Every time friends of mine travel abroad, they ask me to recommend Indian restaurants. When I answer, quite honestly, that I try not to go to Indian restaurants when I travel (it’s a long way to go to eat a butter naan), I am greeted with looks of scepticism. “But surely, you have met some great expatriate Indian chefs?” I keep being asked.
Well, yes, I have and I do sometimes go to Indian restaurants when I am abroad but I don’t go to enough of them to be able to speak with any kind of authority. Nor have I travelled as widely as I would like. There may well be great Indian restaurants in say, Rotterdam or Nanjing but I have never been to either place so I can’t comment but here’s a list of Indian chefs abroad who I rate, based on my limited experience.
I have left out the giants of the profession who would top any list because enough has already been said about them. So, you won’t find Gaggan Anand on this list because he is now way beyond these lists. Nor will you find pioneers like Vineet Bhatia and Atul Kochchar, the first two Indian chefs to have won Michelin stars for their restaurants and I have not included Srijit Gopinathan whose San Francisco restaurant was the first Indian restaurant to win two Michelin stars, on the same grounds.
But, of the chefs who currently run restaurants, these are the ones I rate -
Gymkhana, which was his baby, may now be the most successful Indian restaurant in London and is the only one with two Michelin stars. Head and executive chefs will, of course, come and go and try and take credit for the food. Many of these chefs are very good but their arrivals and departures make very little difference to Gymkhana. Ultimately it is all down to Karam.
I am a fan too of Brigadiers’ another of his concepts and, of course, of JKS’s Hoppers, one of my favourite restaurants in London.
When she finally left Noma, she was ready to develop her own voice. She worked first at Gaggan and then opened Gaa right opposite the original Gaggan restaurant. (Gaggan was a shareholder). After Gaa moved out of that space (as did Gaggan) her evolution continued and she has just become one of the few Indian chefs to have earned two stars at the new Gaa, her Bangkok restaurant.
Chintan is probably best known for New York’s Dhamaka but his responsibilities straddle many successful restaurants, some of which try and give such cuisines as Bengali, the prominence they deserve. Others go in a completely different direction, such as Rowdy Rooster, the pioneering Indian Fried Chicken place.
In everything he does, you find his signature eye for flavour and detail , his unwillingness to compromise on the integrity of the ingredients and his refusal to tone down the authentic flavours of Indian food for Americans.
His strength is flavour. Even when Surendra makes the simplest dish at the London Jamavar the flavours are so deep that you realise what it is that makes his food so special.
Sujan Sarkar is a serious Indian chef whose talent has never been in dispute but who, many of us, had begun to take for granted because he had become such a familiar face. But Sujan has surprised everyone by going to America and opening hit restaurants there. His latest, Indienne in Chicago won a Michelin star and is admired for the sophistication of the cuisine. His other restaurants operate at different levels, one measure of the versatility of this great chef.
Indian food is now approaching that stage. You may not have heard of Rydo but as Gaggan Anand’s alter ego, this Indonesian chef has understood the intricacies of Indian food and cooks it far better than many famous Indian chefs. Go to any of Gaggan’s restaurants when the great man is travelling, and the food will be just as good: That’s because Rydo is in the kitchen.
As Gaggan says, many of the best dishes at the Gaggan restaurant emerged out of a collaboration between Gaggan and Rydo. Some even started out as Rydo’s ideas.
The Taste by Vir Sanghvi: Top Indian Chefs elevating global gastronomy standards
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23.04.2024
Every time friends of mine travel abroad, they ask me to recommend Indian restaurants. When I answer, quite honestly, that I try not to go to Indian restaurants when I travel (it’s a long way to go to eat a butter naan), I am greeted with looks of scepticism. “But surely, you have met some great expatriate Indian chefs?” I keep being asked.
Well, yes, I have and I do sometimes go to Indian restaurants when I am abroad but I don’t go to enough of them to be able to speak with any kind of authority. Nor have I travelled as widely as I would like. There may well be great Indian restaurants in say, Rotterdam or Nanjing but I have never been to either place so I can’t comment but here’s a list of Indian chefs abroad who I rate, based on my limited experience.
I have left out the giants of the profession who would top any list because enough has already been said about them. So, you won’t find Gaggan Anand on this list because he is now way beyond these........
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