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This chef trivia quiz has 60 free questions with answers and covers the people who made cooking famous. It starts with the founders - Carême building sugar palaces for the Tsar, Escoffier borrowing his army experience to invent the kitchen brigade, Fannie Farmer standardising the measuring cup - and moves through the modern greats: Bocuse, Robuchon, Ducasse, Ferran Adrià's foams, Redzepi's foraging and Heston Blumenthal's bacon-and-egg ice cream. The television chefs get a full round of their own: Julia Child's spy-agency past, Gordon Ramsay's football dreams, Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles years, Emeril's 'Bam!', Rachael Ray's EVOO, Ina Garten's job writing nuclear budgets and Guy Fieri's original surname. There are questions on Michelin stars, Iron Chef, Chef Boyardee, The Bear and Ratatouille too, so a home cook and a Food Network devotee can both score. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is marked on every question. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and each question shows its source once you have answered.
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Q 01The English word for a kitchen's head cook is a shortening of which French term?
Chef de cuisine
The French word comes from the Latin caput, 'head', making 'chef' a cousin of the English 'chief'.
Q 02Which chef drew on his military service to create the hierarchical kitchen "brigade" system?
Auguste Escoffier
The French press called him 'king of chefs and chef of kings', a title earlier applied to Carême.
Q 03Escoffier invented pêche Melba in 1893 while working at which London hotel?
The Savoy
He and hotelier César Ritz were later quietly investigated and dismissed from the Savoy over missing revenues before moving on to the Ritz in Paris.
Q 04In the classic kitchen brigade, which position is responsible for sauces and sautéed dishes?
Saucier
The garde manger runs the cold kitchen, while the aboyeur, or 'barker', shouts incoming orders to the stations.
Q 05Which early 19th-century chef famed for sugar showpieces cooked for Talleyrand, Tsar Alexander I and the Prince Regent?
Marie-Antoine Carême
He once declared confectionery the principal branch of architecture, and is credited with the vol-au-vent and the croquembouche.
Q 06According to popular belief, which chef gave the tall white toque its modern stiffened form?
Marie-Antoine Carême
Boucher, Talleyrand's personal chef and Carême's boss, was the first to insist on white hats for hygiene.
Q 07Which Renaissance chef to Pope Pius IV published the 1570 cookbook Opera, with the first known picture of a fork?
Bartolomeo Scappi
He once recorded serving the pope frogs, and kept cooking for Pius V after Pius IV died.
Q 08Fannie Farmer's 1896 cookbook is credited with standardising which aspect of American recipes?
Measurements
She suffered a paralytic stroke at 16 and only turned to cooking school later; the New York Times ran her obituary 103 years late.
Q 09Before she became a chef, Julia Child worked for the OSS on a wartime project developing what?
Shark repellent
She was posted to Ceylon and China, where she met her husband Paul, and did not enrol at the Cordon Bleu until 1951.
Q 10Julia Child graduated in 1951 from which famous Paris cooking school?
Le Cordon Bleu
She and Paul had moved to Paris in 1948, where a first meal of oysters and sole meunière became, in her words, 'an opening up of the soul and spirit'.
Q 11Which sport did Gordon Ramsay hope to play professionally before injuries ended that ambition?
Football
He was born in Johnstone, Scotland, and later trained in Paris under Guy Savoy and Joël Robuchon.
Q 12Which chef ran London's Harveys, where Gordon Ramsay worked, and became Britain's first three-Michelin-star chef?
Marco Pierre White
He handed all his stars back and retired from the stove in 1999, at the height of his fame.
Q 13In which year was Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea first awarded three Michelin stars?
2001
It has kept the three stars ever since; his restaurant group has been awarded 17 stars over the years and held eight as of 2025.
Q 21Alain Ducasse was the first chef to achieve what Michelin milestone?
Three restaurants with three stars at once
He was the sole survivor of a plane crash in 1984, and his school also develops meals for European astronauts.
Q 22Ferran Adrià's restaurant elBulli, on Spain's Costa Brava, closed for good in which year?
2011
It only opened six months a year; Adrià spent the other six inventing dishes in his Barcelona workshop, and started out there as a dishwasher's-eye line cook in 1984.
Q 23Ferran Adrià is especially known for popularising which kitchen technique?
Foams
Q 14Who became head chef of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in 2007, the first UK woman to run a three-star restaurant?
Clare Smyth
Her own restaurant, Core in Notting Hill, won three stars of its own in the 2021 guide.
Q 15Anthony Bourdain's 2000 bestseller about the restaurant underbelly was titled what?
Kitchen Confidential
It grew out of a New Yorker essay; he was executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan at the time.
Q 16Which network aired Anthony Bourdain's final series, Parts Unknown?
CNN
No Reservations, its predecessor, ran on the Travel Channel from 2005 to 2012.
Q 17Which Austrian-born chef opened Spago on the Sunset Strip in 1982?
Wolfgang Puck
He was born Wolfgang Topfschnig in Sankt Veit an der Glan; Spago moved to Beverly Hills in 1997.
Q 18Paul Bocuse's restaurant near Lyon held three Michelin stars from 1965 for how many years?
55
He died in 2018 in the same room above the restaurant in which he was born in 1926.
Q 19Bocuse created his famous truffle soup in 1975 for which French president, whose initials it now bears?
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
The Bocuse d'Or, the biennial world chef championship named for him, has run since 1987.
Q 20Which chef held a record 31 Michelin stars at his death in 2018 and was Gault Millau's 'Chef of the Century'?
Joël Robuchon
He retired from the kitchen at 50 after watching peers die of stress, then came back with his casual L'Atelier concept.
His foams used lecithin and a siphon rather than cream or egg white; like Heston Blumenthal, he rejects the label 'molecular gastronomy'.
Q 24René Redzepi's restaurant Noma blends the Danish words for 'Nordic' and what?
Food
Noma held its final regular service in Kyoto in December 2024 after five runs as the World's Best Restaurant.
Q 25Massimo Bottura's Osteria Francescana is in which Italian city?
Modena
He interned with Alain Ducasse in Monte Carlo and with Ferran Adrià at elBulli before winning his stars in 2002, 2006 and 2012.
Q 26The French Laundry, the three-Michelin-star restaurant in a former steam laundry, is in which Napa Valley town?
Yountville
The building really was once a French steam laundry; Keller says he opened Bouchon down the street partly to have somewhere to eat after work.
Q 27Which chef developed the confit byaldi served in the climax of Pixar's Ratatouille?
Thomas Keller
The film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature; Brad Bird took over directing after Jan Pinkava left.
Q 28José Andrés founded which non-profit that serves meals after natural disasters?
World Central Kitchen
He was born in Asturias, Spain, and made his name at the Washington tapas restaurant Jaleo from 1993.
Q 29Heston Blumenthal's three-Michelin-star restaurant the Fat Duck is in which English village?
Bray
He nearly went bankrupt keeping it open, selling his house and car before the first star arrived in 1999.
Q 30Which unusual dish helped bring Heston Blumenthal to public attention?
Bacon-and-egg ice cream
His interest began at 16 on a family trip to a three-star restaurant in Provence.