15 Most Followed Chefs on Twitter

These days, it's not enough to have a great restaurant with innovative dishes and good service, or to have parlayed a restaurant into a successful career as a celebrity chef on television. It's not necessarily even enough for a chef to have a blog. If you're not in social media -- if you're not on Twitter -- you're not in the game.

For some chefs, sharing new dishes, recipes, latest meals, and comments about everything from social activism to competitive cooking shows in 140 characters or less is a natural extension of giving concise direction in the kitchen and glad-handing customers. For example, Jamie Oliver has more than a million followers and 4,000 tweets. For others, Twitter might not seem a natural medium, but notoriety is enough to still draw thousands. Alice Waters, who just recently joined Twitter, as of this article had yet to tweet, but still had more than 2,400 followers. Then again, you don't necessarily need to tweet that much for people to hang on your every word. Guy Fieri has only tweeted about 460 times, but still has more than 225,000 followers.

So, who are the most followed chefs on Twitter? With new people joining Twitter every day it's a fluid, dynamic game -- this a look at 15 of them. Does Anthony Bourdain have enough followers to edge out Tyler Florence? Who has more followers: Giada or Bobby Flay? View the slideshow below to find out. Think one of your favorite most followed chefs is missing? Let us know!

- Arthur Bovino, The Daily Meal

More from The Daily Meal:
America's 50 Most Powerful People in Food
8 Foods Not to Cook Naked
10 Athlete Epicures
Late Night's Culinary King: The Best of Jimmy Fallon
10 Best iPad Food Apps

1 of 15

#1 Jamie Oliver: 1,058,269 followers

1 of 16

First Slide

Previous Slide

@

With 4,600 tweets and 1,058,269 followers, Jamie Oliver is one of the most followed chefs in the world. As of this time his account follows 3,938 people on Twitter. Handle: @jamie_oliver Related: America's Best School Lunches

10 Health Benefits of Eating Chocolate

Most Bizarre Pizza Toppings

Red Hook In The Blizzard

The World's Most Expensive Wine and Spirits

World's Most Gut-Busting Meals

Doritos Locos Experiments

With 4,600 tweets and 1,058,269 followers, Jamie Oliver is one of the most followed chefs in the world. As of this time his account follows 3,938 people on Twitter.

Handle: @jamie_oliver

Related: America's Best School Lunches

comments(16)

Total comments: 16 | Post a Comment

1 of 16

Rate This Slide

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

• 
  1
• 
  2
• 
  3
• 
  4
• 
  5
• 
  6
• 
  7
• 
  8
• 
  9
• 
  10

Current Top 5 Slides

loading...

Choose your Top 5 Slides

UserName

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

loading...

Top User Slides

← Prev|Next →

 | Become a fan

Picked These as the Top 5 Slides in the Slideshow

loading...

Users who voted on this slide

← Prev|Next →

loading...

 

Follow The Daily Meal on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thedailymeal

Comments

[maidenofdforest]

09:59 AM on 04/04/2011

Love Paula Deen's very down to earth southern cooking. Among my list, to add, are Tyler Florence, Ming Tsai, Alton Brown's practical no nonsense ifomative cooking and Rachel Ray's simple 30 minute dishes. The rest, I have yet to explore, specially Oliver. Guy Fieri's show Drives and Dine Ins is a hit. Bourdain seems to explore a lot of dishes like Fieri's. The least I consort to is Emeril's. But, there's more a lot to learn of a chef's cooking.

But, happy eating!

[clearthinker2008]

05:08 PM on 04/02/2011

Rachael Ray is not a chef, she's a cook and will be the first one to tell you that.

[cyoohoos]

12:08 PM on 04/01/2011

Where's Chef John?

[Save Creatively]

10:16 AM on 03/31/2011

I was glad to see Martha Stewart was not in there. I would love to make a magazine called Martha Stewart Hacked and it will be a mirror of her magazine except all the recipes, tips, and ideas will be more simple and reasonable. Not over priced and meant for those who scam traders on wall street.

[Mark Boxshus]

09:38 AM on 03/31/2011

I am surprised that Ina Garten is not on Twitter. She has a very large and loyal following.

[Grannelle]

04:28 AM on 03/31/2011

From a broader perspective, I think this indicative of a trend that more and more professionals and adepts from the mainstream will communicate industry and enterprise content via 140 characters. It'll be interesting to see usage data on Twitter over the next few months.

[grailknight]

05:49 PM on 03/30/2011

Again I say unto thee, Rachel Ray IS NOT a chef!

[Grannelle]

04:24 AM on 03/31/2011

That's what she herself maintains, and has stated so many times on-air.

[PalaceOfWisdom]

02:25 PM on 04/01/2011

It always amazes me that Rachael generates so much negativity despite being very down to earth. I don't know if it's a matter of building a celebrity up just to knock her down, or maybe resentment that she makes cooking look so easy that there's no longer any excuse not to do it. I can hardly think of a more likable person.

[chaucer1]

04:57 PM on 03/30/2011

Except for Rick Bayless, it's a sad bunch of cooks. Ever been to a celebrity chef's restaurant? I have. They're mostly dreadful.

[justin i]

05:08 PM on 03/30/2011

Bayless is, indeed, awesome.

Never been to any of Colicchio's restaurants, but foodies and other chefs have a lot of respect for him.

And I forget the name of Ramsay's restaurant in London, but its one of the best in the world. But he has put his name on a whole lot of mediocre places from NYC to Vegas.

You are right about the rest.

[Daws]

04:09 PM on 03/30/2011

Rick Bayless is awesome. Michael Chiarello is a *bad word*.

[EmilyU]

03:18 PM on 03/30/2011

There are only a couple of those I might even consider following. Some of the others would definitely NOT be on my list.

[jilleduffy]

12:49 PM on 03/30/2011

Agree! @plazma . As much as I'm not a fan or Rachel Ray, at least she is open and honest about the fact that she's self-taught in the kitchen. Several of these Food Network people aren't chefs.

[plazma]

11:53 AM on 03/30/2011

Only a 1/3 of those chefs are worth following.. the rest arent chefs, just TV personalities and wannabes.

Chris Cosentino is more interesting on Twitter than Guy Fieri will ever be.

[bogeychef]

01:19 PM on 03/30/2011

Currently I follow, Bourdain from this list, also MVoltaggio, I like Coleccio & Chiarello I also follow Wolfgang Puck,I work for him.
I completely agree with your assessment.