The Rise

Marcus Samuelsson is the acclaimed chef behind many restaurants worldwide. He has won multiple James Beard Foundation awards for his work as a chef and as host of No Passport Required, his public television series with Vox/Eater. Samuelsson was crowned champion of Top Chef Masters and Chopped All Stars, and was the guest chef for President Obama’s first state dinner. A committed philanthropist, Samuelsson is co-chair of Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), which focuses on underserved youth. Author of several cookbooks in addition to the NewYork Times bestselling memoir Yes, Chef, Samuelsson also co-produces the annual Harlem EatUp! festival, which celebrates the food, art, and culture of Harlem. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Samuelsson converted his restaurants Red Rooster Harlem, Marcus B&P in Newark, and Red Rooster Overtown in Miami into community kitchens in partnership with World Central Kitchen, serving well over 150,000 meals to those in need. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at @MarcusCooks. 
 
Osayi Endolyn is a James Beard Award–winning writer with work in Time, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, Eater, Food & Wine, Condé Nast Traveler, and the Oxford American. She appears in Chef’s Table and Ugly Delicious on Netflix, and has been featured on NPR’s 1A, Splendid Table, Special Sauce with Ed Levine, and the Sporkful podcast, for which she won a Webby. She is a recipient of the UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food & Farming Journalism Fellowship, and Southern Living named her one of thirty women moving Southern food forward. In addition to other book collaborations, Endolyn is working on a narrative about the history of systemic racism in American restaurant and dining culture. Follow her @osayiendolyn on Twitter and Instagram.

Yewande Komolafe is a writer, recipe developer, and food stylist from Lagos, Nigeria. She develops recipes that lend taste and texture to her experience as an immigrant in the United States. A regular contributor to the New York Times, her work has also appeared in Whetstone, Taste Cooking, Food + Wine, Saveur, and several other platforms and publications. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, daughter, and many jars of spices.