On June 15, Marcus Samuelsson, a well-known Harlem chef, will make an appearance in Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend on Netflix. The talented chef has opened more than a dozen restaurants.
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Marcus Samuelsson will compete against Challenger Chefs in Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend alongside new Iron Chefs Curtis Stone, Gabriela Cámara, Dominique Crenn, and Ming Tsai. The Challenger Chefs must create some mouthwatering dishes to become the first Iron Legend.
A year after his birth, Marcus Samuelsson, an Ethiopian-born chef, lost his mother to a TB pandemic. Samuelsson and his older sister, Fantaye, were also separated from their family during the Ethiopian Civil War in 1974. However, homemaker Anne-Marie and geologist Lennart Samuelsson of Gothenburg, Sweden later adopted the siblings.
Since he was a little child, he has been interested in eating and cooking. He developed a love for cooking after being inspired to do so by his Swedish maternal grandmother. After honing his culinary skills at the Culinary Institute in Göteborg, he worked in Austria and Switzerland before relocating to the United States in 1994 to serve as an apprentice at Restaurant Aquavit.
His aptitude for cooking swiftly earned him the title of executive chef at Aquavit. He quickly became the youngest chef to receive a three-star restaurant rating from The New York Times. After that, the renowned chef could not go back. Samuelsson’s received the James Beard Foundation’s 2003 “Best Chef: New York City” award.
In addition, he was awarded the Vilcek Foundation Culinary Arts Prize for 2019. The honor is given to immigrants who have made important contributions to American society.
In December 2010 he opened Red Rooster, one of his most well-known Harlem eateries, and in the spring of 2015, he opened Streetbird Rotisserie, his second Harlem eatery.
Through his two eateries, Samuelsson is believed to have created more than 200 jobs, with 70% of the staff coming from the neighborhood. In the Nordic countries of London, Bermuda, Canada, New York, New Jersey, Washington, and Chicago, he has now opened more than a dozen eateries.
Samuelsson “converted his restaurants Red Rooster Harlem, Marcus B&P in Newark, and Red Rooster Overtown in Miami into community kitchens in partnership with World Central Kitchen during the COVID-19 pandemic, distributing well over 280k meals to those in need,” according to his official biography.
Other enterprises owned by Marcus Samuelsson
The Executive Chef-in-Residence for Buzzfeed Tasty’s talent program is Samuelsson, the Creative Director for Kitchen & Table Restaurant Concepts, Eatery Social, and Restaurant Norda. In addition to winning The Taste on ABC, the philanthropist has triumphed in televised contests like Top Chef Masters and Chopped All-Stars.
The annual Harlem EatUp! a week-long celebration of Harlem’s cuisine, art, and culture is co-produced by the 50-year-old chef and is broadcast as an ABC Telethon special for the sixth time.
He is the author of numerous books, including the memoir Yes, Chef, Hustle in Harlem, The Rise, and The Red Rooster Cookbook: The Story of Food, which was a New York Times bestseller. The Soul of a New Cuisine, a cookbook with African influences, won the 2006 award for “Best International Cookbook.”
He also established the Marcus Samuelsson Group (MSG), whose mission is to maintain the foundational elements of Samuelsson’s culture and cuisine. This Wednesday, stream Netflix to watch Samuelsson compete against the Challenger Chefs on the cooking show Iron Chef.
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