Marcus Samuelsson, a famous chef from Harlem, will appear in Netflix’s Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend on June 15. The award-winning chef has over a dozen eateries to his credit. In Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend, Marcus Samuelsson, together with new Iron Chefs Curtis Stone, Gabriela Cámara, Dominique Crenn, and Ming Tsai, will square off against Challenger Chefs. To become the first Iron Legend, the Challenger Chefs must prepare some delectable delicacies.
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The new Iron Chef Marcus Samuelsson
Marcus Samuelsson, an Ethiopian-born chef, lost his mother during a TB pandemic a year after his birth. During the Ethiopian Civil War in 1974, Samuelsson and his older sister, Fantaye, were also torn from their family. However, the siblings were subsequently adopted by housewife Anne-Marie and geologist Lennart Samuelsson of Gothenburg, Sweden.
He has been interested in eating and cooking since he was a youngster. He acquired a passion for cooking after being encouraged to cook by his maternal grandmother in Sweden. He attended the Culinary Institute in Göteborg to hone his culinary abilities, following which he worked in Austria and Switzerland before moving to the United States in 1994 as an apprentice at Restaurant Aquavit.
His culinary skills quickly elevated him to the position of executive chef at Aquavit. Soon after, he became The New York Times’ youngest chef to get a three-star restaurant rating. There was no turning back for the great chef after that. In 2003, the James Beard Foundation honored Samuelsson’s as “Best Chef: New York City.” He also received the 2019 Vilcek Foundation Culinary Arts Prize. The award is granted to immigrants who have contributed significantly to American society.
He established Red Rooster, one of his most popular Harlem restaurants, in December 2010, and Streetbird Rotisserie, his second Harlem restaurant, in the spring of 2015. Samuelsson is said to have produced more than 200 employment via his two restaurants, with 70% of the employees originating from the community. He has now established over a dozen restaurants in Nordic nations such as London, Bermuda, Canada, New York, New Jersey, Washington, and Chicago.
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According to his official biography, during the COVID-19 epidemic, Samuelsson “turned his restaurants Red Rooster Harlem, Marcus B&P in Newark, and Red Rooster Overtown in Miami into community kitchens in conjunction with World Central Kitchen, delivering well over 280k meals to people in need.”
Marcus Samuelsson’s other businesses
Samuelsson, the Creative Director for Kitchen & Table Restaurant Concepts, Eatery Social, and Restaurant Norda, is presently the Executive Chef-in-Residence for Buzzfeed Tasty’s talent program. The philanthropist has also won television competitions such as Top Chef Masters and Chopped All-Stars, and she was the winning coach on ABC’s The Taste.
The 50-year-old chef also co-produces the annual week-long event Harlem EatUp!, which celebrates Harlem’s cuisine, art, and culture for the sixth year in an ABC Telethon special. He is the author of many books, including the New York Times bestseller memoir Yes, Chef, Hustle in Harlem, The Rise, and The Red Rooster Cookbook: The Story of Food. His African-inspired cookbook, The Soul of a New Cuisine, was named ‘Best International Cookbook’ in 2006.
He also founded the Marcus Samuelsson Group (MSG), which works to preserve Samuelsson’s culinary and cultural cornerstones. Stream Netflix this Wednesday to see Samuelsson compete in the cookery program Iron Chef against the Challenger Chefs.
