Kenji worship can be a little weird, but assuming because of his heritage means he can't cook Pho is ridiculous. His contributions to Serious Eats and America's Test Kitchen have immensely pushed food science forward.
I don't think it's fair to say he has pushed food science forward.
He piggy-backed on the work of real food scientists and revealed things to the public that have been common in professional kitchens for decades, but then where he adds his own methods the evidence is often "trust me bro".
As someone who grew up in the household of two chefs one classically trained the other a development chef I see James Lopez as little more than a loud-mouthed amateur, have you tried his no-knead pizza dough, it's absolutely shocking, I think he later tried to distance himself from it claiming it came from another chef.
As someone who grew up around professional chefs you might not understand the true baseline level of cooking knowledge that many have going into adulthood; following a recipe is a challenge and they have no idea why they do any of the steps.
Kenji Lopez-Alt (weird that you intentionally chose to write his name in a way that he doesn’t) is by definition not an amateur (he worked professionally in kitchens), but more importantly, he is a really good communicator. His work is about explaining the why of cooking instead of the how to people who did not have the benefit of being raised by professional chefs. He may not have pushed food science forward, but he has pushed understanding of food science forward. His writing is for people that have no clue that adding pasta water to a sauce is a thing, let alone why. Of course professional chefs know to do this, and some of them even know why.
Has he had some dud recipes? Sure. That’s a good thing though, it means that he is willing to both try new things, as well as make mistakes.
