Three weeks after Zynga launched its latest sim-style game "ChefVille" on Facebook -- the social media platform that Zynga itself blamed for most of its current financial woes -- the game developer is slowly crawling its way back to the top of the social gaming food chain.

According to the most recent AppData survey of the fastest-growing Facebook apps published on Wednesday, Zynga's newly minted cooking app already claimed a top-10 spot on the list.

While it's only No. 10 at the moment, Zynga also holds the No. 9 spot with "CastleVille," and No. 1 with "The Ville" -- a game for which it's currently facing a copyright infringement lawsuit. Only slightly further down the list is "Draw Something" at No. 14.

"ChefVille" now boasts 15.7 million players, a large jump in its user-base that took place almost entirely over the course of last week according to earlier AppData filings.

The game is also growing exponentially at a time that even other Zynga games are struggling with their user retention. Zynga games including "Zynga Slingo," "Texas HoldEm Poker," and even the No. 1 game, "The Ville," all lost users over the same period.

Given that Zynga admitted many of its iconic titles such as "FarmVille" and "CityVille" were struggling to retain users due to changes made to Facebook itself last quarter, the "ChefVille's" thriving community is helping secure Zynga's total user base on the social media site, though it remains unclear whether the new game is drawing users from other Zynga games or simply attracting new players entirely.

The latest data showing Zynga's continued preeminence as a social game developer comes amid near-continuous news of high-level departures from the company, beginning earlier this month with COO John Schappert's conspicuous resignation and continuing up until Tuesday with Chief Creative Officer Mike Verdu's announcing his departure after "soul-searching."

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