Biggest Celebrity Chef Feuds of 2012

Amy's Baking Company Hires Joe Arpaio's PR Firm To Change Public's Perception

by Tina Nguyen

How good is Rose, Moser & Allyn? They represent the highly controversial Maricopa County Sherrif Joe Arpaio, the law enforcement official so divisive that someone recently tried to blow him up with a package bomb.

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WATCH: The Sussman Brothers Ride Horses And Crash Tea Parties On Truckers In The Wild

by Tina Nguyen

God forbid that Max and Eli Sussman, the pride of Brooklyn, ever betray their hipster roots by doing such WASPy things as equestrian activities and gossiping with ladies over tea.

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WATCH: Why Is Anthony Bourdain At A Fake KFC In Libya?

by Tina Nguyen

"That kid who you see, a militia member, at one point looks in the camera and says, 'This is the taste of freedom.' Which is both dismaying and heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time."

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WATCH: Jay Rayner Takes Down Locavorism In Snarky New Book Trailer

by Mariella Mosthof

British food critic Jay Rayner just released a trailer for his new book A Greedy Man in a Hungry World, which contains a sneak peek of his mind-blowing anti-locavorism argument. Turns out sustainability based on geography is poppycock!

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The 11 Biggest Chef Feuds of 2012

by Mariella Mosthof 12:53 pm, December 31st

Since feuds are one of our favorite subjects, and certainly an area of expertise for anyone so thoroughly enmeshed in the relationship dynamics between chefs of a certain celebrity, we decided to take a look back at the biggest, best, and craziest celebrity chef feuds of 2012.

Some were chef-on-chef. Some were chef-on-critic. Some were chef-on-entire-marginalized-minority-group. All were irresistibly scandalous. Check out our roundup below.

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1.Anthony Bourdain vs Paula Deen

In January of 2012, Paula Deen announced she had been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes three years earlier and promptly linked up with a pharmaceutical company to shill diabetes meds, giving us the evergreen Anthony Bourdain vs. Paula Deen feud of 2012. Tony was memorably furious with her fatty, rich, buttery empire for continuing to promote the food that made her sick in the first place while she was sitting on a diabetes diagnosis, only to announce she had changed her ways after snagging a lucrative endorsement deal. But that's just fine with Paula. She thinks he's a big ol' meanie.

2.Jamie Oliver and Anthony Bourdain vs Gordon Ramsay

Shortly after word first came out that April Bloomfield was thinking of bringing her Stateside gastropub The Spotted Pig back to her native London, Gordon Ramsay trademarked the name "The Spotted Pig" in the U.K. Dick move? Former Bloomfield protege Jamie Oliver and Anthony Bourdain thought so. Bourdain called it "shameful, pathetic" and "despicable," while Oliver wholeheartedly agreed with a spirited, "here here." Ramsay eventually yanked his claim on the name.

3.David Chang vs ?uestlove

Who could forget the great fried chicken throwdown of 2012 between The Roots' frontman ?uestlove and David Chang? ?uest called Chang out via Twitter to challenge his fried chicken prowess with a little soul cooking of his own. The pair eventually went head-to-head in a blind taste test on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, and David took the winning title. But he still served ?uest's Love Drumsticks at Momofuku one night.

4.Glenn Beck vs The Neelys

Then there was the time Glenn Beck slammed Pat and Gina Neely, of Food Network and terrible food fame, for running a racist establishment. He stopped by Neely’s Barbecue Parlor in New York City with his wife for a bite and later took to his radio program to complain about how the staff and everyone else inside was looking at him funny, making a big old race deal about the whole thing. Needless to say, the Neelys (and the world at large?) were confused by the accusation.

5.Eddie Huang vs Marcus Samuelsson

This was a good one. In June, Eddie Huang wrote a scathing op-ed for The Observer, slamming Marcus Samuelsson's Red Rooster Harlem for failing to cater to Harlem, or understand it or anything that it stands for. Marcus (and Michael Symon, and Josh Ozersky, and some other folks, too) fired back at Eddie, defending the chef and his restaurant. In Eddie's defense, he wrote in the op-ed that he specifically brought a Harlem native with him to the restaurant for a better idea of the place. Because what does a Stuy-Town-living Taiwanese-American with a bao shop know about Harlem, right?

6.Jamie Oliver vs Schools

"Schools," in this slide, are represented by that lady in the fascinator, also known as Prue Leith, who slammed Jamie Oliver this year for his British show Jamie Oliver's School Lunches. While the purpose of the show was to teach families how to bring better brown bag lunch options to school, rather than depend on the crappy processed school lunches provided by cafeterias across the UK, the concept apparently worked too well. Many schools stopped catering lunches altogether in an effort to encourage kids to brown-bag it healthy-style, which resulted in parents who didn't know anything about nutrition sending their kids to school with bags of candy for lunch. Oops.

7.Marcus Samuelsson vs Gordon Ramsay

In his memoir Yes, Chef, Marcus Samuelsson recounted a story from his days at Aquavit, in which Gordon Ramsay called to scream at him for being a black bastard, among other things. (Really, the reason was that Gordon thought Marcus had snubbed him on a recent trip to London. But the phrase "black bastard" was actually used.) Gordon, of course, denied the whole thing.

8.Tom Sietsema vs Mike Isabella

In restaurant critic/chef feuds this year, we had Tom Sietsema of the Washington Post v. Mike Isabella's newly opened Bandolero. Of course, Tom actually liked the food and service very much. He spent most of his nasty review bashing the decor and noise-levels of the Day of the Dead-themed restaurant. As Mike pointed out in his rebuttal: ...but he liked the food, right?

9.Gordon Ramsay vs Jamie Oliver

To be fair, this is a feud that began quite a few years prior to 2012. But it was this year that Gordon Ramsay called Jamie Oliver fat, dirty, a failure at life, and a pathetic creep who was trying to scam on Gordon's wife. "For Christmas all I want to do is give him a f***ing good wash," Gordon infamously remarked. Still waiting on a comeback, Jamie. ...Jamers? Any day now...

10.Pete Wells vs Guy Fieri

What more is there for us to say about Fieri-gate? Pete Wells' New York Times critique of Guy's American Kitchen and Bar, newly opened in Times Square, has been the paper's most viral review of all time. Some have even called the all-question takedown the Times' worst review in history. Guy appeared on The Today Show to bite back, and accused Wells of coming in with "an agenda," but the joke was on Pete the whole time. The New York Times hosted a party at the resto the very night the review came out.

11.Buddy Valastro vs Transamerica

What's that, Buddy? Inviting a trans-woman onto Cake Boss to flirt with your cousin Anthony as "a prank" went horribly awry and came off as super-offensive? WE CAN'T IMAGINE WHY. Buddy's now-infamous "that's a man, baby" episode has been pulled from TLC indefinitely after the lady in question, Carmen Carrera, took offense to the language Buddy used in his prank. After some shudder-worthy fan sentiments of support for Buddy and Anthony arose on Facebook and Twitter, the pair eventually apologized for the whole thing.