What Rapper Lupe Fiasco Eats for Breakfast

The left-leaning rapper (and son of a chef) wakes at 11 and is "definitely a toast guy"

November 16, 2012

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Welcome to My Morning Routine, where we take a look at how people kick-start the day. And by people we mean celebrities.

Lupe Fiasco is a rapper known more for his socially conscious and far-left-leaning rap than his cooking skills. He did, though, rise to fame with an album called Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor, and he just dropped another called Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1. He also grew up with a professional chef for a mom. So he's not exactly without culinary cred. He talked to us about his morning routine. --Sam Dean

What Rapper Lupe Fiasco Eats for Breakfast

My mom was a chef, but my father was a straight fast food guy. So you knew, if we were with my father, we were eating out. But my mom's a good cook, and wouldn't splurge. She'd be real basic: lentils, rice, eggs and rice, or she would make these White Castle-style little sliders. Every so often, she would dip off to gourmet land, challenging us with some tofu or a machination she learned in school.

There are two things I can make well. There's this scallop dish I can throw down on real tough--a stir-fry Chinese hybrid-type thing I'm really badass at. And there's a spaghetti dish I learned watching Anthony Bourdain. It's just spaghetti and onions, a Sicilian dish, and I am f$%king awe. some. at it. You take five or six onions--full-on, grapefruit-sized onions--and cook them super slow in butter, some oil, a little bit of garlic, and some apple cider vinegar. You normally cook it all down with wine, but I don't use alcohol, so I substituted the cider for that. The onions lose all their acidity and harshness because you cook it for f$%king three hours, and it becomes this super-sweet sauce in itself. It's so good.

I do restaurants differently depending on what city I'm in. I just went to Europe and went all Michelin stars. Brussels, Barcelona, Paris--all high-class dining. It was a little odd: I would just get tables for one, and it would just be me, eating some world-class, 200-euro meal. But they were great. If I'm in New York, I'll just go to Katz's and get some big messy sandwich. But in Chicago, it's Gibson's Steak House.