Sohla El-Waylly

Sohla El-Waylly – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Sohla El-Waylly is an American chef, recipe developer, media personality, and cookbook author. Learn about her journey from working in fine dining to food media stardom, her philosophy, and her influence on culinary culture.

Introduction

Sohla El-Waylly (born Nusrath Sohla Muzib) is a modern culinary figure whose work spans kitchens, screens, and pages. She’s known for bridging the worlds of high-end restaurant cooking and accessible home cooking, often challenging conventions. From her role in the Bon Appétit test kitchen to her own web series and her debut cookbook, she’s become a voice for inclusive cooking and honest conversation in food media.

Early Life and Family

Sohla Muzib was raised in Los Angeles, California, in a Bengali-American family. Her family owned a Baskin-Robbins franchise, and from a young age she was immersed in the food business.

Growing up, she worked in restaurant settings, including Outback Steakhouse, which gave her early exposure to the rhythms of food service.

Although from a family background tied to food, her parents expected more conventional professional careers (e.g. doctor, lawyer, engineer).

Education & Formative Years

Sohla first attended University of California, Irvine, majoring in economics. During that time she worked at The Cheesecake Factory to support herself.

In 2008, she enrolled in The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) to formally train in cooking and culinary arts.

Her time at CIA was challenging. She has recounted experiencing sexual harassment from a dean, and being told by another that such treatment was the “real world” and something she needed to accept.

During her training and early career, she worked her way through kitchens, washing dishes and working in high-end restaurants, gaining practical experience.

Career and Achievements

Restaurant Experience & Hail Mary

After finishing her training, Sohla worked in notable restaurants in New York City, including Atera (two Michelin stars) and Del Posto.

In March 2016, Sohla and her husband Hisham “Ham” El-Waylly opened a restaurant/diner in Brooklyn called Hail Mary. The concept combined playful and ambitious flavors in a diner format.

However, Hail Mary closed after about 11 months. Sohla has attributed the closure partly to lack of outside investment and challenges that customers sometimes brought cultural expectations to the food.

From restaurant work, she moved more into food media and recipe development.

Food Media, YouTube, and orial Roles

Sohla worked as a culinary contributor or editor at Serious Eats, developing recipes and writing content.

Later she joined Bon Appétit as an assistant food editor and became visible through their YouTube video content.

In 2020, a controversy erupted when a photo of the Bon Appétit editor-in-chief in brownface resurfaced. Sohla publicly called for change, addressed inequities in pay and opportunity for people of color, and stepped back from appearing in Bon Appétit videos.

After leaving Bon Appétit video involvement, she launched and hosted her own content:

• Stump Sohla, a YouTube show on the Babish Culinary Universe channel, where she responded to culinary challenges.

• Off-Script with Sohla, a column/series on Food52.

• Ancient Recipes with Sohla, a show on the History channel exploring historical dishes and ingredients.

• Mystery Menu, a series on the New York Times Cooking YouTube channel.

• She also serves as a judge on The Big Brunch, a cooking competition from HBO/Max.

Cookbook & Recognition

On October 31, 2023, Sohla published her first cookbook: Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook.

Her book won the 2024 James Beard Award in the General category.

In media and public circles, she has become known not just for her cooking but for her advocacy, her voice on equity in the food world, and her approach to cooking as a human, imperfect art.

Historical Context & Industry Trends

Sohla’s rise intersects with a shifting food media landscape: from traditional magazine cooking pages to video, streaming, and social platforms. Her journey epitomizes how professional chefs today must often become creators, communicators, and visible personalities rather than working solely behind stoves.

Her willingness to speak publicly about racial inequities in food media, pay disparities, and representation also aligns her with the broader push for reform in culinary and media industries in the 2020s.

By moving from restaurant ownership to content creation, she embodies a trend where chefs diversify their platforms to remain financially and artistically sustainable.

Legacy and Influence

Although still early in her public life, Sohla El-Waylly is already influential in several ways:

• She normalizes vulnerability in cooking—showing that mistakes are part of learning, not a shameful nuisance.

• She challenges notions of what “white” or “foreign” food means, resisting reductive cultural expectations in cuisine.

• She advocates for equity in food media and industry labor practices.

• Her cookbook and media work aim to demystify techniques, making better cooking accessible rather than elite.

Future home cooks and food creators may see in her a model for being both skilled and bold in voice, bridging craft and advocacy.

Personality, Philosophy & Craft

Sohla is known for being direct, reflective, and self-aware. She often speaks about how learning to cook involves failing and iterating. In interviews, she says:

• She’s glad she allowed herself to let go of rigid dreams (e.g. aiming for Michelin stars) and instead pursue paths that bring joy and growth.

• She views food as a way to connect people—not just taste but narrative, memory, identity.

• She rejects the idea that she should be a “prop” or background figure; in Stump Sohla and elsewhere, she asserts creative control.

• She values transparency, honesty, and approachability in recipe writing and teaching. Her cookbook emphasizes letting mistakes be part of process.

In practice, her recipes often combine technical clarity with playful twists. She includes culinary science, troubleshooting, and cross-cultural sensibilities.

Famous Quotes of Sohla El-Waylly

Here are a few remarks that reflect her outlook:

“I just really don’t want to be a prop.” “I loved being part of one big organism working towards one big thing.” “I think when it stops being fun and I stop learning, I leave.” “Mistakes in the kitchen are often the way to gain fundamental skills and confidence.”

These encapsulate her belief that cooking is a process, not a performance.

Lessons from Sohla El-Waylly

1. Embrace fallibility. Mistakes are stepping stones in both cooking and creative life.

2. Speak up. Using one’s platform to demand fairness matters—silence has costs.

3. Adapt and pivot. When one path closes, new opportunities in adjacent spaces may emerge.

4. Teach with care. Making technique accessible is as much art as cooking itself.

5. Own your narrative. Don’t be a passive voice; make creative control part of your identity.

Conclusion

Sohla El-Waylly is a figure uniquely suited to this moment in culinary culture—someone who blends cooking proficiency, media fluency, and social consciousness. She reminds us that being a chef today is not just about food on the plate, but also about voice, values, and connection.