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Biography
At 24, Marcus became executive chef of Aquavit, and soon after that became the youngest ever to receive a three-star restaurant review from The New York Times. In 2003 he was named “Best Chef: New York City” by the James Beard Foundation. The same year he started a second New York restaurant, Riingo, serving Japanese-influenced American food.Marcus Samuelsson lecturing atGoogle in New York City (2007)In addition to his recognition as a world-class chef, Samuelsson is an award-winning cookbook author with titles in both English and Swedish. His 2006 African-inspired cookbook The Soul of a New Cuisine received the prize “Best International Cookbook” by the James Beard Foundation. Other titles written by Samuelsson are Aquavit and the New Scandinavian Cuisine, En Smakresa (“A Journey of Tastes”), andStreet Food.
Samuelsson is a Visiting Professor of International Culinary Science at the Umeå University School of Restaurant and Culinary Arts in Sweden. He had a television show, Inner Chef, which aired in 2005 on Discovery Home Channel and yet another program in 2008,Urban Cuisine on BET J/Centric. His cooking combines international influences with traditional cuisines from Sweden to Japan and Africa.
On November 24, 2009, Samuelsson served as guest chef for the first state dinner of the Barack Obama presidency. The dinner, in honor ofIndian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was served on the South Lawn and largely vegetarian. Samuelsson reportedly sought to combine sustainable and regional foods which reflect the best in American cuisine yet evoke the flavors of India. Harvesting fresh vegetables and herbs from the White House Garden, Samuelsson included red lentil soup, roasted potato dumplings, and green curry prawns on his menu.The tradition of guest chefs joining the White House chef for special events began during the Clinton administration.
Samuelsson is an advisor to The Institute of Culinary Education in New York City.
His restaurant, Red Rooster, opened in December 2010 in Harlem. In March 2011, Red Rooster hosted a fundraising dinner for theDemocratic National Committee. President Obama attended the dinner. The $30,800-per-plate event raised $1.5 million.
In the fall of 2012, Samuelsson, together with Clarion Hotels, launched a restaurant concept called Kitchen & Table. The concept’s first restaurant opened at Clarion Hotel Arlanda Airport and during 2013 and 2014 it will take place at all Clarion Hotels in Sweden and Norway.
Samuelsson has been featured on television including on CNN, MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show, as a judge on Top Chef, Iron Chef America, Chopped, and frequent guest appearances on Today. He previously hosted his own television shows, The Inner Chef and Urban Cuisine.
In early 2010, he competed alongside 21 world-renowned chefs on Bravo’s television series Top Chef Masters. Samuelsson won the competition, earning $115,000 for UNICEF’s grassroots effort The Tap Project. In 2011, he was a contestant on the fourth season of The Next Iron Chef, competing against nine other chefs for the opportunity to be designated an “Iron Chef” and appear regularly on Iron Chef America. Samuelsson was eliminated in the fifth episode, finishing in sixth place.
After appearing consistently as a culinary judge on the Food Network show Chopped, Samuelsson competed in and won Chopped All Stars: Judges Remix. He was awarded the grand prize of $50,000 for his charity, the Careers Through Culinary Arts Program.
On June 28, 2012, Samuelsson was the subject of an extensive interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR.
In 2014, he made his debut as a judge on the second season of the American television series The Taste.
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Speech TopicsExpand each topic to learn more
James Beard Award-winning chef and Owner of the famed Red Rooster MARCUS SAMUELSSON loves to cook for a crowd. Samuelsson expertly balances an insightful and inspiring moderated conversation with an interactive live cooking demo, engaging audiences of all kinds. This unique and memorable format can be programmed in person or virtually.
James Beard Award-winning Chef and Owner of the Red Rooster MARCUS SAMUELSSON loves to cook for a crowd. In his virtual cooking demonstrations he shows guests how to make something for a special occasion or how to upgrade that cozy Tuesday night supper - even if using ingredients you have in your fridge. Marcus can share the recipes and ingredients in advance so guests can cook along. Cooking and chatting with Samuelsson feels like having a friend in your kitchen, and is a special treat for your guests.
MARCUS SAMUELSSON was only three years old when he, his mother, and his sister—all battling tuberculosis—walked seventy-five miles to a hospital in the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Adaba. Tragically, his mother succumbed to the disease shortly after she arrived, but Marcus and his sister recovered, and one year later they were welcomed into a loving middle-class white family in Göteborg, Sweden. It was there that Marcus’s new grandmother, Helga, sparked in him a lifelong passion for food and cooking with her pan-fried herring, her freshly baked bread, and her signature roast chicken. From a very early age, there was little question what Marcus was going to be when he grew up.
In this inspiring speech, Samuelsson shares his remarkable journey from Helga’s humble kitchen to some of the most demanding and cutthroat restaurants in Switzerland and France, from his grueling stints on cruise ships to his arrival in New York City, where his outsize talent and ambition finally come together at Aquavit, earning him a coveted New York Times three-star rating at the age of twenty-four.
But Samuelsson’s career of “chasing flavors,” as he calls it, had only just begun—in the intervening years, there have been White House state dinners, career crises, reality show triumphs and, most important, the opening of the beloved Red Rooster in Harlem. At Red Rooster, Samuelsson has fufilled his dream of creating a truly diverse, multiracial dining room—a place where presidents and prime ministers rub elbows with jazz musicians, aspiring artists, bus drivers, and nurses. It is a place where an orphan from Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, living in America, can feel at home. With disarming honesty and intimacy, Samuelsson also opens up about his failures—the price of ambition, in human terms—and recounts his emotional journey, as a grown man, to meet the father he never knew. The audience experiences a tale of personal discovery, unshakable determination, and the passionate, playful pursuit of flavors—one man’s struggle to find a place for himself in the kitchen, and in the world.
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