Nik Sharma

Location: Los Angeles, California

Expertise: Baking, Savory, Flavor, Ice Cream, Cake, Food Science, Vegetarian, Indian

Nik Sharma is a molecular biologist, cookbook author, and food photographer who has contributed to Serious Eats since 2020.
His first cookbook, Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food, was a finalist for a James Beard Foundation award and an International Association of Culinary Professionals award. His most recent cookbook is Veg-table: Recipes, Techniques, and Plant Science for Big-Flavored, Vegetable-Focused Meals.
Nik writes the multi-award-winning blog, A Brown Table. He has also contributed the New York Times, Food52, and The Guardian.

Experience

Nik Sharma is a molecular biologist turned cookbook author and food photographer who's been writing for Serious Eats since 2020. Nik left his career in biomedical research behind to pursue a career in cooking, food writing, and photography, in which he uses his background in biochemistry to understand flavor.

His first cookbook was Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food, which was a finalist for a James Beard Foundation award and an International Association of Culinary Professionals award. He followed that with The Flavor Equation: The Science of Great Cooking Explained, which shares his soulful approach to cooking through the lens of the science of flavor and sensation. His most recent cookbook, Veg-table: Recipes, Techniques, and Plant Science for Big-Flavored, Vegetable-Focused Meals, expands on the world of vegetable cookery with his keen and unique approach to working with flavor and cooking techniques.

Nik writes the recipe newsletter This Is A Cook Letter and the multi-award-winning blog, A Brown Table. Previously he was the food columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle and has contributed regularly to The New York Times, Food52, and The Guardian Feast.

Nik's Desert Island Food: "Ice cream - I can't believe I need to explain this but ice cream is the most important food group. It has to be passion fruit or a tart lemon."

Awards & Publications

A Brown Table:

International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) - Winner Best Photo Based Blog – 2016
International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) - Winner Best Photo Based Blog – 2015
Saveur - Finalist Best Photography 2015

A Brown Kitchen, a column for the San Francisco Chronicle:

Association of Food Journalists (AFJ) - Best Food Column - 2019
International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) – San Francisco Chronicle – A Brown Kitchen – Best Food Column - Finalist 2018
International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) – San Francisco Chronicle –A Brown Kitchen – Best Food Media – Finalist 2017

The Flavor Equation (2020):

The Art of Eating Award 2021 Longlist
Cookery Book of the Year - Delicious U.K.
I.A.C.P. Cookbook Awards Finalist - General Cooking
I.A.C.P. Cookbook Awards Finalist - Photography

Season (2018):

James Beard Awards for Photography, Finalist 2019,
International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) - Julia Child First Cookbook Award - Finalist 2019

Education

Nik started out in biomedical research and has graduate degrees in Molecular Genetics (University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine) and Public Policy (Health econometrics/MPP - McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University). He worked as a researcher at Georgetown University and later at a pharmaceutical startup.

About Serious Eats

Serious Eats, a Dotdash brand, is an award-winning food and drink website visited by over 7 million hungry readers every month. Our audience comes to us for rigorously tested recipes, science-driven cooking techniques, robust equipment reviews, and stories that offer cultural and historical context to the foods we love to eat.

Dotdash is among the largest and fastest growing publishers online, and has won over 50 awards in the last year alone, including Digiday's 2020 Publisher of the Year. Dotdash brands include Verywell, Investopedia, The Balance, The Spruce, Simply Recipes, Serious Eats, Byrdie, Brides, MyDomaine, Lifewire, TripSavvy, Liquor.com, and TreeHugger.