Sean Sherman

Early life Sherman was born in 1974 and grew up on his grandparents' ranch on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. He hunted and foraged from an early age, recalling his grandfather giving him a shotgun on his seventh birthday. His grandparents were fluent in Lakota. He spent most of his twenties working in a series of Minneapolis restaurants and by 27 was working as an executive chef.

He founded the nonprofit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NĀTIFS) in 2017 with Thompson. which won the 2018 James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook. In order to create the book's recipes, he interviewed older community members and searched archives for descriptions of traditional Lakota foods. That same year he prepared a six-course dinner at the James Beard House.

In 2021 he and Thompson opened a restaurant, Owamni, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving dishes using ingredients present in North America before European colonization. Owamni won the 2022 James Beard Foundation Award for Best New Restaurant.

The New York Times called his style "colorful and elegant".

Sherman was named to the TIME 100 Most Influential People of 2023 list.

Philosophy

Sherman abandoned the use of ingredients that are not endemic to North America after having "an epiphany" while working at a restaurant in Mexico that used local ingredients and realizing that the traditional foods of the Oglala were "completely unrepresented in American cuisine." He objects to indigenous cuisine being called "the next big thing", saying, "This is not a trend. It's a way of life."

Along with some other Native American chefs, and writing that it represents "perseverance and pain, ingenuity and resilience." Frybread's significance to Native Americans has been described as complicated and their relationship with it conflicted.

Personal life Sherman lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He and Thompson had a difficult romantic breakup shortly after Owamni opened; as of 2022 the two retain shared control of the business.

Books The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen (2017)