Marcus Samuelsson on His Rise, Roots, and The Chefs Who Shaped Him!! (Part 1 of 2)

The Chef's Cut

In this episode of The Chef's Cut, culinary icon Marcus Samuelson reflects on his meteorbic rise in the New York food scene. He discusses the

Key takeaways

• Achieved a prestigious New York Times three-star review at age 24 after training in Europe and Japan.
• Identified Charlie Trotter as a pivotal mentor who helped 'edit' his culinary style.

Main topics

• Early career breakthroughs
• Global culinary training

Notable quotes

I'm here because of a tribe of people behind me that saw something in me way before I saw it in myself.

Conclusion

A profound look at how mentorship and cultural intentionality can tran

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:14) Today on The Chef's Cut, we have Marcus Samuelson. He is one of the most influential figures in the American food scene, and today he is joining me and Joe right here on The Chef's Cut. Speaker 2 (0:27) I'm here because of a tribe of people behind me that saw something in me way before I saw it in myself. In Speaker 1 (0:35) part one of this series, we're talking with Marcus about his early career. I Speaker 2 (0:38) didn't read New York Times, and getting this review, I had no idea. That would have impact on my career. And Speaker 1 (0:45) the importance of mentorship. Speaker 2 (0:46) One of the commitments I said to myself, when I get on, I need to go to be part of transforming the industry. Speaker 1 (0:52) But before we get to our very special guest, Chefs Cut Nation, you know what time it is. We need 10 seconds of your day. Please rate and review the show wherever you get your pods. It really helps. Speaker 3 (1:10) Age, super excited for this one today. We got one of your mentors, just a massive, massive sphere of influence, Chef Marcus Samuelson joining us today. We've been trying to get him out for a while. So excited to finally have him here. Speaker 2 (1:23) I'm super excited to be here. So thank you for having me, guys. Speaker 3 (1:26) I mean, your career is unbelievable. The breadth of things you've done from TV to restaurants. It's just, I mean, the list goes on and on and on. It's incredible. One of the things that's crazy, you know, a lot of people know, but you know, when you were 24, you were the youngest chef at the time to ever get a three-star review from the New York Times. Do you think like coming out so hot that set the tone for you of like, this is the level I work at, I'm going forever? Or was it an added level of pressure? Speaker 2 (1:51) No, it was not an added level of pressure. Actually coming to New York. to work for me was always a dream because I felt fine dining in America was so young. At that point, I worked seven years in Europe and in Japan. Speaker 2 (2:10) Yes, I was 24, but I was also been in fine dining for a minute since I was 16, 17 years old. And in those places, I had to do it in French, in German, in many languages. So just landing in New York where I can do it in my second language, which is English, I felt was so much easier than when I worked in Switzerland. If those guys knew that you could speak French, they switched over to German. Right. If they knew you could speak German, they switched to French only to get you. So, you know, working at a certain level was never an issue for me. It was more about getting over all these hurdles that, you know, my previous generation and my generation came up with, which one of the things that is so great with what's happening in culinary today is the fact that the working environments are better. They're not maybe perfect yet. but they are better. That's Speaker 1 (3:06) a good point. So you got this incredible review, right? When you were 24 years old, you were so young and you also looked different from every other chef who had a name in New York at the time. But when you got this incredible review, did that change the way that the older cooks and chefs treated you? Speaker 2 (3:27) It's New York, you know what I mean? Bobby's like, what's up? Yeah. But the clerk is like, you ain't shit. It's like, it didn't matter. It didn't matter. Like, I love them. Those are my uncles, you know. You know, Alfred Poutal was like, all right, that was, like, that's maybe the one, like, well, like, that was good. You know what I mean? It's like everybody, but not so much what they said. They all came through. I remember when Eric and Per came for lunch. I remember they all came in, right? And first of all, you have to understand, Adrian, I didn't read New York Times. I didn't know what food and wine was. I didn't know what Bon Appetit. Like I was like, I was just in my head. figuring out and getting this review, I had no idea that that would have impact on my career. It's like, we picked it up. Everybody else was happy around me. I was excited too, but I was like, we haven't started. I hadn't launched my, in 96, I launched our tasting menu, 12 course. In 97, we launched our vegetarian menu. And then in 98, we launched our bite menu, which is 16 courses, right? So in 95, I already like, this is what we're going to do. So we getting reviewed on this. It's like, what are you talking about? We haven't even started. So for me, it was just like, let's go to work, back to work. Cause I'm so in my head of what are we going to do? It's good sometimes not to know what's out there because you just focused. Right. Yeah. And my roommate at the time was Danny, which is the culinary director for John George. And he was working at Vong. And Vong for me was, there's Vong and. Les Pinasses, those were the two most important restaurants in New York at the time for me. Very different. Les Pinasses was Grey Coons, high-end French. If you think about who came out of Grey Coons, that kitchen, Rocco Spirito, Carmelini, Floyd Cardos, Rest in Peace, et cetera, et cetera. By far the most way you want to work in terms of chef tree, right? But what both Grey and Jean-Georges did at the bar was Southeast Asian cooking with French techniques. That's where my head was at anyway. So I'm like, I cooked in Singapore before that. I lived in Japan. Yes, I did my training in Japan, but in India, I did my training in France. But most of the cooks I worked with in France were Japanese. Speaker 1 (5:48) Oh. So Speaker 2 (5:49) I'm like, this is it. Like, I'm going. Like, I know about umami. These European chefs don't know about umami. I'm going. And the place to kind of discover that was, for me, New York, in a new ground, in a new place, where you could do, like, white soy beurre blanc. Like I needed to know how to make a bourbon. I know how to do that, but I'm going to do it with white soy. You know what I mean? Like, oh, Speaker 1 (6:10) that's just an example of how I wanted to Speaker 2 (6:12) do it, you know? So for me, there's two people that really transformed and helped me in that period. Very different people. In 96, Charlie Trotter comes into the kitchen. He has Pierre Gagné with him. And he says, hey, chef, you need help. I said, I know. And then Charlie said, but I'm going to help you, right? He didn't just take the piss. He's like. I'm going to edit you. I'm going to help you. Speaker 1 (6:35) Wow. Speaker 2 (6:36) So I was invited to Chicago every month when Chef Trotter had those amazing, when the world of chefs came to Chicago, which makes, you know, the fact that Charlie Trotter's first cookbooks, you know, the vegetarian and the original Charlie Trotter cookbooks, for me, is the most, of my generation, chefs are the most influential cookbooks. I would say White Heat, Charlie Trotter's first cookbook is like. the basement of our stocks, right? Speaker 1 (7:00) That's crazy. There's never been a chef that I've worked for from hotels on the Gulf of Mexico, Chef Chi, who is Canadian, Chinese background. Every chef I've ever worked for had the Charlie Trotter cookbooks. Yeah. Every single chef. Once Speaker 2 (7:14) you're Speaker 1 (7:14) inside Speaker 2 (7:14) that kitchen, Adrienne, it was a different world. Not only was it a French baguette, but it was done through an American lens. And once you do it through an American lens. At that time, it's much broader, right? So Charlotte Trotter had kids from the South Side coming in, working in that kitchen. You know, employee number one, all those influences of urban Chicago. He had a, you know, Mexican executive chef. Guillermo, yes. My mom knew Speaker 1 (7:41) him. Speaker 2 (7:41) You know, Matt, 23,