The Top 3 Celebrity Chefs With The Most Restaurants Worldwide

Whether you're perusing the best restaurants in Boston, tastiest eateries in San Antonio, or must-visit dining destinations of New Orleans, there's a pretty good chance at least a few are owned by a celebrity chef. Culinary icons build their empires with different concepts, which often expand in different parts of the world. Cookbooks, cooking shows, and physical locations broadcast a famous name's approach, expertise, influences, and innovations. While those books and shows help us try the pros' recipes ourselves, it's the restaurants that allow us to get an actual taste of their genius. Many of these chefs want to help as wide of an audience as possible experience their dishes, so they branch out with everything from fast-casual spots for office workers on lunch breaks to fine-dining institutions worthy of a splurge.

Marcus Samuelsson owns a respectable 15 restaurants, while Bobby Flay has a portfolio of 13. Wolfgang Puck boasts 21 fine-dining venues, Daniel Boulud owns 23, and Michelin-star record-setter Alain Ducasse has 33. Those are some pretty staggering numbers. These restaurants reflect different cuisines these chefs are drawn to, at varying levels of formality, in every form from free-standing business to casino, hotel, and airport locations. But some food-world A-listers actually have even more restaurants under their belt — in a couple of cases, nearly triple these numbers. The three celebrity chefs who own the most restaurant locations worldwide are Gordon Ramsay, who owns 92 eateries; Guy Fieri with 91; and Jamie Oliver, with 67.

Gordon Ramsay's empire is ever on the rise — one minute, an article counts the total number of his restaurants at 81, the next, his own website shows 92. Perhaps that's because of the seemingly endless ideas Ramsay has for destinations. It's definitely because of the chef's star power, too — fans of his television shows line up to experience his dishes for themselves on city streets, in airports, and in casinos. The locations he owns represent several concepts.

There's Street Burger and Street Pizza, which are sometimes combined. There's Bread Street Kitchen & Bar, Gordon Ramsay Bar & Grill, and the one Michelin-starred Pétrus by Gordon Ramsay, to name a few. We certainly can't forget Gordon Ramsay Hell's Kitchen, Restaurant 1890 by Gordon Ramsay, Savoy Grill, Lucky Cat by Gordon Ramsay, The River Restaurant by Gordon Ramsay, Pizza East, Gordon Ramsay Plane Food, Gordon Ramsay Burger, and Le Pressoir D'Argent Gordon Ramsay with two Michelin stars. The behemoth list continues with Gordon Ramsay Steak, Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill, Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips, Gordon Ramsay Food Market, Menu by Gordon Ramsay, Ramsay's Kitchen, Au Trianon with two Michelin stars, and the three-starred Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.

Ramsay trained under legends like Joel Robuchon before becoming a head chef by 1993 and opening his first restaurant in 1998. He's been winning awards, hosting TV shows, and writing cookbooks ever since. As for what to know about Ramsay's restaurant chains, you can expect familiar dishes elevated by quality ingredients and masterful technique, often in English and American cuisines.

Every town is Flavortown when you're Guy Fieri. The bulk of his restaurant tally is made up of 17 locations of Guy Fieri's American Kitchen & Bar,15 of Chicken Guy, and 34 of Guy's Burger Joint, including ones on cruise ships.

Other Fieri eateries exist in much smaller numbers. Among them are one location of Guy Fieri's Tequila Cocina, two of Guy Fieri's Dive Bar & Taco Joint, two of Guy Fieri's El Burro Borracho, two of Guy Fieri's Highball Lounge, one of Guy Fieri's Chophouse, two of Guy Fieri's Smokehouse, one of Guy Fieri's Pizza Parlor, one of Guy Fieri's Taco Joint, 10 cruise locations of Guy's Pig Anchor, one of Guy's Bar-B-Que Joint, and three of Guy's Sammich Joint. That's 91, and Fieri's not done. He's opening a Downtown Flavortown in Tennessee, and there are several coming locations of Chicken Guy. Plus, he has a ghost kitchen — not a haunted kitchen, but a commercial kitchen designed for delivery — operating in a whopping 170 places.

This massive portfolio makes sense when you learn that Fieri's career started with entrepreneurial endeavors. He ran a pretzel cart when he was just 10. As an adult, he opened Johnny Garlic's with a business partner — they added three more locations but all of them closed by 2018. By touring the country featuring all kinds of restaurants on his show, "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives," Fieri clearly developed a sense for what people like to eat and what kinds of spaces they want to eat in.

Jamie Oliver, a.k.a. "The Naked Chef," also has culinary entrepreneurship deep in his roots: His parents owned a pub in Essex, and he started out working in that kitchen before going to school for cooking and catering. He began landing gigs at prestigious restaurants, and his dynamic personality was discovered during the filming of a documentary on one of those eateries. That led to his television career and then his cookbook career. Along the way, Oliver built an impressive portfolio of 67 restaurants, thanks in part to franchising opportunities under his Jamie Oliver Group brand.

He owns Jamie Oliver Catherine Street in London and Chequer Lane in Dublin, Ireland. Jamie's Italian has 20 locations, as does Jamie Oliver's Pizzeria, from Hungary to France to India to Brazil. Jamie's Kitchen is equally as well traveled with 13 branches. Budapest has the lone location of Jamie Oliver's Diner, and 11 locations of Jamie's Deli cater mostly to hungry travelers in airports. No matter the type of food on the menu, these eateries represent Oliver's simplified approach to delicious food with high-quality ingredients. 

Between Ramsay, Fieri, and Oliver, that's 250 restaurants globally where you can enjoy the work of a top celebrity chef. There are, of course, plenty of other culinary VIPs with eateries to visit, and these kitchen talents are always coming up with new ways for us to experience their flavor expertise — six celeb chefs even own their own coffee brands.