Born to the owners of a small family restaurant, Pépin grew up with a passion for food. After training in Paris and serving as the personal chef of three French presidents, he moved to the United States, where he gained fame as a restaurant chef and proprietor and a television personality, with long-running cooking shows on PBS. He has written numerous cookbooks, including Art of the Chicken (2022), and is also a painter.

A version of this article appeared in the May–June 2023 issue of Harvard Business Review.