FOR YEARS NOW, PIERRE THIAM HAS BEEN
patiently waiting for everyone else to catch up with him.
You can look at that in a variety of ways. There is, first of all, the unstoppable engine of his enterprise. In recent years, he has published four cookbooks, opened two of his Teranga restaurants in New York City, developed an array of food products with a company called Yolélé, and collaborated with Brooklyn Brewery's Garrett Oliver on a series of wildly popular beers that incorporate African ingredients. Trim and scholarly and unfailingly polite, with a demeanor that calls to mind a university professor more than a chef, Thiam has arguably, over the past two decades, done more than anyone else in the United States to raise awareness of the culinary traditions of Senegal, where he was born, as well as the rest of the African continent-helping to clear a pathway for authors and chefs such as Yewande Komolafe of The New York Times and Serigne Mbaye of Dakar NOLA in New Orleans.
But those are merely the points on his résumé. What Thiam is really after is to change the way the world eats, the way the world does business with Africa, and the way we take care of the world. (No big deal, right?) "His work is the most tangible of any chef to me," says writer and editor Stephen Satterfield, the host of the award-winning Netflix series High on the Hog. "He has brought ancestral grains, climate resilience, deliciousness, and enterprise into a cohesive package. He is building a revolution right in front of us, and I wonder how many are noticing."
This story is from the March 2024 edition of Esquire US.
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This story is from the March 2024 edition of Esquire US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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