In 2003, he was named 'Best Chef: New York City' by the James Beard Foundation. In 1999, he was awarded the coveted James Beard Rising Star Chef Award for his work at Aquavit. Samuelsson has received numerous honors for his work. He also authored the Swedish cookbook, En smakresa: middagstips från Marcus Samuelsson, which was named Sweden’s Cookbook of the Year in 2002. Samuelsson is the author of Aquavit and the New Scandinavian Cuisine (2003), The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa (2006), New American Table (2009), and Yes, Chef: A Memoir (2012). In addition, he has served as a visiting professor of international culinary science at the Umeå University School of Restaurant and Culinary Arts in Sweden, and has been an advisor to The Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. In the fall of 2012, Samuelsson, together with Clarion Hotels, launched a restaurant concept called Kitchen & Table. He founded in 2011, and opened another restaurant, Ginny's Supper Club, in 2012. In 2010, he opened a third restaurant called Red Rooster in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. He then launched a television show, Inner Chef, which aired in 2005, and another in 2008 called Urban Cuisine.

In 2003, he opened the New York restaurant, Riingo, which served Japanese-influenced American food. In 1995, Samuelsson became the youngest chef ever to receive a three-star restaurant review from The New York Times. He was quickly promoted to executive chef and then made partner of Aquavit in 1997. In 1994, Samuelsson moved to the United States for an apprenticeship with Aquavit, a restaurant in New York City. Samuelsson went on to study at the Culinary Institute in Gothenburg, apprenticed in Switzerland in 1989, and then in France from 1992 to 1994. In 1973, he and his sister were adopted by Ann Marie and Lennart Samuelsson and brought to Gothenburg, Sweden, where his grandmother, Helga, taught him how to cook. Samuelsson was orphaned in 1972, when a tuberculosis epidemic took the life of his mother.

Chef and restaurateur Marcus Samuelsson (born Kassahun Tsegie) was born in Ethiopia on November 6, 1970.

Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson