The people behind the craft

Aaron Franklin

Barbecue

Pitmaster of Franklin Barbecue in Austin whose oak-smoked brisket drew hours-long lines and a James Beard award.

Adrian Frutiger

Type Design — historical

Designed the Univers and Frutiger typefaces, the latter engineered for legibility on airport signage at speed and distance.

Aitor Arregui

Chef-patron

Chef-patron of Elkano in Getaria (No.24, World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025). Steward of the Cantabrian fishing culture behind the restaurant; the menu's star is the whole grilled turbot.

Akira Kurosawa

Film Direction — historical

Directed Seven Samurai and Rashomon, revolutionizing editing, weather as drama, and the visual grammar of action cinema.

Albert Adrià

Head Chef, Enigma

Albert Adrià Acosta is a Spanish chef. He is currently head chef of Enigma, a Michelin two-star restaurant in Barcelona and was formerly the head pastry chef at elBulli.

Andoni Luis Aduriz

Chef-patron

Chef-patron of Mugaritz, San Sebastian (No.87, World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025). Has pushed experimental fine dining there for more than 25 years; closes January to April each year for a creative sabbatical.

Andreas Caminada

Chef & Owner, Schloss Schauenstein

Andreas Caminada is a Swiss chef. He is the chef and owner of Schloss Schauenstein, a Michelin three-star restaurant in Fürstenau, Switzerland, consistently ranked among the world's best restaurants.

Antonio Stradivari

Luthier — historical

Crafted violins in Cremona whose tonal power and clarity remain the acoustic benchmark no maker has convincingly surpassed.

Arnaud Donckele

Executive Chef

Arnaud Donckele (born March 29, 1977, Rouen) is a French chef who currently runs two Michelin 3-star restaurants: La Vague d'Or at Cheval Blanc St-Tropez and Plénitude at Cheval Blanc Paris. Named Gault & Millau's Chef of the Year in 2020, Donckele grew up surrounded by charcutiers-traiteurs and trained at École Ferrandi before rising to become one of France's most decorated chefs.

Azzedine Alaia

Couture — historical

Perfected body-sculpting construction, cutting stretch garments that fit like a second skin and defined 1980s glamour.

Bartolomeo Cristofori

Instrument Maker — historical

Invented the piano around 1700 by devising a hammer action that let a keyboard play both soft and loud.

Ben Burtt

Sound Design

Created the sound of the lightsaber, R2-D2, and WALL-E, inventing the modern craft of narrative sound design.

Bertrand Grebaut

Co-founder & Restaurateur, Septime

Bertrand Grebaut (5 December 1981 - 2 July 2026) was a French restaurateur who co-founded Septime in Paris, which earned a Michelin star and international acclaim. He worked at Alain Passard's Arpege before his untimely death from cancer in July 2026.

Bill Amberg

Leatherwork

British leather designer-maker whose London studio produces hand-stitched bags and architectural leather interiors.

Billy Wagner

Owner-sommelier

Owner-sommelier of Nobelhart & Schmutzig, Berlin (No.59, World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025), which lists the producer beside every menu item.

Bjorn Frantzen

Chef & Restaurateur

Swedish chef, restaurateur and businessman. As of 2025, the only chef in the world in charge of three separate restaurants with a combined six Michelin stars.

Bob Kramer

Bladesmithing

One of few American Master Bladesmiths making kitchen knives, whose chef's knives fetch thousands and sell by lottery.

Brian Eno

Producer / Composer

Coined and defined ambient music while producing landmark albums for Bowie, Talking Heads and U2.

Bruno Verjus

Head Chef & Founder

Bruno Verjus is the head chef and founder of Table by Bruno Verjus, the acclaimed Paris restaurant ranked No. 8 on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list and holder of two Michelin stars. His creative French cuisine has established him as one of Paris's most innovative chefs.

Charles and Ray Eames

Furniture Design — historical

Revolutionized furniture with molded plywood and fibreglass, designing the Eames Lounge Chair and shaping mid-century modernism.

Coco Chanel

Couture — historical

Liberated women's fashion with jersey, trousers, the little black dress and the collarless tweed suit.

Constantin Brancusi

Sculpture — historical

Stripped sculpture down to pure, polished essential form, founding a modernist language of abstraction.

Cristobal Balenciaga

Couture — historical

Mastered architectural construction and volume, sculpting garments that stood away from the body in revolutionary silhouettes.

Dabiz Muñoz

Chef & Founder, DiverXO

David Muñoz Rosillo, also known as Dabiz Muñoz, is a Spanish chef specializing in avant-garde cuisine. He is the owner and head chef of DiverXO, which is the only restaurant in Madrid with three Michelin stars as of 2025. He was named the 'Best Chef in the World' by The Best Chef Awards for three consecutive years. Source: Wikipedia (David Muñoz (chef))

Dale Chihuly

Glass Art

Turned blown glass into monumental installation art, freeing the medium from tabletop craft into architectural spectacle.

Daniel Calvert

Executive Chef

Daniel Calvert is the Executive Chef of Sézanne, the French restaurant located on the 7th floor of Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Marunouchi. Having lived and worked across several of the world's culinary capitals, Daniel brings an open-minded approach and a willingness to embrace versatile cultural influences and ingredients to his cooking. Sézanne holds two Michelin stars and was named the best restaurant in Japan by Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2024.

Dieter Rams

Industrial Design

Defined Braun's product language and codified the ten principles of good design that shaped modern industrial aesthetics.

Domingo Schingaro

Executive Chef

Executive Chef of Due Camini, an Italian restaurant. Due Camini's philosophy centers on authentic Italian cuisine with seasonal ingredients.

Dominique Crenn

Chef and Owner

Dominique Crenn is a three-Michelin-starred chef known for her modern vision of fine French cuisine and her commitment to 'poetic culinaria.' She made history as the first female chef in the US to receive three Michelin stars.

Dominique Persoone

Chocolate

Bruges chocolatier of The Chocolate Line, known for radical bean-to-bar experiments and provocative flavour pairings.

Edmund de Waal

Ceramics

Porcelain artist and author of The Hare with Amber Eyes, known for vast installations of pale thrown vessels in vitrines.

El Anatsui

Sculpture

Ghanaian sculptor who stitches thousands of flattened bottle caps and aluminium seals into shimmering, drapeable metal tapestries the scale of building facades.

Elena Arzak

Chef & Co-owner

Elena Arzak, daughter of Juan Mari Arzak, trained in Europe's top kitchens including Pierre Gagnaire and El Bulli, and now co-leads the three-Michelin-starred Arzak restaurant.

Enrico Crippa

Chef

Enrico Crippa is the chef of Ristorante Piazza Duomo in Alba, Italy, a Michelin three-star restaurant. Under his leadership, the restaurant has become one of Italy's most celebrated fine dining destinations, celebrated for its vegetable-forward cuisine inspired by the Piedmont countryside.

Eric Ripert

Chef and Co-Owner

Renowned chef with expertise in French and seafood cuisine

Es Devlin

Stage Design

Reinvented concert and opera staging with kinetic sculptural sets projecting light and film for Beyonce, U2 and the Royal Opera.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Architecture — historical

Pioneered organic architecture with Fallingwater and Prairie-style homes that dissolved the wall between building and landscape.

Geraldine Rodríguez

Chef de Cuisine

Childhood spent between school and family restaurant. Learned cooking and management from an early age. Refined skills with Quique Dacosta before joining Quintonil in 2015.

Giorgio Cravero

Cheese Affinage

Latest-generation Parmigiano-Reggiano affineur in Bra whose family selects and ages the wheels prized by the world's top kitchens.

Hayao Miyazaki

Animation

Co-founded Studio Ghibli and directed Spirited Away, hand-drawing worlds of unmatched emotional and natural detail.

Heinz Reitbauer

Chef and Patron

Heinz Reitbauer (born 23 August 1970 in Vienna) is an Austrian chef and patron of Steirereck, consistently ranked among Vienna's finest dining establishments. From 2014 to 2017, Steirereck was named Austria's best restaurant.

Himanshu Saini

Chef

Chef of Tresind Studio, Dubai (No.27, World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025; The Best Restaurant in the Middle East 2025). A 20-seat tasting menu on The Palm Jumeirah that relocates diners between courses.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Photography

Made conceptually rigorous long-exposure photographs of seascapes, theatres and dioramas that meditate on time itself.

Ikutaro Kakehashi

Instrument Maker — historical

Founded Roland and co-created MIDI, plus the TR-808 and TB-303 machines that built modern electronic music.

Issey Miyake

Fashion / Textile — historical

Fused technology and craft to invent Pleats Please and A-POC, garments engineered from single threads and heat-set pleats.

J Dilla

Producer — historical

Reprogrammed hip-hop's rhythmic feel by deliberately un-quantizing the MPC, creating a loose, human 'drunk' swing.

James Dyson

Product Engineering

Invented the bagless cyclonic vacuum cleaner after building 5,127 prototypes, reinventing a stagnant household appliance.

James Henry

Co-chef

Australian co-chef of Le Doyenne, Saint-Vrain (No.77, World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025), plating straight-from-the-estate produce grown regeneratively.

James Hoffmann

Coffee

2007 World Barista Champion and author of The World Atlas of Coffee whose YouTube channel became default global coffee education.

Javier Torres

Chef & Co-founder, Cocina Hermanos Torres

Javier Torres is one half of the Torres twin brothers who co-founded Cocina Hermanos Torres in Barcelona in 2018. Having trained alongside his brother Sergio across Europe's leading kitchens, Javier now co-leads a three-Michelin-starred restaurant distinguished by its open kitchen concept — three cooking stations at the centre of the dining room, inviting guests into the culinary process. The brothers maintain their own small farm estate in Extremadura and are committed to direct sourcing, circular economy, and fair-trade relationships with producers. Source: Cocina Hermanos Torres official site, Michelin Guide.

Jefferson Rueda

Chef & Owner, A Casa do Porco

Chef and owner of A Casa do Porco in São Paulo, Brazil, which was ranked #2 in Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants 2023 and recognized for its nose-to-tail pork cuisine drawing on Brazilian culinary traditions.

Jim McEwan

Whisky

Master distiller who resurrected Islay's shuttered Bruichladdich distillery in 2001 and became one of Scotch's most revered noses.

Jiro Ono

Sushi

Founder of the three-Michelin-star Sukiyabashi Jiro in Ginza, subject of the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

Jony Ive

Industrial Design

Led the design of the iMac, iPod, and iPhone, making the seamless minimalist object the dominant form of consumer technology.

Josh Niland

Chef-owner

Chef-owner of Saint Peter, Sydney (No.66, World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025). Known as 'the fish butcher' for a gill-to-fin approach applying meat techniques to seafood.

José Avillez

Chef & Restaurateur, Belcanto

José de Avillez Burnay Ereira, known as José Avillez, is a Portuguese chef and restaurateur. He is one of the most renowned Portuguese chefs and the founder of Belcanto, a Michelin two-star restaurant in Lisbon.

José Luis Hinostroza

Executive Chef & Founder

Chef and founder of Arca, a contemporary fine dining Mexican restaurant in Tulum, Quintana Roo, opened in 2015. Arca's bar ranked 27th in the World's 50 Best Bars 2025.

Juan Contreras

Chef Pâtissier

Juan Contreras is the Chef Pâtissier at Atelier Crenn, where he creates dishes that evoke emotions and stimulate the senses. He has worked with Dominique Crenn since the opening of Atelier Crenn and has been a finalist for the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef.

Juan Luis Martínez

Chef & Owner, Mérito

Juan Luis Martínez is the chef behind Mérito, a celebrated Peruvian restaurant in Lima's Barranco district, recognized for its innovative approach to Peruvian cuisine.

Juan Mari Arzak

Chef & Founder

Legendary Basque chef who helmed the Arzak restaurant in San Sebastián for over 50 years, pioneering Nueva Cocina Vasca and earning three Michelin stars.