Dinner’s on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson - Marcus Samuelsson

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

The star of Food Network’s “Chopped” and the head chef of Harlem’s Red Rooster Marcus Samuelsson joins me at Fish Cheeks in NYC’s Noho. Over coconut crab curry, we talk about discovering his birth family, how 9/11 and the pandemic shaped his New York experience, and Black chefs to keep your eye on. Want next week’s episode now? Subscribe to Dinner’s on Me PLUS. As a subscriber, not only do you get access to new episodes one week early, but you’ll also be able to listen completely ad-free! Just click “Try Free” at the top of the Dinner’s on Me show page on Apple Podcasts to start your free trial today. A Sony Music Entertainment & A Kid Named Beckett production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, it's Jesse. Today on the show, the thoughtful culinary superstar, Marcus Samuelson, will talk about his incredible life story, how 9-11 and the pandemic impacted his New York experience and how sometimes you might need space from a sibling. I need to break up with you. I need a year off. You're going to want to stick around for this. I'm in the kitchen at the Noho Thai Restaurant fish cheeks. And something important about the kitchen here is

its burners. I'm not going to calibrating BTUs, but let's just say the stove is operating at a level I have never seen before. The walk is hot. You hear that sizzle? That's because for some dishes like the stir-fry watercress, for example, the vegetable only needs to be in the wok for a matter of seconds before it's ready to serve. Fish cheeks is known for its delicious coconut crab curry, and also its long weights, but it's worth it.

Like the name suggests, their specialty is seafood. The flavor is very authentic. They don't dumb down the spice at all. If the dish calls for spice, it is spicy. Which means, Jesse is sweating. This is Denner's on me, and I'm your host, Jesse Tyler Ferguson. I was shocked and honored to find that today's guest was a newcomer to fishcheeks, one of my favorite spots in the city. Given his encyclopedic knowledge for food and his decades in New York City, it's hard to imagine I could introduce him to something new, but here I am,

introducing Marcus Samuelson to something new. So without further ado, from the Food Networks Chat, ABC's The Taste, and the head chef of Harlem's Red Rooster, Marcus Samuelson. I feel like you were at the James Beard Awards one year when I hosted, right? Yes. Because I know you won that year. One of your like eight, nine James Beard Awards.

I think I probably said on stage that the community that you belong to is one that I admire so much and I revere so much and I really just, when I was hosting, that was my second time doing it. I really wanted to get it right for you all because there's an I'd celebrate in you. But I feel like you're part of us because you really engaged and that works. We are chefs and people. We all have like the engaged person, right? And also coming from theater, you put up a show,

you do your art, you do your thing, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You know, it's exactly like being a chef though. I feel like that is like a commonality that I find between our two professions. It is performance. And you can do your, like, in cooking, you can do your best work, and no one sees it.

And then you can do not do great work and it takes off. Yeah, so I've done some work with the UNHCR, which is the UN Refugee Department. They're advocating for asylum and refugees and they're making sure everyone who wants to find refuge has an opportunity to do so. And Justin and I went to the border of Venezuela and Colombia a few years ago with our friend Jean Abraham

who is the head of the UNHCR. And we basically were there witnessing and seeing people who come in from Venezuela over the bridge, sometimes stopping at the local Red Cross to pick up provisions. Some of them were going to neighboring towns to find work for the day, but others were traveling 350 miles or so to Bogota, where they could find work and opportunity, sometimes shelter, medicine. And I only bring this up because it reminds me a lot of how your early life started with your mom.

Can you tell a little bit about that story? Just a point of reference in history? Yeah, well, so I was born in Ethiopia and I was born in a hut that I go back to that hut and pre-pandemic my family went back every year. Most people, the thing that you take for granted, I've never seen, I don't remember the eyes of my mother for example, I've never seen, I don't remember the eyes of my mother, for example. And the defining time in Ethiopia, so much of the... It's a blur to me because it happened before I was age of three.

But my sister and I, we have to work closer, I'm on that to work closer. She passed away. We survived. And sometimes you need to be very lucky, but also have random strangers just look out for you. And both of those things happened to me. We were extremely lucky that we survived. But we're in a hospital, we're now healthy. What's gonna happen to these two kids? And the nurse at the hospital, she just took us in.

She actually broke the law. But she knew that was better for us to go home with her than just put us back out on the street. And she then eventually set us up for adoption, and that's how I went from Casa Home Say Guy to Marcus Samelson. I also went from the warmest country in the world to the coldest country. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I also went from the warmest country in the world to the coldest country. Yeah, basically Sweden, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I also got to into family that truly loved me.

And we were, you know, a normal family in our community. We just looked different. That's what I would say. We just looked very different than other Swedish that Anderson across the street, that the Johnson, you know, on those next to us. But we love the same, we will love the same. Yeah, yeah. I mentioned this story of these people walking

so far to find refuge because your mom carried you on her back to get help, to get help at a hospital for 75 miles or more. I'm a new dad now. I had a whole new kids. Thank you. The small one are almost seven. He says he's seven, so he's like,

okay, he's almost seven, so I'm about 16 months. Oh wow, okay. He's a great 16 months, Zion is almost seven. And we have so much fun, how old is George? I have, he'll be six months and then is almost seven. And we have so much fun. How old is yours? I have, it'll be six months and then almost three years. Beautiful. Got it.

I want you. Welcome to Fish Cheats. Thank you. I'm Jennifer. Yes, I know. I'm Jennifer. I'm Jennifer. We are a Thai restaurant with a focus on seafood.

So I think there's a couple of things that I would totally recommend. The shrimp and three croppes sauce. The corn salad is delicious. It's very, very good. Coconut crop curry. That's our fan favorite. The steam fish with Thai herbs and the crop crop. Crap. Nice. Great. I don't know.

Do you want to order for us? Yeah, we like. I would. Would you say that? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do that. Exactly. Thank you. I know that you don't remember your mom

because you were two when this happened. How was that story reaccounted to you? How did you learn about it? How old was your sister at the time? I laughed when you said that because you have to count as much as you can bring your back to the 70thian Ethiopian life, and then not only the, you're on the countryside. So there's no birth certificates.

Yes. So just a simple thing as a birthday, which is like every person would know, I don't know my birthday. Yeah, you don't know your birthday. I don't. And what do you celebrate? How did you choose to celebrate?

You know my father in Sweden, he was so pragmatic. When he picked us up,'s like okay two things. The kids names and the kids first that should be done by before we get home. Wow. He's like what day is it today? May 6th? That's the old ones first day. All right. The young one in the back six months later. Oh my god. No, number six. Click next. That's amazing. All right, it should be names during the nationals. We don't know these kids can stay in Sweden. Linda and Marcus next. Wow. That's my dad in a nutshell. Pragmatic. Pragmatic. List. That's amazing. So, but anyway, we were so in defense, so they had to look at teeth and weigh us. And then that was underdeveloped.

So it was very, very hard to kind of set a date, but I think I was around 2 and a half. That's what I said. And my sister was around between six and five. So she has real memories. She has memories. So she is the one that really told me. And still to the stage, she can always bring you up

things that just parts used to look like this, this pan with this, the smell of all the stews, it's like this. These are very vivid memories, but once we're in Ethiopia, she can also point out things that I'm totally confused about. She's like, oh, no, no, that was from back home. Wow. I really love that my sister Linda drives

because emotionally, and also for the connectivity on my kids, like if you're a big part of us, you know. Yeah. If you and I would walk down the street and we wouldn't speak English, no one would come up and say, oh, that's the Swedish guy going. Or maybe they would to you, but not to me, right?

So there's clearly my identity. You're pretty famous. I don't know. People might know. OK. Yeah. But so it's part of it. And through my work, I learned to not shy away from it.

It took a long time. Sure. And that's obviously an aqua that was really no space for it. Right? And so much of my European training, there was no space for it. And this is not like music, or you can write your own tunes. But once I realized it is like music, I can write my own food. Right. Because when I was coming up, it was only your centric food.

Right. And I was like, well, wait a minute, you can actually be part of changing that. And that for me was so important. And that's what I was clear for me. I have to move. I have to move to Harlem. I have to start something that is very different than my platform of modern black and being not hiding away from that in any

sense, shape, sense of form, really put it front and center in my food, started with that. Because there was no space to do it before. Right. I think a lot about when I was looking at you're just like researching you, I was thinking a lot about kind of like the magnetism of homeland because like a tide basically had taken you farther away from Ethiopia. You were Sweden, then a little farther.

Harlem. And but yet still in these places, specifically Harlem, there was still a magnetism there. I mean, is it Maya? My wife? Maya is from Ethiopia. But you met her in Harlem. You came together in Harlem. You spent But you met her in Harlem. You came together in Harlem.

You spent part of your life in Sweden. She spent a lot of her life in Holland. She lived in Ethiopia longer. But the fact that you guys came together in Harlem is fascinating to me. And we're going to touch on that. But fascinating to me too. I mean, it's crazy.

But then also, like a tide, there is that magnetism that pulls you back. I feel like you were pulled back to Ethiopia, specifically looking for your birth father. And also, you're half siblings. I don't know if you knew that they existed or not, if that was a surprise. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

First, meeting my, I wanna know how you met and how that all happened. Because that's just like, I can't believe that you guys came together. And then also going back and meeting this family that you didn't know you had. Well, I think when I came to states, being an immigrant, I came with my savings of $300.

I knew that I could add value in a kitchen. And I just basically put the gas. I just ran in this gear 5 or 6, if you're driving stick, right? Like, as any Euro trash as we do. And I just burnt, I just went. And, was 9-11 happened. It was, I cooked in the tower a week before that.

And there's so many people, young, beautiful, New Yorkers, with just hope. They were just cooks. Made it. Had a good job. And when does the world? And my dear friend, chef, Michael Lomonico, he went, he survived because he went to the eye doc to that morning. Right? Like the most random is that, right? And it really, it shook all of us. And I started to doubt, what am I doing? What am I doing here? And once doubt comes in, when you only go in gear six, it's almost like you're an Olympian, you can't have doubt

when you're gonna be a chef at the highest level and on top of that you're a black chef. There's no space for doubt. But doubt came in and I couldn't take that away. So I knew something had to change. I was down. Probably the closest thing to depression in a way. So I talked a lot to my mother.

She's like, I know you can't leave America, like that's giving up, you can't do it. I said, okay, but I have something to have to have to. So I moved from basically with the time I wanna send a mid-town west to Harlem. And discovering Harlem was like. What year is this 2001, 2002? 2002, I bought an apartment and the

apartment was ready around 2003, but even going up there and deciding I was in Harlem a lot, I was walking on these beautiful boulevard, also being like like feeling, oh I belong here, I have a history here, I don't understand everything here, but I want to learn about it. I've read so much about James Baldwin, my angel over there, I've seen their Apollo, I've been to their Apollo. I felt connectivity, right? So there's stuff there, right? So she just moved to our house, she was happy there, and she's also at me. Marcus, what is about bankers? Why are you only cooking for bankers?

My mom said, like, you knew people I worked in the post office and our teachers. Why is bankers palette better than the post office work at talent? I couldn't answer that question. And she's like, you should cook for regular folks. Just cook for regular folks. And that's kind of what I like. Well, in Harlem, there's's kind of like, well, in Harlem,

there's a lot of beautiful regular, metal class, working class people. And I just knew right away, like, I'm moving to Harlem, eventually I will open a restaurant here, but also I need to like get myself out of the situation in Aqua Beach. It was a long journey there, right? And just a backup of Aqua Beach is a restaurant

that you worked at. That was your first kind of big break. Yes, of course, dude. You were the chef to cuisine. Is that what you call it? Well, it was your second chef. I was like, is that the fancy turn? No, I love how you don't read them.

I love that. I love that. I love that. But you also received a restart review from The New York Times, which is unheard of for anyone that age, and then on top of that thing of Black Chef. So I just want to point out that you can continue now. I just pause your story.

Oh my god, no stop. Oh my god, no stop. The corn salad is for playing on the pie salad. Lobster pasta, poached lobster with coconut chili dressing. And this is for Sherman through Capsa, a slightly pure raw shrimp with our walnuts and seafood. Enjoy guys. This is beautiful. I love how unapologetic like the raw garlic is there. Yeah, deal with it. Yeah, it is. So, her problem is your problem. I don't care where you go. We're gonna have raw garlic in here. I love it. I love it. It's beautiful.

It's stunning. Okay, let's take a quick break. But don't go away. Marcus shares more of his incredible story of connecting with his birth family in Ethiopia. Okay, be right back. Fall is right around the corner and HelloFresh is here to help you plan for the busy season ahead with tasty dishes delivered right to your door. Simply choose your recipes and pick your delivery date, then lay back and enjoy the last days of summer knowing that dinner is covered. With pre-portioned ingredients and easy step-by-step recipes delivered to your door,

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and unlimited access to every instructor plus exclusive content. Find practical takeaways that you can apply to your career and your personal life. Masterclass has you covered. Get unlimited access to every class. And right now, as dinners on me listener, you can get 15% off when you go to masterclass.com slash dinners. That's masterclass.com slash dinners for 15% off in annual membership. Masterclass.com slash dinners. And we're back with more dinners on me. Marcus was just telling me about moving

to the United States with $300 in his pocket and his decision to expand his cooking audience beyond bankers. So getting out of AquaV, you had to. But in that process, it was a lot that happened. My sister said, you need to be happier, it's horrible. And that's kind of for me when I started to go back to Ethiopia. And I met my birth father. And I say all this because it wasn't just cooking anymore. Like my family really saw that I need to live my life. Going back to Ethiopia was one of those things. So it opened up a whole door of love and you know meeting my father and Once my apartment was ready in New York had a housewarming and at the housewarming to my apartment That's where I met my wife

The housewarming for your own house your own apartment. Yeah my friends like you know like I was the one of my buddies I had like a real apartment. Was she squatting there when you moved with them? My friends were, they got a nice apartment. It was two floors, big patio. And so it was almost like five people, four people. You know, it was like people stayed all the time. These musicians came to stay with me. So they were like, all right, let's throw a party. We leaving New York now.

And you just bought your apartment. So it's like, I was like 200 people in my house. So many people's I could leave. I'm working tomorrow. I gotta go. So I left and then the elevator down, I meet Maya. And she was like, that's the party here in this building. Do you know where the party is?

I'm like, wait a minute, maybe I should not leave. I'm not telling that part. So did you say you guys can be saved? Yeah. I just did. You went back up to your own party. Yeah. I love that. And then how much did you learn about Maya on that first night?

Did you learn that she was from the same country? Did you learn that her history with Holland? And were you? Not all of it. We learned a lot but then I said the next day when they left I said there's this great diner here in Harlem called M&G is not there anymore and I love and it was one of these magical Harlem diners Harlem you stuff tons of great diners the jukebox is

great and if you don't know the menu, what are you doing? Where do you put those? There's always my time. What are you doing? So you know, like the service is great, but I couldn't say it's not kind service. It's great, okay. And so I'm like, if she can sit through the process.

If she can sit through that. Okay, okay, yeah. She's gonna be cool. That was the time. So we went, like, for lunch, whatever, this diner, like she put in, you know, music in the jukebox, and she could hang, and I was like, oh my god, this could be cool.

Yeah. But, you know, can we match? For that. How long before you guys married? Oh, it took a minute. Five years, I wanted to. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good courtship. Yeah, we stay.

Something like your rushing into it. I think we'll start to live together a record a year later, so. Shout out. Talk to me about what it was like to meet your half siblings. That's got to be a better word than half siblings. Yes. We haven't found it yet.

I mean, I'm sure they feel like whole siblings. Absolutely. Let's see. I mean, step, step siblings sound wrong. Yeah, no, we gotta come up with the better way. Okay, by the end of this podcast, we're gonna come up with the better way in half-set lines.

Because when you meet young kids, that you connect the two, there's nothing half about that hug. There's nothing half about that love. And finally, my father, landing in our teeth, knowing like, just so you wanna meet your dad, that you never met. Like there, like if you do this blowing now, it's never gonna happen, right? Right.

We drive out on this dirt road, that red clay that Africa has, and then the roads get smaller and smaller, and then out in the savannah. To the right, the driver says, okay, the village is there, It's in about two minutes, you're going to meet to that. Oh my God. And now I go, talk, talk, talk, talk. Now I'm like my heart beating. And once we got through village, first of all, it's a car in a village that's still plows

with the way we did in the 1500s. It's like the fact that a car is coming. Every clear comes over. And then I see him, like I know right away. There's like a guy with like long gray hair. And you know, the vanity in me is like, oh, I'm gonna keep my hair, I'm gonna have a... Yes, it's great.

And he has a long silver hair. I'm like, oh, that's him, you could tell. And we meet, and hug him him and have a translator with me. And he's like, what took you so long? Wow. And then... It was the last time he saw you when your mom took you when you were two years old to go find a hospital.

But I learned then that I didn't know. I came in hot with you asking Western style of questions. Yes. Which is, here's my question, give me an answer that makes sense. Yeah. Being there, you get basically Buddhist answer. If I asked, what happened? He's like, it worked out for you and your sister.

And if I asked, why didn't you come and get us? You get like a 30 year answer, not an answer of the issue. Right. And also when you wait a little bit, how do we know that he didn't come and get us? Right. He also had to walk in, he didn't have bus, he didn't have car.

There's all these other things. Like we think like we want to narrow answer. And it really helped me to understand the world from a completely different world. Culturally, it's just like a whole other way of thinking and it's being projected upon you and quite a bit impactful moment. I can only imagine what that must have been like. Beautiful. And then, seeing the hut, this hut that I was born in, it's the size of a four-tronping maristron. Wow.

And that doesn't humble you. And then I saw eight more kids. The youngest four, and the oldest maybe 18. It was one of the strongest moments in my life. Of course, your kids being born, but like getting married, but if you take that aside, that was probably the strongest moment in my life. Of course, you're kids being born, but getting married, but if you take that aside, that's probably the strongest moment in my life. Just raw emotions. Also, I can only imagine what it must feel like to encounter not only your father, but then eight more people who are a part of you, truly. That's had to have been overwhelming. Absolutely, but after an hour or two,

then reality strikes here. And I had to negotiate with my father that I just met. There was four girls. And the oldest girl had to leave second grade because she had to come home and work. And I'm like, no, let her go to school. And he was like, well, if you find a replacement for her, you know, the a services needed.

So the women were expected to, after a few years of school, then stop education, be a service to the family. And from what I understand, you sponsored your sisters to move to a city so that they could continue education. And so in your father I can imagine was, like you said, well, then how are you going to make up for my loss? That's why when you poke that bear, whatever you think it's gonna be,

it's not that. So I learned a lot. I gained a lot and we have to work a lot, but we gained a lot too. Sure, well, we gained love. You lot, but we gained a lot too. Well, we gained love. You know, I mean, all relationships with family are always evolving and they're always they're malleable, they're tenuous, they need to be sometimes handled with kid gloves.

And I think that's for everyone. I mean, it's an evolution. Thank you. I broke up with my sister for a year. I need to break up with you. I need a year off. And then bait the clear round that 10 to 11 months, I started to miss her.

Yeah. And I was like, okay, she's like good. I'm ready to start seeing you again. Wait, where does your sister live? Both my sister lives in Gotham, British, Sweden. We're back together, don't go long time ago. I'm glad. I understand that though.

I totally did that. You at a very young age from what I understand knew that you wanted to do this. Wanted to be a chef? Yeah. This is something we have in common. I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be an actor. Mostly on stage, you know, all the other stuff

sort of became a surprise to me, beyond TV and film. But there was this incredible drive. I went to New York. I knew I wanted to go to acting school, I knew what I wanted to do, I knew what I was passionate about. But I also feel with that, and I wanna hear your thoughts on this, knowing what you wanna do with such an early agent, having that drive,

I think there's a burden that comes with it because there's this great, at least for me, there was this pressure to then do it and be good at it because maybe you are more well-rounded than I am, but I was kind of thinking if I can't succeed at this, I don't know really what the next thing will be. How was it for you knowing that such an early age that you wanted to be a chef and you wanted to create? And I know you had early success in France, age 16, working with a very great chef who

didn't necessarily encourage you, but you know, gave you opportunity. One of the blessings that blackness has given me it gave me clarity, clarity of choices. It gave me a focus when, you know, I left my house early and when we lived abroad, or for teenagers, we worked with these great restaurants and hotels, but you, we do what teenagers do, right?

And you get in trouble. I always knew I can't get in some same amount of trouble as my roommate. So I had to, like, leave, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, right? But I'm like, all right, this is where I have to go back, get out of the car, and this is, you know, and I hear about it tomorrow, peace, you know. And that's not a big loss. It's just the clarity. I was also a foreigner in a different country, but I just knew that there's no privilege of walking into tomorrow and said, we did X or we did Y.

I know my butt would be out of there. So that gave me a focus and clarity. My mom was very, she always gave us confidence, not arrogance but confidence. And I think that was our mechanism of surviving in that town, you know, like just going to the grocery store, mom had to prep because everyone touched my sister's hair, everyone went to like take a picture. And this is way before I thought so, like it wasn't like it's up. And like in the beginning it's kind of, oh, cute, funny, but then after like the 30s time, so like, and maybe my mom's hair, but wasn't ready or whatever, we would just go, she was going

from milk and eggs, right? So I know that I'm thinking my awareness of how I dress comes from that time. You know, there's a lot of wearing a hat, we wore hat because then they couldn't touch our hair. It was a lot of stuff still to this day. I do. But it's also our tightness came from that, right? Our togetherness. Well, it is interesting that you ended up in like what I think considered to be one of the greatest melting pods, certainly in America, but in the world.

Yes. The knowledge that this fish, I mean, I know it is. Would you say, take a photo, take a photo of that fish again. This steam fish with Thai herbs today is a breads you know. It's already deep-bone. There might be a little bit of pin-boise in here. Okay, this is from Chi Mai, or is it from Chi Mai?

No, this is more central. Central? Yeah. This one is called an cranberry. This is super spicy, right? Yeah, I remember this. It's spicy. I'm gonna sweat.

Please don't laugh at me. It's amazing. It's fish is amazing. Now for a quick break, but don't go away. When we come back, I'll talk to Marcus about his amazing work with chef Jose Andres. And the black chefs we should be talking about right now. Okay, be right back. Globally, humans are facing massive problems that are widely ignored by governments and

the media. Like personal space invaders had it with these couples that sit on the same side of the booth. Yakmouth, stupid stick figure bumper stickers, almond milk. You cannot milk an almond. Hi, I'm Jennifer, and I'm Angie. We call her pumps, and we're the hosts of I've had it. Pumps tell the listener where they can find us.

Apple Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcast. It's nailed it. See you next Tuesday. Hi, so if you have a few minutes to spare it, I'll help us if you thought the short listener survey. It'll let us learn more about our audience, which helps us sell ads that keep this podcast. Fruity! You can also share your opinions about the show so we know what you think is working and what we could do better. So please go to dinnersonme.fans to fill out the survey. Thanks.

And we're back with more dinners on me. You touched on it just a bit and I hate talking to the pandemics. We're like, oh, but I think for the rest of the... We all came out of that experience, much different people. Not only reassessing. Thank you for making it so unapologetically good and sharp and spicy. Oh, the fish. Everything, just do it.

The way you want to do it. It's Thai food. It was amazing. Sorry, yes. I'm back, just. No, I know, I know. I'm not good food in front of me. No, go there.

We don't go there. I understand. I'm with the food. I'm with you too. I know, I know. But I'm here. It's not delicious. It's so delicious. Did you have a sauce somewhere here? No. No, I ain't here. It's not delicious. It's so delicious.

Did you have a sauce somewhere here? No. No, I haven't been. I haven't been. Oh, I was like, yeah, I was like, I was like, thank you, I've never been to this restaurant. I love that.

But talk about it coming out of the pandemic and how that shifted you and your beliefs. Thank you for asking me that question. And I feel like I went through all the emotions. First of all, it was scared. I lost a friend, and dear, a chef, Float Cardinals, really early. And then there was other people not known to outsiders,

but like really important people in kitchens that we lost. Then what's gonna happen with our business? How do we shut down in a way that impacts, you know, all the people? Right. And then I got angry. My wife's like, you have to stop. You can't walk around like this angry ball at home. You have a kid here like this is not healthy. And that was kind of like the moment for me, but I'm like, okay, what do I do? I call my friend Jose, Jose Andres.

Yes. And works under a kitchen, his organization said, Marcus, we can serve, we can serve healthy, we know how to serve safe. If you open, rooster up as a communique kitchen, can you get people there? I was like, yes, the need is here. So we started our community kitchen together with World Center Kitchen out of rooster. We served 200 people a day, 300 people a day, 800 people a day, then people started drive to our stuff. And guess what? I said, customers are customers. When we serve

in that line, people like, I like to chicken better yesterday. How come you're giving us apples for the dessert last time we got actually an apple pie? Like same dialogue, right? That you would have with our regulars, right? Yeah. And as a chef, all you want is feedback. Yeah.

So I needed that. I needed that. And coming out of that, you know, 300,000 meals later, if I ever started to miss the regular, where is everybody? Where's the band? How can we get the band back together? And a year later, it's like, all right, we're going to be all right. That's a privileged person. We're going to be fine, okay, but who's not okay? And then slowly started to also dream. If I get a shot, I do this again. I would do the restaurant this way.

And I was kind of down in the basement, like, here's my Swedish side, here's my New York side, here's my Ethiopian side. Once I go there, I know something a year later comes out. Right. I was like, this is the ocean side, this is the hob, the granite, not the blue water, so you're not the Caribbean water, the grey water. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

And that's finally the beauty in that. And then the Ethiopian side, the red clay, the honey, the colors, and then just the New Yorker and me. And then I said it to my dear friend, the artist Derek Adams. And he's like, you're going to do this. It's going to be a restaurant. And that's what we started to. That's what I came out with.

Did that become something? That became Havmarg. That became Havmarg. Oh, really? Wow. I was 18 months, two years. Wow. You know? It's truly a birth from a point of despair and rebirth.

Mm-hmm. Wow. And it was a healing process for me. Yeah. So also what I decided, from now on, I'm going to drive and lead with joy. Because these two monumental moments of 9-11 and the pandemic, I was in New York and both

To drove me to transformative moves in my life, right and I want to enjoy it, right like I'm enjoying this fish. Yes I'm sent to Thailand via Brooklyn came to New York. Thank you I'm just so hope on to our play. Mm-hmm. I mean, there's so many layers of flavor, but I remember the last time that the spice is so well handled. Yeah, and there's nuance, right? It's like the heat takes you off and then you have to stop, right? And you can't stop, continue,

but then you can't finish, but it's like, it knows when to stop. Like, duh. Yeah. I can tell you. When you started in this career, you were really one of the few black chefs. Certainly at your level.

Now that there are more, and that's really exciting. Are there people that are there other brown and black chefs that you're excited about right now that are working? Absolutely. I mean, for elders in architecture, in Jakarta, in Jak kitchen. They're amazing. And so is Schafferis, incredible.

And then, been in our teams and restaurants for a long time. But watching what Kwame is doing is amazing. Seeing what Eric William does in Chicago, what Mashama Bailey is doing in Savannah. And, you know, some incredible restaurant in Austin led by Tavel Bristol-Josef and what Gregory's doing in Portland at Khan. And I say this because what I just rolled out

was that it's not a New York thing. I mean, that's the most important thing. So if you're a little kid coming up in the care restaurant and you have ambitions and you wanna work in this space, whether you're of color or not, and you're on the West Coast, you're good in LA, you're good in Portland. So this is happening across the country. Right.

That is amazing because what it shows is that obviously being of color is not monolithic and we're not one thing. We're super layered and complex and out of the complexity comes our deliciousness. And I think if you look at American music, black music has done such a good job of actually explaining. So if you now would go and say, I love gospel. Okay, you can go to restaurant Sunday and do that. I love hip hop. Okay, what era? Right? Or if I love R&B, like, there's labels. So the world knows these nuances. Right. When it comes to black cooking,

the reference points are some of them are very strong. So we know what southern or what refer as soul food is. If you want to go deeper, you really know food, you we know what southern or what refer as soul food is. If you want to go deeper, you really know food, you might know what low country is, right? And then there's aspects of barbecue and there are aspects of Creole, but there's so much more to it, right? And eventually, we're just going to get to a space which is black modern. And you will just trust that, and you know, it's going to be. What do you think that would look like? Well, I mean, I look most like music, right?

When Beyoncé did Renaissance, she drew from house music, right? And that's modern, but there's hip-hop in there. There are notes of our embassies in there, right? And that's why I do think that, you know, when we do at Hobbyson, it's like, it's such a great analogy, man. No, it's like, yeah, I get it. So there are nuance to say, and that is what film has taught us. That is for music as taught as well.

But in food, it's always been like just either muted or not layered enough, right? It explained well enough. So I think this movement in food is brilliant. And that's not just happening. We talk about restaurants now. If you think about what's happening in the pop-up scene, like Rashida, African-American, that does a beautiful Japanese ramen pop-up,

white-up. Yeah, yeah. And then if you go to street level, and then you can go with someone like Mike and Mehlens Chicago that does pies? So it's happening every level. I mean the greatest artist draw from what inspires them and I think also the greatest artist know that no space has to be defined by what came before it.

You know, and I think like you it's our opportunity to take a space and make it become whatever we want it to be. And I think you know the the greatest. They don't work within parameters. I think the greatest chefs do that. And so what you're speaking to absolutely supports that thing for me. But then also the power of this, right? I had one of my big failures. One of them became one of the basic foundations for my biggest successes. I was one of the basic foundations for my biggest successes. In between AquaVite and Red Rooster, I opened this gorgeous restaurant in the meatpack and called Mercado, which was modern African.

And I loved it. I put everything I could into it. And there was an audience there, but maybe the rent was too high, or maybe the food. There was not an audience yet that understood that food, that experience. So we had to close. But I knew that even though we didn't work, we couldn't pay the rent.

Everything was right, but the location. We shouldn't have put ourselves up where we had to pay $40, $1 a month or whatever it was. But there was a movement, there of excitement. That would have been the West Village or in Chelsea. It would have been a great restaurant. But that was kind of like, okay, there's aspects of this that I'm going to keep with me to Red Brewster. Now that's really interesting to me because I just feel like for so many people, you know, the minute they, because that was your first kind of big move, it's like Marcus Amelstead. Yeah, this is my, this is my first, but here's what I'm going to do. You stumbled, it didn't work out.

The amount of people that would say, oh, okay, that was scary. I don't wanna go through that again. Oh, no, it was scary. Sure, of course, but you didn't, you didn't finish. You didn't lie down and be like, okay, I'm gonna stop. So many people would. I think what, you know, that resilience

and that confidence, but also just that faith in yourself is an artist as a chef to continue on. But great, that didn't work. Let's try this thing. But I couldn't blame anyone. Like it was my fault. Sure.

It was totally my fault. I picked that location. And maybe it was the vanit in me, wanted to be in the middle of meatpacking in that moment, right? It was not the food, it was not the services, it was not the cook, it was not definitely not the runner, and it was definitely not the guest. Right.

So I'm like, okay. Well, even that, just knowing that you have, the only you to blame is pretty advanced. Can I just say, can you please let me stop, wouldn't you? Ha ha ha ha ha ha place in Chelsea, which I really want to try. Is the Ethiopian and- Delicious. Tell me the name of it again?

Havmar. And it's on 11th and- 26. 26, okay. I'm desperate. I love Ethiopian. Just come. Does it have-

Of course I will. I don't need to be sold. I love this. It's so great to talk to you. So good to see you again. Yes. I could spend it. I know. Hours with you. Especially if this is involved in the same food. Thank you so much for doing this really appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. It was the best. I was so excited to introduce Marcus to a restaurant that he had never tried before, but it was also so fun to share that experience with him. I mean, he was so joyous and present. He might have taken more photos of the food than I did, and it just reminded me to slow down and really appreciate all the work that has gone into making these meals.

His life is such a mix of cultural experiences experiences and it is so evident in the way he honors those experiences that the food he creates and the work he does. And before we left the restaurant, it just goes to show how kind and generous and thoughtful Marcus is. He went to the kitchen and thanked everyone for making this beautiful meal for us. I just absolutely love my time with him. So for us, I just absolutely love my time with him. Next time on Dinner's On Me, it's Elizabeth Banks. We'll get into why the movie Seabiscuit was so meaningful to her, the beanie baby explosion of the 1990s, and how Bruce Willis had a hand at getting her her iconic Oliver Stone role.

And if you don't want to wait until next week to listen, you can download that episode right now by subscribing to Dinner's On Me Plus. As a subscriber, you not only get access to new episodes one week early, you'll also be able to listen to them completely ad-free. Just click Tri-Free at the top of the Dinner's On Me show page on Apple Podcasts to start your free trial today. Dinner's On Me is a production of neonon Hum Media, Sony Music Entertainment and a kid named Beckett Productions.

It's hosted by Yours Truly. It's executive produced by me and Jonathan Hirsch. Our showrunner is Joanna Clay. Chloe Chobal is our associate producer, Sam Bear, engineered this episode. Hansdale She composed our theme music. Our head of production is Sammy Allison. Special thanks to Alexis Martinez and Justin McKeeta. I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Join me next week. you