We are used to seeing chefs as cooks. But they are also storytellers, entrepreneurs, curators, artisans, mentors, activists and, last but not least, creative thinkers whose approaches and wisdom can translate into other areas.

Every single day, they push the boundaries of cooking and what we mean by enjoying a meal. The inventive cuisine created in their fine dining restaurants is the result of unique ecosystems: places where a balance must be struck between a “question everything, no rules, no limits” mentality, and rigorous, Swiss clock production lines; between the gravitas of charismatic individuals and intense group collaboration; between the uniqueness of terroir and openness to the world’s vastness; between respect for cultural traditions and the restless drive to explore.

[...]

This book led me to go around the world, from Shanghai to Lima, New York to Copenhagen, São Paulo to Paris, to discover what we can learn from chefs, beyond cooking.

Cooking is one of the few things with the power to bring together an array of diferente disciplines at the same table, inspiring them and, at the same time, feeding from all of them; from neuroscience to contemporary and modern art, from history to music, from literature to architecture, from anthropology to design. And chefs’ voices are also heard on forums about health, poverty, environment, technology, politics and economics.

[João Wengorovius]