Chef Mentors and Their Protégés

It's about passing on all you've learnt to the next generation, so that they might push the boundaries of gastronomy even further. The teacher and protégé relationship in cooking is a special one, sometimes fraught, but ultimately rewarding for all parties.

But do you know who trained who in the world of cooking? The infographic below from ResDiary shows how some of the world's top chefs are interconnected, and as you can see, the Roux brothers seemed to have trained more than most, including Gordon Ramsay, Marco Pierre White and Sat Bains.

Take a look at an interactive version of this infographic and also, check out this footage of Marco Pierre White training a young Gordon Ramsay at Harveys in London. You can see where Ramsay got his exacting standards from: along with Pierre White, he had the Rouxs, Joël Robuchon and Pierre Koffmann as teachers.

It’s uncanny how many celebrity chefs have worked together and how many have trained the same protégés. Brothers Albert and Michel Roux Snr are undoubtedly two of the world’s best-loved chefs and between them, have mentored an amazing number of the superstar chefs that we’ve come to know and love. Everyone from Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White to Marcus Wareing, Pierre Koffmann and Bryn Williams have trained under the duo.

It turns out it’s a very interconnected world. The chef mentor/protégé relationship is crucial to establishing a career in the culinary industry.

By Tom Jenkins/ FDL