Have you eaten at a celebrity chef restaurant?

I've tried several Top Chef contestants' restaurants. I don't know if they count though.

Eating? Have I eaten a celebrity’s ass since last night.

r1, I'm thinking of someone like Todd English, who has restaurants with his name above the title in several cities.

I’ve not but I assume any celebrity chef who is a trained chef and has past experience running restaurants would do a good job.

In other words, the Rachaels, Bobby Flays, Guy Fieris and Giadas of the world would run pretty shitty restaurants.

Tra Vigne in Napa Valley and Coqueta in San Francisco, of the recently deceased Michael Chiarello. Tra Vigne in 2001, he and his wife were there the day I ate there. Coqueta in 2015, before his sex pest allegations surfaced a year or two later. Meals and service at both restaurants were A+.

I’ve recently visited all three of Yotam Ottolenghi’s restaurants in London as well as most of his smaller cafes and the quality is consistently excellent, with an ever-changing daily menu of small plates. Needless to say, I am a big fan of his unique milieu, but the quality, presentation and inventiveness is appreciable.

I ate at The London NYC a few times when it was open. Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant. It was fine, but I wasn’t surprised when it closed. Felt touristic in a far too expensive way.

I also ate at Emeril’s in New Orleans OP! It was fantastic.

Once I really stopped to think about it, I've actually dined at a lot more celebrity chef restaurants than I first realized.

Chez Panisse -- Alice Waters. 2000 and 2017. Both very special life occasions. Wonderful. Aqua and RN74 -- Michael Mina. The soft-shell crab sandwich at RN74 was really good. Petit Crenn -- Dominique Crenn. So lovely. MY China -- Martin Yan. Loved the Bang Bang Chicken Wings. Restaurant Gary Danko -- Gary Danko. Delicious and special. Fifth Floor and Frances -- Melissa Perello. Frances is such a charming, intimate place just off the beaten path in the Castro. Frontera Grill -- Rick Bayless, Chicago. Pretty authentic Mexican for a white guy. Momofuku -- David Chang, NYC. Damn good. McDonald's -- Ronald McDonald. What can I say...I did love the fresh cooked egg in the McMuffin.

Never made it to Stars (Jeremiah Tower), I'm Gen-X so its heyday was a bit before my time. Also missed out on Fleur de Lys (Hubert Keller), though I'm not sure going in Vegas would have the same charm as San Francisco. I'm still hoping that one day, if I'm very lucky, good fortune might take me to Thomas Keller's The French Laundry.

Lucky you, r8. I too would love to be taken (it would have to be treated, alas) to a meal at The French Laundry.

R9 My wish for you is to have a wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime special dining experience at The French Laundry. I'm sure you deserve it. All good things for you!

Giada's in Vegas was excellent.

I ate a Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant in London. The service was terrible and the food wasn't impressive. Not surprised it went belly up.

Guy Fieris Times Square Restaurant was shit.

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By Pete Wells Nov. 13, 2012 GUY FIERI, have you eaten at your new restaurant in Times Square? Have you pulled up one of the 500 seats at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar and ordered a meal? Did you eat the food? Did it live up to your expectations?

Did panic grip your soul as you stared into the whirling hypno wheel of the menu, where adjectives and nouns spin in a crazy vortex? When you saw the burger described as “Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,” did your mind touch the void for a minute?

Did you notice that the menu was an unreliable predictor of what actually came to the table? Were the “bourbon butter crunch chips” missing from your Almond Joy cocktail, too? Was your deep-fried “boulder” of ice cream the size of a standard scoop?

What exactly about a small salad with four or five miniature croutons makes Guy’s Famous Big Bite Caesar (a) big (b) famous or (c) Guy’s, in any meaningful sense?

Were you struck by how very far from awesome the Awesome Pretzel Chicken Tenders are? If you hadn’t come up with the recipe yourself, would you ever guess that the shiny tissue of breading that exudes grease onto the plate contains either pretzels or smoked almonds? Did you discern any buttermilk or brine in the white meat, or did you think it tasted like chewy air?

Why is one of the few things on your menu that can be eaten without fear or regret — a lunch-only sandwich of chopped soy-glazed pork with coleslaw and cucumbers — called a Roasted Pork Bahn Mi, when it resembles that item about as much as you resemble Emily Dickinson?

When you have a second, Mr. Fieri, would you see what happened to the black bean and roasted squash soup we ordered?

Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?

At your five Johnny Garlic’s restaurants in California, if servers arrive with main courses and find that the appetizers haven’t been cleared yet, do they try to find space for the new plates next to the dirty ones? Or does that just happen in Times Square, where people are used to crowding?

If a customer shows up with a reservation at one of your two Tex Wasabi’s outlets, and the rest of the party has already been seated, does the host say, “Why don’t you have a look around and see if you can find them?” and point in the general direction of about 200 seats?

What is going on at this new restaurant of yours, really?

Has anyone ever told you that your high-wattage passion for no-collar American food makes you television’s answer to Calvin Trillin, if Mr. Trillin bleached his hair, drove a Camaro and drank Boozy Creamsicles? When you cruise around the country for your show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” rasping out slangy odes to the unfancy places where Americans like to get down and greasy, do you really mean it?

Or is it all an act? Is that why the kind of cooking you celebrate on television is treated with so little respect at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar? Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar

How, for example, did Rhode Island’s supremely unhealthy and awesomely good fried calamari — dressed with garlic butter and pickled hot peppers — end up in your restaurant as a plate of pale, unsalted squid rings next to a dish of sweet mayonnaise with a distant rumor of spice?

How did Louisiana’s blackened, Cajun-spiced treatment turn into the ghostly nubs of unblackened, unspiced white meat in your Cajun Chicken Alfredo?

How did nachos, one of the hardest dishes in the American canon to mess up, turn out so deeply unlovable? Why augment tortilla chips with fried lasagna noodles that taste like nothing except oil? Why not bury those chips under a properly hot and filling layer of melted cheese and jalapeños instead of dribbling them with thin needles of pepperoni and cold gray clots of ground turkey?

By the way, would you let our server know that when we asked for chai, he brought us a cup of hot water? When you hung that sign by the entrance that says, WELCOME TO FLAVOR TOWN!, were you just messing with our heads?

Does this make it sound as if everything at Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar is inedible? I didn’t say that, did I?

Tell me, though, why does your kitchen sabotage even its more appealing main courses with ruinous sides and sauces? Why stifle a pretty good bison meatloaf in a sugary brown glaze with no undertow of acid or spice? Why send a serviceable herb-stuffed rotisserie chicken to the table in the company of your insipid Rice-a-Roni variant?

Why undermine a big fist of slow-roasted pork shank, which might fly in many downtown restaurants if the General Tso’s-style sauce were a notch less sweet, with randomly shaped scraps of carrot that combine a tough, nearly raw crunch with the deadened, overcooked taste of school cafeteria vegetables? Is this how you roll in Flavor Town?

Somewhere within the yawning, three-level interior of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, is there a long refrigerated tunnel that servers have to pass through to make sure that the French fries, already limp and oil-sogged, are also served cold?

What accounts for the vast difference between the Donkey Sauce recipe you’ve published and the Donkey Sauce in your restaurant? Why has the hearty, rustic appeal of roasted-garlic mayonnaise been replaced by something that tastes like Miracle Whip with minced raw garlic?

And when we hear the words Donkey Sauce, which part of the donkey are we supposed to think about? Is the entire restaurant a very expensive piece of conceptual art? Is the shapeless, structureless baked alaska that droops and slumps and collapses while you eat it, or don’t eat it, supposed to be a representation in sugar and eggs of the experience of going insane?

Why did the toasted marshmallow taste like fish?

Did you finish that blue drink?

Oh, and we never got our Vegas fries; would you mind telling the kitchen that we don’t need them? Thanks.

I ate at Oprah’s Lady Va Gine Seafood Restaurant. The fish was excellent. So fresh and so clean. It melted in your mouth and left your tongue moist.

A friend of mine who's a foodie (I'm not) asked me to go to one of Susur Lee's restaurants; I had never heard of Lee (this was at least 15 years ago). It was very busy and kind of expensive, but the food (fusion) was fine. I can't remember what I ate, but I enjoyed seeing my friend so excited about everything we were served, which he appreciated and savored much more than I did. I never went back.

I ate a lot at Emeril's now-defunct NOLA. It was great. I still think about the shrimp cocktail with gazpacho.

I have been to several, the thing is, the ones in places like Las Vegas and even sketchier places like Bobby Flay at the Mohegan Sun CT, never live up to their celeb status or the original location. Someone like Wolfgang Puck SPAGO or CUT in Beverly Hills never seem as good when you hit the Las Vegas copycat. Like a cheap dildo vs the real thing, you still get something out of it but not the same. They make it look the same, the menu is the same, sometimes they try to make it look even more grand, but food wise it fall flat. Their heart is just not into those spin offs. They are never there of course except the opening day to talk up the chef they hired.

Go to the original or don't waste your money is my rule of thumb.

Lunched at Gordon Ramsey's York & Albany in London and have eaten a few times at his Plane Food restaurant at Heathrow Terminal 5. Obviously neither of those is one of his more ambitious culinary projects. Both were very good. Plane Food was a nice surprise, very good indeed for airport food, with a small and changing menu, excellent and quick service, and an admirable simple concept well executed (both places.)

Jamie Oliver had some sandwich shops that popped up like mushrooms just before he went bust. I stopped in once and it was okay. The sandwich was good not great, the service and experience in need of a good bit of fine tuning.

I've eaten at some restaurants of José Andrés. Casual places, they had good food and good service, personal takes on classic Spanish dishes, including an Xmas Eve dinner in an almost empty restaurant memorable because the staff and the chef (not Andrés) were fantastic and super friendly.

Oh, and a Rick Bayless restaurant at O'Hare Airport. Basically very nice Mexican sandwiches, but he's something less of a big name TV personality chef.

Otherwise, I don't recall eating in any other restaurant with a big name TV chef. It's not something I would actively seek out. I've eaten at some restaurants famous for their food and their chefs, including some El Bulli veterans, but not chefs people would mob if they walked down the street. Generally, I'm happier eating at a more modest place that does fairly simple things exceptionally well, and wines I like are 5€ a bottle (10€ for a splurge). When the weight of expectation means that everything has to be so very special, it often falls short because the concept is too far removed from the essence of the food.

Years ago I went with a friend to Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill during NYC Restaurant Week. We had a simple chicken and mashed potatoes dish that was goddamned delicious. It’s gone now.

Jamie Oliver's place in London....alllll gone now. And in NYC Jean George's place. Also gone.

Gordon Ramsey is the most overrated of them all. Dont wast your money, the food is over priced and average at best.

Ate at Gordon Ramsey's place in Heathrow. Bad service and very meh food. Typical airport stuff

Tried Tom Colichio's steakhouse in Vegas. Not very memorable.

It’s a hard call. I live in nyc & there are a lot of celeb restaurants - many,many are the Top Chef people. We eat out a lot - try a bunch of them. Small portions, funny sauces. Some of them push the oddest concepts - high end novelty. Yet The best I ever had was at the inn at little washington by Chef something O’Connell. (In VA) Costly yet fantastic.

I had brunch once at Mesa Grill, but I don't know if Bobby Flay was quite as famous at the time. It was really good, then again I didn't order anything adventurous either.

I pay attention to the food scene and prefer to eat at spots where I know the chef is excited and committed to making good, impressive, and compelling food; not moon and spoon their veneers on the Food Network or the 'gram.

I, too, ate at Mesa Grill NYC for dinner when it was open, and it was one of the best meals of my life. I also ate at one of Todd English's restaurants in Boston - served steak, now closed. It was a good meal. But the best part was when I arrived. It was in some sort of multi-use development, it was raining cats and dogs, it was cold, and I couldn't find the place - in late June! Who should emerge from the restaurant to aid me and usher me in but TE himself! Just as hot in person.

Ronald McDonald's

Lady and Sons, Paula Dean's place in Savannah. Nothing special at all but the mint julep was good.

True story. I used to have a lot of friends who worked at Aquavit in NYC when it was on West 53rd Street and Marcus Samuelsson was the head chef. He wasn't yet the celebrity chef he later became. Whenever I was at the restaurant with important clients, my friends would have Marcus come around and greet them. He was the nicest guy.

One day I was there with a job candidate and I had my usual venison. Only this time it was served to me with a huge cockroach on the plate covered in gravy. I wanted to vomit. I discreetly called my friend over and asked him to get rid of the plate before anyone saw it.

Seconds later Marcus appeared at my table with a look of absolute terror on his face to apologize. I guess it would have been something of a scandal if it got out that one of the highest-rated restaurants in NYC served food with roaches. I certainly wasn't going to tell anyone. He also invited me to come back with 3 friends to have a meal on the house, which I accepted with some reservations.

Have I eaten a celebrity chef ass? Yes.

Oh, R29 reminded me. I ate at Paula Deen's Family Kitchen million's-spent renovating restaurant shortly after it opened in Allen, TX. Very ordinary Southern food, with weird restrictions on what you could order. It closed a couple of month's later. Good riddance.

Paula Deen should have traded on her moment of celebrity and located some restaurants in the rust belt, MAGA-type suburbs north where Southern Cooking would have been regarded as something "different."

I recently went to Guy Fieri's restaurant in Bally's in Atlantic City. My friend is a high roller, and the meal and stay were comped. I will say the turkey burger there was the best one I have ever had.

I went to Giada’s Vegas restaurant, it was fine but nothing special.

Gordon Ramsey burger place in Vegas, quite good.

Frontera Grill is delicious (Rick Bayless)

I was underwhelmed with RN74 (Michael Mina)

Guy Fieri is gross. I would not eat anything from his restaurant much less himself.