Marcus Samuelsson is a world-class chef, cookbook author, restaurateur, and humanitarian. He is possibly most famous for his television career as one of the prestigious celebrity chef judges on the popular cooking competition show, Chopped. On Chopped, Samuelsson joins a distinguished group of other well-known chefs who appear regularly on the show’s judge’s panel, such as Aaron Sanchez, Marc Murphy, Geoffrey Zakarian, Scott Conant, and Alex Guarnaschelli.
Throughout his television career, Celebrity Chef Speaker Marcus has been featured on Iron Chef America, The Inner Chef on Discovery Network, 24 Hour Restaurant Battle, ABC’s The Chew, Top Chef, and Good Morning America, to name a few.
Author of numerous award-winning cookbooks, Chef Marcus Samulesson’s latest book: Yes, Chef, A Memoir, is perhaps his most successful yet. The memoir follows Marcus’s life story from learning how to cook in Sweden from his grandmother to his successful career as it is today, living in New York City. The book is a New York Times Bestseller, was named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by Vogue magazine, and has earned Chef Samuelsson the James Beard Award for Writing and Literature related to food.
Chef Samuelsson is the owner of several restaurants located in New York, Chicago, California, and in Sweden where he grew up and first started cooking. His restaurants in New York have earned him the James Beard Foundation award, Best Chef: New York City. His restaurant, Red Rooster Harlem, opened in December 2010 and quickly made headlines three months later by hosting a dinner for the Democratic National Committee which was attended by the President of the United States, Barack Obama. The restaurant is built on Chef Samuelsson’s long awaited dream of opening a business in the historically vibrant Harlem neighborhood where he is able to highlight the rich culture of the community. In 2012, he opened up three additional restaurants, Ginny’s Super Club and American Table Bar & Cafe both being in NYC and American Table Brasserie and Bar in Stockholm.
Marcus has been a UNICEF Ambassador since 2000 and is particularly committed to supporting UNICEF’s water and sanitation programs, as well as his goals to increase immunization and decrease malnutrition for children all over the world.