfect chef-inspired creations, Lawson urges her fans to follow their own hearts and, of course, their own tastebuds.^[8]

2 Massimo Bottura

Massimo Bottura was born on September 30, 1962, in Modena, Italy, and although he had a somewhat predetermined career path growing up, that path didn’t include becoming a chef. You see, the Botturas were a well-off family, and early on, Bottura’s father had decided that he would become a lawyer. Although Bottura’s true passion was cooking, just as his father wanted, he enrolled as a law student at the University of Modena in 1984.

After two uninspiring years studying law, Bottura left the university and opted instead to work in the family business as a petroleum products wholesaler. Bottura eventually decided to dedicate his life to his passion for cooking and enrolled at the Instituto Alberghiero di Stato di Serramazzoni culinary academy. This decision, however, ultimately came at the cost of breaking ties with his father.

In 1986, Bottura bought Trattoria del Campazzo on the outskirts of Modena. Despite having no restaurant experience, Bottura worked alongside Lidia Cristoni and had an apprenticeship with French chef Georges Coigny, building his culinary foundation on a combination of regional Italian cooking and classical French training. Bottura spent the next eight years learning his craft and developing his style before making the bold decision to sell the trattoria in 1994 to work with the legendary Alain Ducasse at Louis XV in Monte Carlo. This mentorship had a profound effect on Bottura, and in 1995, he returned to Modena to open Osteria Francescana.

In 2002, Bottura received his first Michelin star, a second in 2006, and a third in 2011. Among numerous other awards, Bottura also received the prestigious “Grand Prix de l’Art” from the International Culinary Academy in Paris in 2011. In 2014, Bottura also published his first English cookbook, Never Trust a Skinny Italian Man.^[9]

1 Pim Techamuanvivit

Born and raised in Bangkok, Pim Techamuanvivit took a circuitous route into the culinary world. At the age of 19, Techamuanvivit was sent abroad to study in the United States, and after studying at the University of California, San Diego, Techamuanvivit began her professional life as a cognitive scientist, working for Netscape and Cisco Systems in Silicon Valley, before transitioning to food blogging in 2003. Her blog, Chez Pim, quickly gained popularity in the early days of the Blogger platform, and she later launched an award-winning line of fruit jams made from California fruits.

Techamuanvivit, however, felt that the local Thai restaurants did not do justice to the cuisine. This, in combination with Techamuanvivit missing the “fiery, fermented flavors” of home, made her realize that she needed to master the building blocks of Thai cuisine and learn how to cook for herself rather than relying on local restaurants. So she did just that! Under her aunt’s guidance, Techamuanvivit first learned how to master nam prik pao, a spicy chili jam. From there, she expanded her repertoire, learning a new family recipe each time she returned home to Thailand.

Then, in 2014, Techamuanvivit took a leap of faith and opened her first restaurant, Kin Khao, in San Francisco, California, in 2014. Just 18 months after opening, Kin Khao earned its first Michelin star, becoming the first Thai restaurant in San Francisco to do so.

As a complete self-taught chef, Techamuanvivit now boasts three restaurants and 2 Michelin stars spanning California and Thailand. In 2018, she took over Nahm, an established one-star Michelin restaurant inside the Como Metropolitan in Bangkok, and in 2019, she opened Nari at Hotel Kabuki in Japantown, San Francisco. Nari was awarded its first Michelin star in 2023.^[10]