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These culinary stars know their way around a punchline just as well as a pan. Join us as we count down our picks for the funniest TV chefs who served up just as many laughs as delicious dishes! Our countdown includes Martha Stewart, Josh Scherer, Damaris Phillips, Nadiya Hussain, Jeff Mauro, and more! Which TV chef keeps you laughing in the kitchen? Let us know in the comments!
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00:00How did I get half a million followers? That easy.
00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo. And today, we're counting down our picks for the most famous culinary
00:10personalities who served up just as many laughs as delicious dishes.
00:15I am happy. You are happy. Some people prefer food for thoughts, and I prefer thoughts on food.
00:24Number 10, Martha Stewart.
00:26We ain't even had none of it to drink yet, and it's already happening.
00:29You put this in mashed potatoes?
00:30Yes.
00:31Uh-oh.
00:31Oh, you can pour.
00:33Yeah, just a little bit.
00:34Don't add any to mine.
00:35Her comic's sweet spot is understatement. The same calm, instructional delivery she brings
00:40to cooking can make an unexpected punchline hit twice as hard. Martha's 2008 encounter
00:46with Snoop Dogg on The Martha Stewart Show began over mashed potatoes, with the rapper
00:51teaching her some of his signature slang.
00:53This.
00:54Just peel the skin off.
00:55Oh, you want me to take the skin?
00:56Oh, you want me to take the skin off of it?
00:57My bad.
00:58Yeah, the skin's in.
00:59Whatever.
01:00That wonderfully unlikely chemistry eventually led to VH1's Martha and Snoop's potluck dinner
01:06party. Stewart also showed a much raunchier side at the 2015 Comedy Central roast of Justin
01:12Bieber, where coverage singled her out as one of the night's standouts. Somehow, even her
01:18dirtiest jokes still sound impeccably house trained. I'm talking about a playa in the boardroom
01:24and a freak and a freak in the bedroom. So, Justin, my final piece of advice is call me or
01:31not.
01:35Number 9. Josh Shearer. One minute, a recipe looks legitimate. The next, beef bile is becoming cheesecake.
01:42There it is. So, hand me a fork.
01:44Do you guys like a complimentary bile caramel drizzle?
01:48Yes, Josh.
01:49Oh, beautiful.
01:50Thanks for your table side service, Josh.
01:53No problem. Thank you guys for dining with us.
01:54That commitment to edible absurdity is Josh Shearer's comic engine. His kitchen specializes
02:00in wildly inventive culinary creations, with Shearer treating food itself as part of the
02:06punchline. His experiments range from that infamous cheesecake to a $237 fancy fast food
02:14baconator.
02:15This is a bargain at this point.
02:16Yeah?
02:17Oh my god.
02:18I'll Venmo you half of it.
02:19Yeah, please do.
02:20I can't stop.
02:21This is too good. I want to get some more ketchup.
02:23Last Meals gives the chaos room to breathe, as he cooks celebrities their ideal final
02:28meal and interviews them over it. The result is smart, gloriously weird kitchen comedy with
02:34zero fear of looking ridiculous.
02:36The most successful chefs of all time. One of the most successful people of all time.
02:39And you've still got punk kids like me taking the piss out of a single grilled cheese you
02:42made, and I apologize officially for that.
02:44Yeah, you're like a sort of seventh kid I didn't know I had.
02:47Hungry for entertainment? Ms. Mojo's 24-7 live stream is serving pop culture around the
02:52clock. Scan the QR code on screen and dig in.
02:55I'd say simple as pie, but it's a lot simpler, no?
02:59Number 8. Damaris Phillips.
03:01Some cooks teach a recipe. This one might turn the whole kitchen into a theme party.
03:06I love the play right there with the making the custard for the French toast in a sheet
03:10pan. A little bit unconventional.
03:12But I'm going to stuff it with leek, sausage, plantains.
03:17You know it'd be so delicious with all that pork.
03:20Would it be some salt?
03:21Yeah, it would be some salt. Absolutely.
03:23Yeah, it would be.
03:24Damaris Phillips won season 9 of Food Network star before hosting Southern at Heart, a perfect
03:29showcase for her playful energy. Episodes sent her lawn clamping with her husband, off to
03:35a circus aerial class, and into a late night feast inspired by a Louisville zombie walk.
03:40Every day, I will give 104%, not 110. That's a lot to offer. 104. Goodbye.
03:51Oh, I know how I can give 104%. 104% looks like this. What? Not too tired to do the
03:58robot.
03:59She later took that same anything-goes spirit to outrageous pumpkins, overseeing teams of
04:04pumpkin carvers. What makes her funny is how naturally the silliness sits beside real culinary
04:10authority. She never seems to be performing wacky chefs so much as genuinely having a fantastic time.
04:16I can't believe I'm the winner of the jelly bean taste-off.
04:19Oh, I can't.
04:20Let me taste that one. Nope.
04:24Number 7. Nadia Hussain.
04:26I produced what they wanted, just the ugly version.
04:28The pressure gets to you in there, and you kind of forgets to slow down,
04:31and it still has to look pretty. So, yeah, I'm learning every week.
04:35Kitchen nerves somehow become comedy in her hands. Her 2015 Great British Bake Off run made her
04:42memorable not only for her baking, but for quick remarks and wonderfully readable reactions under
04:48pressure. These are going to be my crystallized ginger and lemon bubble. I'm going to have them
04:53cascading down the side of my Italian meringue foam out of my levitating candy. Oh my god,
05:02what have I done? Hussain later explained that her on-screen personality was simply how she acts at
05:08home. That naturalness carried into her food shows, where cooking never feels overly polished or stiff.
05:14She never has to stop and announce a joke. A look, an aside, or a burst of self-aware silliness
05:20can do
05:20the work for her every single time.
05:23I grabbed the oven door, and it was boiling hot. And so then, kind of, it slid down my chocolate
05:29-melted skin.
05:31Then it was just kind of a bit bloody, and it was a bank holiday. I'd blown the head gasket
05:36on the car.
05:37So I was just sat there, and I just, I remember just bleeding and very burnt. And I just said,
05:41my pastry.
05:43Number six, Jeff Morrow.
05:45What do we know what this is called, folks, at the bottom of the pan? Repeat it after me. Fond.
05:50Fond, right? But we're going to call it Tasty Super Awesome Bits, right? Because we don't speak French.
05:55You speak French?
05:55That's right. No, I speak fondue.
05:58Fondue, right? Or fondon. Depends.
06:00Long before television, he was chasing laughs on stage. Jeff Morrow developed a passion for acting and comedy early,
06:07performed at Second City, and played Tony in Chicago's Tony and Tina's Wedding. Food and performance
06:13eventually collided on Food Network's star, which he won in Season 7 before hosting Sandwich King.
06:19Nestle it nicely, as it's got a two-and-a-half-hour-long nap ahead of it. So you want
06:25to tuck it in.
06:26I'm going to read you a story made of red wine, and when you wake up, you're going to be
06:30so relaxed,
06:31you're going to fall off your bone.
06:32On The Kitchen, Morrow has compared working with an ensemble to improv and sketch comedy,
06:38emphasizing the give and take between performers. That training still shows in his chemistry with
06:43co-hosts, and his willingness to get unabashedly silly on set. For Morrow, cooking television is
06:50clearly a performance, and laughter belongs on the menu.
06:53Lynn, you got that beautiful kind of bark on there we developed by flipping it in the braising,
06:58right? Let's build a beef. Jeffrey looking good there.
07:00How do I get cheese on it?
07:02No!
07:03I can get cheese on it!
07:05No! Wrong city!
07:07Number 5. Julia Child. A kitchen mishap was never allowed to spoil the show. On The French Chef,
07:14Child's relaxed teaching style turned the occasional kitchen mishap into part of the show,
07:19using mistakes as teachable moments rather than something to hide.
07:22I'm about to put in salt and pepper.
07:28Salt. That's about, well, just about that much. I had a little bit too much in my hand.
07:36I'll beat them up about 30 strokes, just until they're thoroughly mixed.
07:41Her sense of humor made sophisticated French food feel approachable, while her spontaneous presence
07:46kept instruction from becoming stiff. Even serious technique came with the sense that cooking should
07:52be fun. You trimmed off the crusts of that bread, right?
07:55And then I trimmed the crusts off, and then I'm going to trim this off, and then you can eat
07:59separately while you're cooking the sandwich. And that's what we do on the television,
08:04and we always throw it on the floor because nobody can see it.
08:07Oh, that's great. I like that.
08:08Her legacy needs context, however. Biographers and documentary filmmakers have documented homophobic
08:14views from earlier in her life. Accounts of her later years describe a major change in those
08:19attitudes. Child supported gay rights, and also publicly advocated for AIDS research and people
08:25with AIDS.
08:26AIDS is just a horrible disease, and we have to make everyone very well aware of it. And this is
08:32one of
08:32the very best ways of doing it. Food is love, isn't it? Because it gets everybody together.
08:41A pinch of seasoning could become a full-blown performance in this kitchen. Emeril Lagasse built
08:46his TV persona around booming enthusiasm, playful repetition, and feeding off of the energy around him.
08:53You don't want cream? Hey, add buttermilk. See what I care.
08:58So now we're going to let this come up to a good simmer, and we're going to extract some
09:02of that flavor out. You see? I think what we need to do is we kind of need a BAM!
09:07Just making sure
09:08you're awake.
09:09Emeril Live put him in front of a studio audience, with music adding to the showmanship. His famous
09:15BAM actually began as a way to wake up a tired crew during marathon tapings, while kick it up a
09:20notch was his shorthand for intensifying a dish. Now back then, if you knew, I always kicked it up a
09:26notch. A little flambe, a little of this, a little of that. But BAM! Came about waking
09:32everybody up while we were shooting eight television shows a day. Come on, people. Wake up here. Let's go.
09:38BAM! BAM! BAM! And that's how BAM! Came about.
09:42Lagasse has said he wanted viewers to learn while enjoying the entertainment, and that balance became
09:47his specialty. He didn't just demonstrate dinner. He made cooking feel like an event.
09:52Just a little BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
09:57All right about that.
09:59Number 3. Maddie Matheson.
10:01Subtlety rarely survives five minutes in this kitchen.
10:05Someone's gonna rip your pants off, or you're gonna rip somebody's pants off.
10:10Whatever's down there, people are gonna be helping each other out.
10:13And if you don't, then you probably, you didn't follow my steps.
10:18Maddie Matheson's TV persona has long been proudly full volume, yet its suppertime still
10:23put real cooking at the center of all that noise. There, even straightforward instructions became
10:28part of the performance without losing sight of the actual recipe. He pushed that looseness further
10:34with just a dash, allowing errors and rough edges to remain alongside the finished food.
10:39Now! Flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs. We're not doing breadcrumbs. Flour.
10:46I'm an idiot! I'm an idiot! Aren't I an idiot? We only need two.
10:54Crucially, the chaos never makes the cooking inaccessible. Matheson has said he talks to
10:59viewers much as he would his friends. His aim is straightforward. Make cooking
11:03genuinely funny without sanding away the reality.
11:06Hey, buddy! What are you doing over here? Are you sad? Well, I'm happy! Come over here and take a
11:13bite!
11:14Mission accomplished at maximum volume.
11:17Number 2. Guy Fieri
11:18His reactions are half the reason the food looks so entertaining. Guy Fieri's larger-than-life
11:24hosting style runs on huge reactions and a steady stream of off-the-cuff Guy-isms.
11:30Cook it like it's hot! That's awesome.
11:33I'm gonna drop in our sliced red onion, okay? Jalapenos. This is like an Arizona breath mint,
11:37more or less, man. On diners, drive-ins, and dives, he talks to the camera like a friend,
11:42turning chef's explanations into lively television. Fieri has said he often tosses in one-liners to make
11:48his film crew laugh. And Flavortown itself grew from that improvisational chatter.
11:53This is kind of like licking the volcano in Flavortown.
11:58Mmm! Oh, that is hot! That is really good! Oh, gosh!
12:05Guy's Grocery Games makes that energy an even bigger playground, throwing chefs into high-stakes challenges.
12:11He makes enthusiasm itself funny, whether he's praising a burger or casually inventing another phrase that sounds destined for a
12:18t-shirt.
12:19His imagination. I'm not kidding you. What Dr. Seuss culinary cookbook's in that head?
12:24Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
12:29Martin Yen. He made culinary know-how irresistibly playful.
12:33Let us consider the oldest argument in the world. What came first? The chicken or the eggs?
12:42The answer is, huh? Who cares?
12:45Nadia G. She brought irreverent humor to themed cooking.
12:49We're gonna slowly spoon in our hot chocolate mixture into the egg yolks. You really want to take your time
12:55with this step.
12:56Since the chocolate is hot, if you dump it into the yolks in one shot, you're gonna end up with
13:01chocolate scrambled eggs.
13:02The breakfast of twits.
13:04Alton Brown. He made the science behind cooking genuinely entertaining.
13:08Just to check out your grandma's skillet. If it's not, uh, Jed Black and Slick as a Mambo Band, she's
13:13been sneaking intake out all these years.
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13:40Number 1. Gordon Ramsay
13:43Somewhere between fury and farce, a restaurant critique can become a full comedy routine.
13:48What are you?
13:50An idiot sandwich.
13:51An idiot sandwich, what?
13:52An idiot sandwich, Chuck Ramsay.
13:54Gordon Ramsay's television persona turns exasperation into entertainment, especially on Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, where blunt reactions and inventive
14:03insults are part of the spectacle.
14:05Ramsay has argued that viewers sometimes mistake professional passion for anger.
14:10However, the contrast gets even funnier on MasterChef Junior, where he is openly playful and warm.
14:16One.
14:20Matthew, is that your cell?
14:21No, I don't have a phone.
14:24No cell phones in this kitchen.
14:27Right, let's start that again.
14:29One.
14:31Wow.
14:33Dear, oh dear.
14:33That gentler mode makes the fire-breathing version feel even more theatrical.
14:38Whether roaring at a disastrous service or clowning around with kids, Ramsay understands that personality can be as memorable as
14:45the food.
14:46Oh, man.
14:47Right, guys.
14:48We're gonna get out of this.
14:50We'll see you in a minute.
14:51A minute?
14:51I know you need more than a minute.
14:57If you could invite one of these kitchen personalities over to cook dinner and keep you entertained,
15:02who gets the call?
15:03Let us know in the comments.