Lifestyle isn’t in photographer Marcus Nilsson’s vocabulary. He sees, he shoots—no underlying message, no bullshit. Instead, the words rough and raw roll off the tongue more easily when it comes to describing the New York City–based photographer’s work, whether it be a sloppy, half-eaten pastrami on rye from Katz’s Deli or his black-and-white candid of Danny Bowien at work with a wok at Mission Chinese Food in San Francisco.

It’s a fascination with black and white photography that originally got Nilsson into his line of work; the former fine arts student changed majors after one semester in photo class and has been behind the camera ever since. His first big break was a breakfast feature in Gourmet, which he scored after creative director Richard Ferretti found his then dinky website and booked him for the job.

Nowadays, Nilsson shoots for the likes of Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, and Travel + Leisure—and he’s got a much niftier website. For his top ten photographs, Nilsson gets down and dirty, braving the meat locker of Dickson’s Farmstand Meats and stacking a cookbook-laden seat for Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys at Mas Tacos Por Favor. Notice a theme here for the motif-less shutterbug? Just straight-up delicious food and people who are awesome.

Follow Marcus on Instagram: @pissinginthepunchbowl