Gordon Ramsay is US's top-earning chef Merchandising and cookbooks also pumped up their incomes, Ms Pomerantz said in an interview. Completing the list's top five were Paula Deen, the southern US cook criticized for buttery recipes and for becoming a pharmaceutical company spokeswoman after she was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, and Mario Batali, co-owner of more than a dozen restaurants and one of the stars of TV's "The Chew." They earned $17 million and $13 million, respectively. Celebrity chefs were not the only people making big money in food. Some restaurants also had huge earnings. Bob Chinn's Crab House restaurant in Wheeling, Illinois, made about $24 million, not including alcohol sales, and was named the top earning restaurant in the United States. It was followed by The Grill on Main in Edgartown, Massachusetts, with $23.5 million, and Sparks Steak House in New York City, which has been in business since 1966 and made $23 million. "It is an unusual list," said Ms Pomerantz. We are looking at just food sales, not alcohol. It is stand alone restaurants, so that cut some places out. Crab House Owner Chinn, the 89-year-old son of Chinese immigrants, attributed his lucrative business to fresh seafood. The restaurant, his 14th business, flies in 3,000 pounds of fresh seafood daily, according to Chinn, who said he has no plans to retire although he does spend half his time in Hawaii. "If I stop, the restaurant will collapse in a few years," he told Forbes.com.