Feb 2, 2023 · 35m · how-i-built-this
HIBT Lab! The Sioux Chef: Sean Sherman
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This Lab, Oglala Lakota chef and entrepreneur Sean Sherman shares his journey from childhood on the Pine Ridge Reservation to founding The Sioux Chef, opening the James Beard Award-winning restaurant Owamni, and leading a nationwide movement for indigenous food sovereignty.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 34.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 3.4 Guest teaching 4.7 Guest disagreement 0.4 Guy pushing back 0.2
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 21:27 Reframing indigenous cooking away from historical recreation
Sean firmly rejects the notion that his mission is about recreating museum-piece historical recipes, clarifying that it is about modern culinary evolution.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 30:29 Pressing on commercial profitability vs critical acclaimGuy pushes past the accolades and James Beard hype to question whether Owamni is actually viable as a business given notoriously tight restaurant margins.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 15:56 Explaining the systematic timeline of lost native foodwaysSean educates the audience and host on how quickly culinary knowledge was stripped away through the reservation and boarding school systems within just two generations.
Guy holds their own ▶ 17:46 Framing pre-colonial cuisine as the original Whole30 dietGuy makes an astute cultural connection, showing strong conceptual grasp by linking ancestral native elimination diets to modern wellness movements like Whole30 and Paleo.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pine Ridge Reservation and Government Commodity Foods | 4 | 6 | 1 | 0 | Guy prompts Sean about growing up with government commodities and hunting on the Pine Ridge reservation. Sean educates the host on the devastating systemic health consequences, pointing out the direct link to a 60% type 2 diabetes rate in tribal communities. | |
| Early Kitchen Jobs and Latchkey Cooking | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy and Sean bond over their shared experiences as latchkey children in the 1970s and 80s making makeshift meals. The dynamic is completely collaborative and nostalgic as Sean explains entering the workforce at 13. | |
| Head Chef at La Bodega and Kitchen Burnout | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Guy demonstrates knowledge of restaurant industry stress and culinary career arcs. Sean details his rapid rise to head chef and the 90-hour weeks that led to severe burnout. | |
| Sabbatical in Mexico and Indigenous Culinary Epiphany | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Sean describes his sabbatical in Mexico and encountering the indigenous Huichol people, realizing he knew hundreds of European recipes but fewer than ten true Lakota recipes. | |
| Mid-Episode Break: Revitalizing Native American Cuisine | 3 | 6 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks how Sean began researching indigenous food traditions when no written culinary record existed. Sean explains his foundational method of studying native botany and historical forestry knowledge. | |
| Decolonizing Diets and Historical Erasure of Indigenous Knowledge | 4 | 7 | 2 | 0 | Guy brings up fry bread as the common conception of Native food, prompting Sean to provide deep historical context on forced assimilation, boarding schools, and intentional diet decolonization. | |
| The Tatanka Truck and Modernizing Native Ingredients | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Sean describes the Tatanka Truck and working with true hand-harvested wild rice and heirloom corn. When Guy asks if he is recreating ancient dishes, Sean clarifies that his goal is modern culinary evolution. | |
| Mid-Episode Break: Preparing to Launch Owamni | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Sean details the long journey to open a restaurant, including crowdfunding on Kickstarter, pandemic delays, and pivoting to provide 10,000 emergency relief meals during the 2020 Minneapolis civil unrest. | |
| Opening Owamni and Pre-Colonial Menu Architecture | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Guy gives Sean space to walk through the opening of Owamni and its distinct pre-colonial sourcing ethos, including local wild herbs, native fisheries, and game like beaver and rabbit. | |
| James Beard Recognition and NATIFS Non-Profit Expansion | 4 | 4 | 0 | 2 | Guy presses Sean on whether the critical acclaim and James Beard award translated into actual business profitability given brutal restaurant margins. Sean candidly confirms the difficult unit economics while sharing his non-profit expansion plans. | |
| Long-Term Vision for Indigenous Food Sovereignty | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about the 20-year horizon for Native American cuisine, and Sean shares his broad vision for systemic food sovereignty and improved public health across tribal communities. |
Statements from this episode (15)
Sean Sherman: Food access correlates with 60% tribal diabetes rates
“Now that I do a lot of work in food sovereignty and health and nutrition, I just look back, and I see a lot of those issues as a direct, you know, correlation of why we have upwards to 60% type two diabetes in some tribal communities because of that food acces…”
Sean Sherman bypassed culinary school to study textbooks while a sous chef
“I'd thought about going to cooking school for a hot second, but I was already a sous chef at that time period, and then so I literally just bought the books and just studied those, you know, and because I was in the kitchens all the time, I just kind of, you k…”
Sean Sherman knew hundreds of European recipes but under 10 Lakota recipes
“I could name hundreds of European recipes off the top of my head, and I could only name less than 10 Lakota recipes that weren't, I didn't have influence on them, you know.”
Sean Sherman: Indigenous peoples globally had blueprints for sustainable living
“I realized that indigenous peoples on a global scale, basically had the blueprint to live sustainably with the world around them, and there's just so much plant diversity in indigenous diets.”
Sean Sherman's indigenous food philosophy cuts colonial ingredients like wheat and dairy
“Some of the philosophy I created around what I was doing was to showcase what our modern indigenous foods one of the first steps was just cutting away colonial ingredients, and really focusing on indigenous ingredients. So I cut out things that didn't exist he…”
Sean Sherman: Owamni is strictly gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, soy-free, and pork-free
“Because at the restaurant, we follow that philosophy, and we're gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, soy free, pork free, it's like what every diet's trying to get to, you know.”
Sean Sherman: Minnesota wild rice is hand-harvested and distinct from commercial rice
“So, cause we have the true wild rice that grows here in Minnesota. That's completely different from any of the black rice that you see in the markets at all. Cause all this stuff is hand harvested. People are harvesting in canoes. We're buying directly from in…”
Sean Sherman: Indigenous cuisine aims for modern evolution, not recreating the past
“Absolutely, because I wasn't trying to recreate something from the past. I was like definitely interested in learning techniques that people had and were utilizing. But I was really more interested in bringing this into the modern day and creating a sense of w…”
Sean Sherman launched The Sioux Chef with $5,000 and 420 credit score
“When I quit my last chef job and started the sous chef, my life savings was a Less than 5000 dollars, and my credit score was sitting at a comfy four 20, I believe, at the time.”
Sean Sherman: The Sioux Chef had Kickstarter's most supported restaurant campaign
“At the time we were, out of all the restaurants on Kickstarter, I think we were the third most successful at that 150,000 dollar mark. But we also had the most supporters just because we had it, we did it very organically, and like our average was less than 60…”
Sean Sherman: Food Lab sent 10,000 meals to Minnesota tribes during pandemic
“We got a small group of our team back together in our kitchen and started doing food relief all through twenty-twenty feeding a lot of homeless encampments, and then as the winter came around, we started sending food directly to tribal communities, so at the h…”
Sean Sherman: 70% of Owamni's staff identified as Indigenous at opening
“And 70% of our staff identified as indigenous, which was amazing for us, especially in a city like Minneapolis, which isn't that diverse.”
Sean Sherman: Restaurants are the worst business model
“Restaurants are really the worst business model, and you have to just constantly keep up with the rising cost of food.”
Sean Sherman: Owamni has been sold out every night since 2021 opening
“We've been blessed that we've been sold out every single night since we opened the doors in July of 21.”
Sean Sherman: NATIFS plans Food Labs in Anchorage, Bozeman, and Rapid City
“We're already planting seeds to open up more food labs right now in Anchorage, Alaska, Bozeman, Montana, and Rapid City, South Dakota to start with, and we have a whole bunch of other cities interested that will soon follow”