The Chef Who Believes He Can Change the World

What kind of sustainable, delicious, healthy foods will we be dining on when climate change wreaks havoc on the planet? Pierre Thiam has a bold solution (and it includes beer).

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."