Rising Stars: Top Chefs, Food Scientists and Restaurateurs

In 2013, when we met Nosrat, the Iranian American chef was not yet a restaurant mega-celebrity. Now she has been a New York Times Magazine food columnist and scene-bursting host of the Netflix docuseries “Salt Fat Acid Heat,” bringing her succinct wisdom to a dedicated following of millions worldwide. “Once you understand the four basic principles,” Nosrat told us, “you’re no longer a slave to step-by-step recipes.” And now she is letting the rest of the world in on her powerful secret.

After a reshuffling in the upper echelons of food writing, Indian writers have a louder voice than ever. If it wasn’t for writers like Madhur Jaffrey, you might never learn how the traditional dishes of tandoori chicken and naan made their way to Delhi only after the 1947 partition — when Hindu refugees from Pakistan carried lightweight tandoor ovens on their journeys.

New Orleans, Asheville, Nashville and Charleston attract all the foodie attention, but the fusion scene in Birmingham, Alabama, will challenge your preconceptions about Southern food. Chris Hastings, a chef at the forefront of Birmingham’s food boom, explains, “Thirty years ago, there was no cultural diversity here. Food was the leader in bringing all these great cultures to bear.” From the Caribbean to Vietnam to Ethiopia to Nepal, your taste buds can go on a world tour even in the Deep South.

If you’re looking for comfort food, don’t bother. This celebrated Nigerian chef wants to serve “discomfort food.” The bespectacled, New Orleans-based Wey asks white customers to pay significantly more than diners of color for the same food, challenging them to question deep-seated racial inequality. Customers across races have queued up for his experiments (white customers have paid $100 for hot chicken that was free for Black customers). In 2020, the outspoken Wey even argued that it might not be a bad thing for the country’s food industry to die out amid the pandemic, so that a rebirth might occur.

The dessert dubbed “Rescued Lemon” looks lovely and tastes even better. It’s a composition of confited lemon skins filled with yucca ice cream. But the best part? It’s made from the leftovers of Peru’s most popular culinary exports: ceviche and pisco sours. Lima, Peru is a global food capital, and Ocampo is a large part its future. He’s using his popular 1087 Restaurante to convince Peruvians to end all food waste by 2030, and he also teaches female prisoners how to turn recycled food into fine dining. He’s not wasting a morsel — or a moment — in his hunger for change.

Binta, a Sierra Leonean chef, is an evangelist of the cuisine culture of the Fulani, one of West Africa’s major ethnic groups. And she is showcasing West African food in a whole new way — on the mat. She hosts 20 to 80 guests for a three-course feast at her signature event — held in the past in Accra, Ghana; Washington, D.C.; Berlin and beyond — complete with music and commentary about her ethnic Fulani culture. Binta’s nomadic restaurant is redefining the dining experience, and its mobility is the key to its success.

Kriel runs one of the very few kosher catering companies in Dubai, and she’s pioneering a new fusion cuisine combining kosher and Emirati dishes. As one happy customer puts it, you can tell that the food is “prepared with love.” Kriel's cuisine has become especially relevant since 2019, when the United Arab Emirates signed a treaty establishing diplomatic relations with Israel, thereby opening a way for many more kosher-practicing tourists to visit.

A French café in … Charlottesville? Becton fell in love with Paris when he spent a semester there during college. Nine years later, he left an advertising job and enrolled in culinary school, where he met his husband. Together, they brought a bit of France to Virginia, creating a thriving restaurant famous for its flaky pastry and community commitment.

While Becton is bringing French baking to Virginia, others are introducing Southern comfort food to Paris. Chef Joe Boley takes special pride in showing French diners that there is more to American cuisine than “Le Big Mac.” Next time you find yourself in Paris, add chicken and waffles to your list of must-try dishes — or better yet, rabbit and waffles.

on The Carlos Watson Show!

Carbon dioxide is an enemy of the climate, and so it must be an enemy of food sustainability, right? Langdale, a professor of plant development at the University of Oxford, is turning that conventional wisdom on its head. She’s leading a global effort to use rising levels of carbon dioxide to our advantage — by converting CO2 into a nutrient that can help increase rice yields.

As a child, Dyhrman would explore tidal pools with her grandfather on the coast near her home in Tacoma, Washington. Now, decades later, she has turned her lifelong fascination with the ocean into important work: Descending deep underwater, she examines the marine microbes that are the lifeblood of the ocean's ecosystem. Her work will reveal whether these microbes are migrating from one part of the world to another due to climate change-related effects on ocean currents.

Imagine walking into the grocery store to see shelves lined with bright yellow corn and juicy red tomatoes so vibrantly colorful they’re practically in Technicolor. Also, they are gene-edited to enhance nutrition and taste. This scenario is the vision of biotech scientists, like Rachel Haurwitz, who are using CRISPR to edit the genes of crops and livestock. Haurwitz is CEO of Caribou Biosciences, a Berkeley, California, startup and the among the first companies to commercialize CRISPR technology. Caribou is working directly with Genus and DuPont to put edited crops and meat on store shelves.

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