Andre Schurrle downed Fulham with a sensational 16-minute second half hat trick that keeps the the Blues top of the league - four points clear of Arsenal and their west London rivals firmly plonked at the bottom.
This was no vintage performance from Chelsea, who had a 3,000-mile round trip to Istanbul in Turkey to contend with in midweek.
Fulham can count themselves a tad unlucky not to have got to the break in the lead as the leg-weary Blues struggled to get to grips with the frenetic pace put in them by the Whites.
The architect of the win for Chelsea was Eden Hazard who cooly set up the German wide man for his first two efforts, both consummate left-footed strikes.
Schurrle's third, a right-footed strike after Torres out-muscled John Heitinga that killed off any lingering hopes that the Whites could get something from the west London derby.
Heitinga nabbed a consolation goal 15 minutes from time.
The result might suggest an easy win for Chelsea, but this was not the case. Fulham pushed their neighbours from down the Fulham Road for much of the opening 45 minutes.
Fulham had a great chance to put the home side ahead after just three minutes when Clint Dempsey had a fine glancing header from six yards out inch wide of Petr Cech's far post.
The USA striker rose unmarked from Pajtim Kasami's left wing cross, but he failed to get full contact on the ball, much to the relief of the Chelsea centre-back paring of John Terry and Gary Chill, neither of who picked up the frontman,
Chelsea's first effort of sorts fell to Brazill midfielder Ramires, wearing what looked like a mask of Zorro. His 25-yard effort sailed high and very wide of Maarten Stekelenburg' s goal.
Fulham's Brede Hangeland took a heavy challenge from team-mate Kieran Richardson in the ninth minute, which resulted in three minutes of treatment for the centre-back.
Stekelenburg gifted the visitor's a glorious chance on 12 minutes when he hesitated in front of Fernando Torres. The ball spun to the Spain forward, who should have scored from an acute angle but the ball zipped across Fulham's goal-line before being cleared.
Hangeland failed to fully recover from his clatter with Richardson and was substituted by Dan Burn 15 minutes into the match.
Fulham, bottom of the Premier League looked anything but and on 21 minutes another sharp counter-attack saw the ball on the left, sent into Chelsea's area. again Dempsey was first to react, but could not steer his header goal-bound and was deflected off the head of Cesar Azpilicueta for a corner.
The Blues's next effort was marginally better than their first and the culprit was also Ramires. This time, he tried a left-footer from just outside the Fulham penalty area, but with the same wayward result.
Lacklustre Chelsea, who had a midweek trip to Istanbul in Turkey to contend, with failed to take advantage of a fortunate free kick awarded by Mark Clattenberg to Eden Hazard, just outside the penalty area on 33 minutes.
Oscar failed to find any man in a blue shirt and the Whites found it too ways to clear the ball.
Ashkan Dejasgah entered Clattenberg's book for a foul on Azpilicueta with 10 minutes of the first half remaining.
Gary Cahill did well to dispossess Dempsey deep in the Chelsea penalty area after good set-up play by ex-Blue Scott Parker as the home side, with the lion's share of play in the opening period looked the more likely score.
A training ground free-kick on 40 minutes, which saw three Fulham players make blind runs over the ball, looked impressive, but when Kasami struck the ball from 20-yards, his daisy-cutting left-footer was well smothered by Cech.
Deep Into added time in the first half, the Blues finally had a shot on target when Oscar's right-footed rasper forced Stekelenburg into a fine save, tipping the ball over his crossbar for a corner.
The second half started off as much as the first, with Fulham on the front foot, pushing their near neighbours to retreat I to their own third of the pitch.
An over enthusiastic challenge by Pajtim Kasami three minutes in, on Branislav Ivanovic resulted win Clattenberg brandishing a yellow card.
Two minutes later and Ramires was the recipient of yellow for foul on Sidwell.
Chelsea are top of the league and showed just why when on 52 minutes a seemingly innocuous throw-in by Ivanovic went to Schurrle. The German fed the ball inside to Hazard. One touch later and the Belgium midfielder produced a brilliant left-footed defence-splitting ball to on-running Schurrle.
The wide man cut in from the right, into the Fulham area, and let fly, despite a late challenge by Burn, with a smart left-footer past the prone Stekelenburg to put Chelsea into the lead.
Torres should have made it two, five minutes later when he was perfectly placed at Stekelenburg's far post, but inexplicably headed wide from an inch-perfect left byline cross by Hazard.
Fulham's third manager of the season, Felix Magath decided that a change was needed and on came Lewis Holtby for Kasami.
The Hazard, Schurrle roadshow produced another positive result for the visitors on 65 minutes which saw Chelsea double their lead.
Following a counter-attack by Fulham which broke down in midfield, Hazard collected the ball and worked the ball forward to the edge of Fulham's penalty area.
Schurrle beat the offside trap and latched onto a cute pass by Hazard. The German then slotted the ball home with his left foot past hapless Stekelenburg.
It got worse for Fulham three minutes later when a large lump upfield by Cech saw Torres and John Heitinga challenge for the ball. It fell invitingly for Torres who slid the ball to Schurrle who tucked home from just inside the penalty area, past the goalkeeper, this time with his right foot to signal his hat-trick.
Heitinga struck one back for the home side 16 minutes from time, when he tucked home from close range as the Blues failed to clear from a corner.
Jose Mourinho, perhaps sensing that the tide was turning away from his side decided to substitute mis-firing Oscar for the more muscular and defensive midfielder Mikel, with Magath replacing Parker for The more creative veteran midfielder Gioros Karagounis.
The Greek was straight into the action, forcing Cech into a low save to his left with a low drive Demba Ba entered the fray at the expense of Torres with eight minutes to go.
But it was Fulham who finished the game on top. This forced Mourinho into replacing hat-trick hero Schurrle for David Luiz.
Chelsea saw out the remaining minutes with clinical efficiency that German Schurrle would no doubt be very proud of.
Teams; Fulham, Stekelenburg, Heitinga, Hangeland, Sidwell, Kasami, Richardson, Dejagah, Riether, Parker, Dempsey, Bent.
Subs, Stockdale, Arne Riise, Kvist, Holtby, Karagounis, Rodallega, Burn
Chelsea, Cech, Ivanovic, Ramires, Torres, Oscarh Schurrle, Hazard, Matic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta
Subs, Schwarzer, Cole, Luiz, Lampard, Mikel, Ba, Willian
Referee, Mark Clattenberg