López-Alt co-founded Wursthall in 2017, a beer hall style restaurant in San Mateo, California. He now maintains a popular YouTube channel in which he demonstrates various recipes and cooking techniques with a POV filming style. He released a children's book titled Every Night is Pizza Night in 2020 and a cookbook titled The Wok: Recipes and Techniques in 2022 which focused on the eponymous cooking vessel. Both books became New York Times Bestsellers, with the latter earning López-Alt his second James Beard Foundation Award.
Early life and education
Born James Kenji Alt on October 31, 1979 in Boston, Massachusetts; he is the son of Frederick Alt and Keiko Nakanishi.[1][9] His maternal grandfather is Japanese organic chemist Koji Nakanishi.[9] He and his sisters grew up in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, one floor above his maternal grandparents, both Japanese immigrants.[10]
López-Alt wearing headphones while holding an audio recorder for a Serious Eats video at the restaurant American Seasons in Nantucket, Massachusetts
López-Alt's first restaurant job was during his sophomore year of college. He attempted to take a job as a waiter at a local restaurant, but they needed a prep cook.[15] He later worked with several Boston chefs including Barbara Lynch and Ken Oringer.[16] He went on to work as a test cook and editor at Cook's Illustrated magazine and America's Test Kitchen.[17]
López-Alt started a YouTube channel in 2016, which, as of March 2022, had over one million subscribers and over 200 million views. The videos are POV-style demonstrations of recipes and cooking techniques in López-Alt's home kitchen that feature unscripted commentary and largely unedited footage.[26]
After his move to Seattle in late 2020, López-Alt's Instagram posts became increasingly popular as he recommended various businesses and dishes around the area, becoming "maybe the most powerful food influencer this city has seen in the social media age," according to The Seattle Times.[30]
In 2022, López-Alt released a cookbook titled The Wok: Recipes and Techniques, a 658-page book focused on woks. The Seattle Times called the book "arguably the most anticipated cookbook of the year" and it debuted at number one on the New York Times Bestseller list in the category of "Advice, How-To & Miscellaneous".[31][32][33][34][35] It won the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award.[36] The book won the 2023 James Beard Foundation Book Award in the category of "Single Subject".[37]
He remains a regular guest on the Serious Eats podcast, Special Sauce, hosted by Ed Levine.[38]
Personal life
As of 2021, López-Alt resides in Seattle, Washington,[39] after previously living in San Mateo, California, New York City, and Boston.[40] He goes by his middle name Kenji in his personal life.
In 2009, López-Alt married Adriana López, a software engineer from Colombia, and they combined Adriana's birth surname, López, with that of Kenji, Alt.[12][9][41] The López-Alts have two children, the second of whom was born in September 2021.[42][12]
In January 2019, López-Alt tweeted that "if you come to my restaurant wearing a MAGA cap, you aren't getting served, same as if you come in wearing a swastika, white hood, or any other symbol of intolerance and hate"[43] and "If you’re comfortable sitting next to a MAGA wearer I’m probably not interested in serving you either."[44] He later deleted the tweet and apologized to his staff for posting the tweet without consideration of their safety.[45][46]
^J. Kenji López-Alt (September 23, 2020). Ask Kenji Anything #1. Event occurs at 15:45. Archived from the original on September 8, 2024. Retrieved September 28, 2020.
^ abcRobertson, Blair Anthony (2015). "Science becomes delicious in 'The Food Lab'". The Sacramento Bee. Archived from the original on December 16, 2015. Retrieved November 13, 2019. His father, Frederick Alt, is a professor at Harvard Medical School
