(FORTUNE Small Business) – Celebrity chef Todd English remembers the moment he morphed from a person into a brand. It happened a few years ago during a meeting with some marketing guys. "They started talking about Todd English," he says, "and I was there. I thought, 'How weird is this?'"

English has deep-set blue eyes, black hair, and a solid block of jaw. According to PEOPLE, he's one of the world's 50 most beautiful people. He's also an accidental entrepreneur--one of those dedicated practitioners who start out doing something they love and one day realize they're not really doing it anymore; instead they're running a business. For many it's a perilous transition, but English seems to have made it through.

He opened his first Olives restaurant 12 years ago in Charlestown, Mass. It had 50 seats, an open kitchen (with English in the middle of it), and what one food writer describes as "an interpretive rustic Mediterranean cuisine." Today he oversees a $35-million multi-ingredient empire, with Olives in Aspen, D.C., Las Vegas, and New York; a downmarket bistro "concept" called Figs; and prototype seafood (Kingfish Hall) and steak house (Bonfire) concepts he plans on one day rolling out across the country. "Fifteen restaurants," he says. "Wait. Sixteen."

He thinks it's pretty thrilling that he served 5,000 meals on a recent Saturday night, but ultimately unsatisfying, given what might be. "The plate-by-plate business is great, but there's another level that I'm trying to work on," he says. Hence the cookbooks (The Olives Table, The Figs Table), the endorsement deals, and the TV show, "Cooking In With Todd English." Call him a kitchen-variety Martha Stewart and he just smiles. "I take that as a compliment."

In a private room at Bonfire, relaxing in his chef whites before the dinner rush, English is recalling the week he spent in New York after Sept. 11, when he was cooking for rescue workers by day and eating out by night at "cool little places" in Chelsea. His own big New York eatery was practically empty after the tragedy, but the neighborhood places were packed. For English, it was a wistful reminder of where he started. "I had fantasies of wanting to go back and roll up my sleeves and build my own brick oven," he says. But the mood passed. "I'm better under pressure. I'm better in a more hectic life. Sometimes it's like I've got 15 TVs on in my head, and I'm looking at all of them." And he's okay with that? "I'm okay with that."