Many of the chefs you’re discussing started out as TV chefs in the old days, when shows were about cooking, not eyeballs. They parlayed their TV fame into restaurants or products later.
David Chang’s own celebrity came from being an actual chef, with magnet restaurants (in nyc) that bloomed into a restaurant empire. His earlier shows were food-intellectual, not reality show format (Mind of a Chef, Ugly Delicious).
That changed around Covid, when most of the restaurants were shut down, as it turned out later, permanently. The transformation from food intellectualism to reality show also happened around then iirc. Reality is the most profitable kind of tv,
It’s like watching Guy Fieri at a diner vs old food tv. Different goals, different audiences. Different $$$.
