Marcus Samuelsson

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Marcus Samuelsson (born Kassahun Tsegie in 1970 in Ethiopia)[1] is the executive chef and co-owner of Aquavit restaurant in New York City.

[edit] Early life and career

After their birth mother died in a tuberculosis epidemic when he was three years old, Kassahun Tsegie and his elder sister, Fantaye,[2] were adopted by Ann Marie and Lennart Samuelsson, a homemaker and a geologist, who lived in Goteborg, Sweden. The siblings' names were changed to Marcus and Linda Samuelsson. They also have a biracial adopted sister, Anna Samuelsson.[3] Samuelsson's biological father, Tsegie, is a priest and father of eight of the chef's half-siblings; he still lives in the village where Samuelsson was born.[4]

After becoming interested in cooking because of his maternal grandmother in Sweden, Samuelsson studied at the Culinary Institute in Goteborg, where he grew up, apprenticed in Switzerland and Austria, and came to the United States in 1991 as an apprentice at Aquavit. At 24, Marcus became executive chef of Aquavit, and soon after that also the youngest ever to receive a three-star restaurant review from The New York Times. In 2003 he was named "Best Chef: New York City" by the James Beard Foundation. The same year he started a second New York restaurant, Riingo, serving Japanese-influenced American food, and published his first book in English.

He oversees the "AQ Café" in the Scandinavia House and Henry at World Yacht in New York.[5] And in 2004, he worked with the "Washington Square" restaurant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Another venture, Aquavit in Minneapolis, closed in 2003. Recently, he opened Merkato55 in the Meatpacking District in New York City. Although the restaurant is not getting tremendous promotion, the Ethiopian-inspired food is said to be excellent and the decor inviting.

Samuelsson is an adjunct professor in meal sciences at Umeå University in Sweden[6] and he has a television show, "Inner Chef," on Discovery Home Channel. His cooking combines international influences with traditional cuisines from Sweden to Japan and Africa.[7]

Samuelsson appeared on Iron Chef America, first airing on June 8, 2008, and was defeated by Iron Chef Bobby Flay in battle Corn.