If you’re on a trip and start to ask yourself, I wonder who came up with that clever idea? People who travelled and are now redirecting the global compass? Those answers are here, among the few game-changers who made the way we see, taste, sail, and circle the world that much more incredible – part two.
Cherae Robinson
The allure of Africa stretches far beyond the Big Five. Perhaps the most exciting showcase of its diversity is Tastemakers Africa, the brainchild of Cherae Robinson, an American entrepreneur who wanted to create a platform that would connect travelers with in-the-know locals.
With Tastemakers, Robinson is part of a fresh vanguard signaling a cultural shift with a new generation of Africans charting and championing their own continent, which spreads out to a global community hungry for its stories.
She describes Tastemakers as “a curated marketplace for hundreds of experiences” – from a jam session with a nine-piece band in Johannesburg to an art tour of Accra with a multimedia artist.
On Instagram, the @tstmkrafrica account posts pictures from its network of Africa-based influencers rescripting the narrative of inspired travel from Casablanca to Kigali. – S.K.
Sir David Adjaye
Regardless of the size of the buildings they build, most architects exist in neatly labeled compartments. U.K.-based, Tanzanian-born Sir David Adjaye is an exception.
Yes, he’s done retail shops (Valextra in London; Proenza Schouler in New York) and residences in cities that include London, Johannesburg, Doha, and New York.
He’s even reimagined the 421-acre complex that makes up the San Francisco shipyard.
But he’s also taken on commissions in Accra, Lagos, and Dakar, as well as some of the most emotionally fraught public projects of recent times.
This versatility may in part owe to his peripatetic childhood his Ghanaian father was a diplomat stationed in Tanzania when Adjaye was born, but they moved often, to places like Saudi Arabia, Kenya, and Lebanon.
Many believe the design that will define his career is the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. (seven months after its opening, Time magazine named Adjaye one of its 100 Most Influential People of 2017).
Its tiered shape golden and crown-like is both beautiful and moving, echoing the traditional forms of the Yoruba people of West Africa.
Adjaye’s breadth of vision, looking beyond the usual reference points, is what makes him such a powerful voice on the global architectural landscape. – S.K.
Samin Nosrat
Not too long ago, Samin Nosrat had just one television credit on her resume brief appearance on Michael Pollan’s Cooked. But a lot can happen in a year.
Her Netflix show, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, born out of her bestselling cookbook of the same name, has quickly become a breakout hit, changing the way we think and talk about food.
And yet the Iranian-American chef’s on-screen warmth, curiosity, and joyful sense of humor make her totally relatable.
When she makes pesto in Liguria you long to stand beside her, pounding garlic cloves and basil leaves with a mortar and pestle, and when she sits down with friends to eat the crispy tahdig rice she prepared with her mother, you wish you could pull up a chair.
It’s all part of Nosrat’s ongoing message: that all of us can learn how to cook, and learn to cook well. With the exception of her former workplace Chez Panisse, you won’t find any Michelin-starred restaurants on her show.
Instead, she champions the local chefs, home cooks, and artisans working behind the scenes. We meet a fifth-generation soy sauce producer in Japan, learn about Parmesan from an Italian cheesemaker, and watch Nosrat taste some of the world’s best honey with farmers in Tixcacaltuyub, Mexico.
The biggest game changer, though? We get see a woman starring on food-and-travel television, still a rarity in 2019.
could say she’s the next Julia Child or maybe even the next Anthony Bourdain but really, she’s 100 percent Samin Nosrat. And that’s what makes her arrival so exciting. – Lale Arikoglu