Marcus Samuelsson is an Ethiopian-born chef, restaurateur, and philanthropist. He has 15 restaurants worldwide including Red Rooster in Harlem, Marcus Bar & Grille in Atlanta, vRÅ in Göteborg, and MARCUS locations in Montreal and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
As a child, Marcus endured hardships during the Ethiopian Civil War and was separated from his family and ultimately adopted by a couple from Sweden. Marcus became interested in cooking through his maternal grandmother in Sweden. He ended up studying locally at the Culinary Institute in Göteborg. After initial schooling, he apprenticed in Switzerland and Austria, then traveled to the United States to apprentice at Aquavit in New York.
The youngest person to receive a three-star restaurant review from The New York Times, Marcus became the executive chef at Aquavit at just 24 years old. In his career, he has been recognized as the Best Chef in New York City and wrote a cookbook that received the title of “Best International Cookbook” by the James Beard Foundation. Marcus was even chosen as the guest chef for Barack Obama’s first state dinner.
In 2010, Marcus competed against 21 other talented chefs on Top Chef Masters and won. He took his earnings, over $100,000 and donated all of it to UNICEF’s The Tap Project, which provides clean water to impoverished nations. In 2012, he competed in and won Chopped All Stars 2012: Judges Remix. He was awarded $50,000 for his charity, the Careers Through Culinary Arts Program. He was also a contestant on The Next Iron Chef and a judge on Chopped, Beat Bobby Flay, Top Chef, and Iron Chef America, among others.
As of recently, Marcus has been working on a new Food Network show, House of Knives, and in 2023 opened a restaurant in Newark, New Jersey called Vibe BBQ. We met with Marcus on the Chefs Making Waves cruise, where he was featured as an on-board chef. We got to talk about what he cooks with his son, his favorite spots in his hometown of Harlem, and a place he has visited that surprised him.
Tell me about the new show you have coming out.
House of Knives is a great show that will be coming on Food Network. Scott Conant, Judy Joo and myself were judging some amazing Food Network talent. Some that we’ve seen before and some new ones. The food is absolutely amazing. There’s a lot of trickery. You have to cook well, you have to be smart. You have to play the game right.
Oh, it’s a game?
Yeah, it’s cooking, but you really have to play it. It’s a really smart show.
Tell me about your new restaurant, Vibe BBQ.
I’m so excited about Vibe. I’ve lived in America for 25 years, and barbecue is the food that I just love to eat. I love the casualness around it. I love the different variations of it. The vibes that it brings, most of the time outside on a picnic table. I’m just excited to bring that to Newark and the New York area.
If you were to tell people to visit Ethiopia , what would you recommend?
Well, definitely fly into Addis. Maybe stay in the capital for a couple of days. We have our restaurant there and the tallest building in East Africa. Just an hour or so outside Addis is some great nature. Whether it’s birdwatching or running in the mountains, it’s really about nature. Then obviously go and see Lalibela. There’s stuff in the North, there’s stuff in the South. It doesn’t matter if you travel a lot in Ethiopia, you’re going to see something that you have never seen.
What’s your favorite thing to cook with your family?
We cook a ton. Right now we’re in tostada heaven. For the last three or four weeks, that’s what we’ve been doing. A couple of weeks before that we were doing these incredible quinoa pancakes for breakfast. Zion and I, we cook a lot at home.
Is your son taking any interest in cooking?
He is. But he wants something like a pancake. So, I have to figure out how we can twist that into adding quinoa, adding something more flavorful into that, that is also healthier. It’s been a lot of fun to cook with him.
What’s your perfect day in Harlem?
Walking around with my family and then going by Rooster. Everything, the culture, the music, the people. I’m just lucky to be there.
Any favorite spots?
There’s tons! Walking down by Melba’s is always fun. Jumping in and out of Frederick Douglass. It’s a fun street that you can just walk up and down. There’s a magical spot called the Parlor. It’s around 63rd, only open on Sundays, there’s a live band and it’s just a magical place.
You’ve traveled all over the world. I mean, literally everywhere. Is there a place that surprised you the most, or a hidden gem you’d tell people to go to?
It always depends on where the traveler is coming from, because you come from that part of the world. It’s absolutely normal. The first time I went to Japan, it was just so different culturally and food wise. It’s a place I always want to go back to because I always learn something new. I go to a place like Singapore, for example, where you can get the world on a plate, literally in one city. You just feel like, ‘wow, every meal I’m going to have here is going to be great.’
I agree. There’s nothing like Asia. What’s your perfect family vacation?
Going to my summer house in Sweden and just deciding where you’re going to go fishing or just take it easy. August in Sweden is great. Just great.
What inspires your cooking? Does music inspire you at all?
Everything. Music is very sonic to the way you cook. I think a place like Red Rooster and Ginny’s, where it’s really built on music, the musicians, that makes the restaurant magical. It’s a big part of when we have a staff meal, the musicians eat with us, and that makes that restaurant very special.
I’ve eaten at many of your restaurants. You have 15 restaurants now. Without being in 15 places at once, how do you keep consistency?
Well, the team in the building is really key. Todd Maher and Chelsea have an amazing team. All of them are women of color. Metropolis, the restaurant downtown, those restaurants are built on purpose, right? Metropolis is on the land right where 9/11 happened. To have a restaurant on that ground, it’s very special.
What rock star would you want to do a cooking collaboration with?
Prince would have been the best.
That’s what Scott Conant said too. Anyone who is still with us?
I’ll pick a chef. I just cooked with Andrew Zimmern. We’ve done a bunch of demos. It’s always fun. I had a blast.