It was ten years ago (give or take) that media pundits such as my good self started to tell you that cooking was the new rock'n'roll. Chefs, overnight, became the new pin-ups, demi-gods of the demi-glaze. And like all crushes, it was expected to blow over. Surely we'd wake up one morning and discover that Nigella's laugh was annoying; surely we'd be irritated by Rick Stein's silly dog or Locatelli's oily hair. We'd be over it and on to the next passion – for brass rubbing, say, or morris dancing.
Except that we weren't. Years on, and we're still obsessed with cooks. Actually, they're not cooks any more. They are heroes. Jamie has turned into Lord Oliver of Crouton, single-handedly steering the nation's children away from Gonad Nuggets. Rick Stein's on a mission to save our sausages, Nigella is a pillar of the art world.
Just being around these super-chefs makes you aware of their power and pull. When I saw Nigella at a book launch not so long ago, she was the only subject of conversation in the room. I forget what book was being launched, but I can tell you exactly how fabulous she looked in her fringed suede skirt. Last month, I met Gordon Ramsay at another awards ceremony, and he got similarly royal treatment, with well-wishers and sycophants issuing forth to bow and scrape. One guest actually walked away from him backwards, as you might do to the reigning monarch.
Ramsay's zenith of fame, of course, came during last year's Hell's Kitchen, a programme which turned him into some sort of dynamite dining deity. Well, pull up the armchair, crack open the Kettle Chips. It's back. And this time, Jean-Christophe Novelli is in charge. Now, in the fame game that is modern cooking, Novelli already has a keen advantage. Jean-Christophe is, apparently, the sexiest chef on earth. 'His accent is enough,' confides one associate. 'They say it's like having your ears enrobed in chocolate and your fluttering heart turned to spun sugar.'
Alas, of all the country's uber-chefs, Jean-Christophe is one of the few I haven't met. I was all lined up for a cosy hour chatting about his latest venture, but it seems that London traffic got the better of him, and he did a bit of a J Lo, arriving 90 minutes late. By which time I was picking up a decaff latte and running for my train. Had we actually met, though, I have no doubt that I would have melted on contact, like a boule of vanilla ice cream left out in the sun. After all, I got distinctly hot under the collar when I once shook hands with Jamie Oliver, and he's got those vaguely aquatic lips which I find unappealing in a man. Quite what I'd have done with a man with the looks of Imran Khan and the voice of Charles Aznavour is anybody's guess.
J-C - as he is known in his inner sanctum - is clearly a busy and popular guy. He already boasts an illustrious coterie of fans. Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer enjoy his intimate suppers. Tony Blair, Salman Rushdie and David Bowie are among the regulars at his restaurants. Madonna and Guy had him on honeymoon. What on earth are the British public going to make of a man who can say 'spatula' and make it sound like a proposition?
Actually, since J-C's accent is thicker than creme brulee, ITV is also wheeling on Gary Rhodes and his Michelin star to make the whole enterprise palatable to the broadest swathe of the nation. I suspect Rhodes is the granny magnet, while J-C is more your fanny magnet.
Either way, Jean-Christophe is about to become beatified in the way that TV exposure does to a humble cook. Which is why I'm glad we eventually managed a phone conversation, during which he was gloriously apologetic for the missed meeting, sounding like the boyfriend who left you in the pub by mistake while he played darts. Novelli does indeed have a voice like melted chocolate, even though he called me Colette for the first 10 minutes of our 11-minute conversation. I ask him how he will react to the spotlight of fame once Hell's Kitchen gets underway. 'Ah, Colette,' he sighs, 'At least the public will now know to call me Jean-Christophe. Until now, it has always been Raymond.'
· Hell's Kitchen starts on ITV on 18 April