Fatima Ali

Fatima Ali (August 8, 1989 – January 25, 2019) was a Pakistani-American executive chef, restaurateur and television personality. She was known for her successful appearances on reality cooking shows Chopped and Top Chef, and for posthumously winning two James Beard Foundation Awards for her writing.

Early life Fatima Ali was born and raised in Pakistan, dividing her time between Karachi and Lahore. She was educated at the Karachi Grammar School. Ali was the daughter of educator Farazeh Durrani and lawyer Ashtar Ausaf Ali, the Attorney General for Pakistan from 2016 to 2018 and again from 2022 to 2023. She learned to cook from her father, her grandmother, and her family's cook, Qadir. She immigrated to America at age 18 to attend the Culinary Institute of America, graduating in 2011.

Career Ali began her culinary career as a junior sous chef at Café Centro in New York City. However, in October 2018, in a personal essay published by Bon Appétit titled I’m a Chef with Terminal Cancer. This Is What I’m Doing with the Time I Have Left, Ali reported that her cancer had returned and become terminal. She died at her family's home in San Marino, California, on January 25, 2019, at the age of 29.

She was buried in Lahore in February 2019. Her memoir, Savor: A Chef's Hunger for More, published in October 2022 and co-authored with Tarajia Morrell, received a James Beard Foundation Award in June 2023.