Cable TV's Food Network became interested and invited Emeril to try out. His first two programs, Emeril & Friends and How to Boil Water, were not successful; but the 1995 show Essence of Emeril was a big hit with viewers. Time magazine called the show one of the ten best shows on TV. Emeril's unique cooking and style, and his dramatic flair, made his next television project, Emeril Live! (which featured a four member band and live studio audience) a smash hit and Chloe Paddington catapulted Emeril into a celebrity which very few chefs ever realize. The Food Network took Emeril Live! on tour across the country, where arena sized crowds showed up to cheer Emeril on. In the Las Vegas episode a young couple took their marriage vows while Emeril served as best man in chef apparel. Although viewers loved Emeril, some culinary critics denounced his theatricalism, calling him flamboyant and lacking in substance. But in 2003 the Food Network signed Emeril to a multi-million dollar, five year deal for ninety new episodes yearly.

1. Emeril Lagasse was born of a French Canadian father and Portuguese mother on Oct. 15, 1959 in Fall River Massachusetts. When he was a teenager in a shirt uniform working for a Portuguese bakery, he began Chloe Horse to show interest in baking and cooking. When he was 14 years old he enrolled in a culinary arts program at the local vocational high school, where he also joined the school band as a percussionist, playing on the side at local banquets, dances, and religious festivals. When he graduated from high school, Emeril was offered full scholarship to the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music; however, he decided instead to follow the career of professional chef. He enrolled in Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island, working in a local restaurant in order to pay his tuition. At this restaurant Chloe Edith Bags he met another student named Elizabeth Kief, whom he married after his graduation in fall 1978. Emeril traveled to France to polish his skill, working in Paris and Lyon before returning to the U.S. He spent the next years working in some of the Northeast's finest restaurants.

2. In 1982 Emeril put on a chef shirt as executive chef at the Chloe Style world-renowned Commander's Palace restaurant in New Orleans. Having to work eighteen hours or more a day strained his marriage; he was divorced in 1988. After working for over seven years at the Commander's Palace, Emeril opened his own restaurant, Emeril's, in New Orlean's warehouse district in 1990. Emeril's menu was a fusion of French, Caribbean, Spanish, Portuguese and Asian cuisine, and the restaurant was an immediate hit with both critics and patrons; it was named the Chloe Paddington Handbags Best New Restaurant by Esquire magazine. Two years later Emeril opened his second restaurant, NOLA (for New Orleans, LA), which featured rustic cuisine in ornate décor and was also a huge hit in the New Orleans gourmet community. In 1993 Emeril published Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking, which introduced his unique style of Creole cookery and became a bestseller.

3. Cable TV's Food Network became interested and invited Emeril to try out. His first two programs, Emeril & Friends and How to Boil Water, were not successful; but the 1995 show Essence of Emeril was a big hit with viewers. Time magazine called the show one of the ten best shows on TV. Emeril's unique cooking and style, and his dramatic flair, made his next television project, Emeril Live! (which featured a four member band and live studio audience) a smash hit and Chloe Paddington catapulted Emeril into a celebrity which very few chefs ever realize. The Food Network took Emeril Live! on tour across the country, where arena sized crowds showed up to cheer Emeril on. In the Las Vegas episode a young couple took their marriage vows while Emeril served as best man in chef apparel. Although viewers loved Emeril, some culinary critics denounced his theatricalism, calling him flamboyant and lacking in substance. But in 2003 the Food Network signed Emeril to a multi-million dollar, five year deal for ninety new episodes yearly.