José Andrés, who this year won the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Chef award, makes a very popular chapulín taco at his Washington, D.C., restaurant Oyamel.

In 2003 Westchester Magazine awarded him the Best Chef award.

In 2011, she received the Veuve Clicquot World's Best Female Chef award, named after Madame Clicquot Ponsardin and given by the World's 50 Best Restaurants awards scheme from British magazine Restaurant.

"I needed the money so I could run away from home," said the Texas-born Ms. Gilmore, who is 34 and recently arrived from San Francisco, where her celebrated Asian-French seafood dishes at the restaurants Elka and Liberte earned her the James Beard Foundation's Best California Chef award for 1994.

He was also named the "Best Chef in the Southeast" in 2001 foundation, and was a 2008 finalist for the its national "Outstanding Chef" award.

Colicchio won the 2010 Outstanding Chef award from the James Beard Foundation.

Vellante earned a Chef 2000 award, was voted "Menu Strategist of the Year" by Restaurant Business magazine and was counted among the nation's Top 50 R&D Chefs by Nation's Restaurant News.