The First Indian Chef with Two Michelin Stars

Chef Sri Gopinathan is the first Indian chef in the world to earn two Michelin stars and one of San Francisco’s most successful restauranteurs.

This distinction arrives with an asterisk—because Indian cuisine, despite being one of the world's oldest and most technically sophisticated food traditions, has never been treated as gourmet. Chef Sri is changing that in the most beautiful way possible.

Chef Sri speaks with the sensory precision of someone who has spent his life understanding flavor not just as taste but as memory, emotion, and culture. He describes the smell of his childhood kitchen with the specificity of someone for whom that smell is a moral architecture. He talks about tadka—the Indian cooking technique of tempering spices in hot oil—not as method but as feeling. And he carries with him a deep, almost spiritual understanding of what Indian food means to Indian people: it's not cuisine, it's inheritance.

Join us for a fun, honest, and deeply sentimental conversation about what everyone gets wrong about Indian food, why the world's most prestigious culinary institutions have been blind to it, and how one chef is changing that., the first meal he ever made and what it taught him, how he overcame that bias to earn recognition at the highest level, what he hopes his last meal will be, and what it means to fight for the dignity of your culture's food.

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Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Don't worry about it because the only people who would know South Indian food are South Indian. You will have to explain it to them because the amount of knowledge a German would know about South Indian is probably almost the amount of knowledge a North Indian would know about South Indian.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

My guest today is Chef Sri Gopinathan. Chef Sri is the first Indian chef anywhere in the world to win two Michelin stars. I wanted to have Chef Sri on because I've been thinking a lot recently about the idea and obsession with authenticity. Authenticity reached a fever pitch with my generation, millennials. For a lot of people in my generation, something being authentic became more important than it even being good. It became more important where the beans came from and who roasted them and who grew them than whether or not the coffee even tasted good. And I find that conversation to be really funny. Because I find that it's a question of how far you decide to zoom in. Authentic to who? Authentic to what? Everything Chef Sui does is incredibly authentic to him. All of his food is incredibly authentic and specific to the region of South India that he comes from. It's also very authentically Californian. And it is undoubtedly authentically incredible. But it doesn't really match anyone's definition of either Indian food or Californian food. That's why I found this conversation to be so rich. I find Chef Sri to be a really thoughtful person on the topic of what it means to truly be yourself, what it means to represent yourself and your life well. I love this conversation. It's the most fun I've had during the entire time making this podcast. With that, I bring you Chef Sree Gopi Nutton. Chef Sri, um thank you for being on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Um I want to start here. I want to sort of set up the world that you grew up in a little bit and the food world that you grew up in. Uh, can you start by just describing how your childhood kitchen smelled when you were growing up? What what comes to mind when I even mention those words?

SPEAKER_02 2:19

I mean, more than the kitchen. Yeah, childhood. I grew up in a very joint family back in South India in a district called Kenya Kumari district, which is a tip of India. Uh, grew up in a joint family household. Grandmother was the the chef there, uh everything there, pretty much. Uh and the kitchens were outside the home. It's never inside the house. Yeah, because we always built kitchen outside the house because it was all wood fired, and we didn't have LPGs and stuff like that. So big kitchens, it was meant to be not for the people. First of all, a lot of people lived in the joint family home. Second thing, it was never meant the kitchen's never meant to be for the people at home. It's also meant to be for people who are working at the farm. Yeah. So a massive kitchen, big pots of uh rice boiling and lentils boiling. Uh whatever you get in your backyard, it could be a banana flower, it could be bananas, it could be banana stem, it could be coconut, it could be pepper, whatever it is. I mean, those are all the stuff which is cooking. So if you ask me specifically, I can uh I can remember things like definitely fish happening at some corner because you're coastal. Yeah. Uh lentils boiling because it is cheap. But my grandma was cheap. She used to just manage it with what she had in her hand. Rice, of course, red rice. I remember red rice, that that's that musky and what's what's the aroma? Kind of a earthy uh kind of uh an aroma coming out of the red rice, which is popular in Kerala and Tamil Nadu for that matter. Those would be the things. And then uh little dogs with no leash running around uh near the kitchen. Yeah. Uh then goat, couple of goats we had at that point, I remember. Uh the you know, the goat poop falling all over the plate, smelling that. Yeah. Uh those are the memories I definitely can remember. Then black pepper drying in the corner, uh, turmeric, those type of things. Those are all things which are grown around us. Those would be a top memory items if I one um that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

You immediately took me back. Um I um one memory I heard you mention, uh I think at an interview somewhere that I really connected with was the experience of having your mom or your grandmother send you out to pick something from the yard. Correct. My mom used to send me out to pick curry leaves from our front yard. And you had what was what was that for you?

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Yeah, like numerous curry leaves, right? That was like not even, I didn't even thought, I didn't even think that it is important to even talk about it because it's understood. Yeah. There's so many curry leaf trees plans over there. Uh spinach, like I mean, I don't know what, I mean, it's not the spinach what you see here. It's kind of amranth kind of spinach. Um remember uh what is it called? Uh guava, uh mangoes, green mangoes, uh, jackfruit, jackfruit in different ways, like smallest one which you use for savory preparation, and this bigger one you you ripen them and eat them. Oh man. Uh black pepper, uh, which used to creep on the coconut trees, like it's a creeper. Yeah. Uh and uh tapioca. Oh my gosh, so many things I can hear.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Um yeah, I think this in particular the the smell and the sight of black pepper immediately makes me think of South India because people don't realize, I mean, that's where it's from. It's from South India, Carolina, it is specifically, yeah. And I didn't realize when I until I went there for the first time how abundant it would be. It's not just that it's from there, it's it's everywhere in Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

It's all over the place, yeah. It just uh it just uh going around on any tree. Basically, it's a creeper, it's all over the place. Yeah. It's going.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Um tell me this. What is the first thing you remember cooking? What is the first dish that you ever made?

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Ah. I actually uh cooked with full freedom, uh, not in my uh back back in my hometown. It was always after that when I went to do my bachelor's in in Bangalore, where I lived with my dad, because he had a big apartment. Uh he used to be, he used to work for uh what is the investigation agency, CBI. So this home was, he was always traveling. So his home was always to me, like for myself all. So that was where I started my experimentation. I the first dish I successfully made was a caramel custard. Uh I made a lot of things. I mean, stir-fried rice and you know, fried rice and you know, things like uh lentils and all those stuff. But I feel uh I felt that I accomplished something when I made the first caramel custard in a pressure cooker. Yeah. Remember that. We used to have this uh company called Prestige, uh, which makes pressure cookers. So I made that inside that in a little katuri or what do you call a little bowl, yeah, monkey bowl we call here. So I remember making that uh and just uh kept it for a little bit and ran a knife around it and just put it on the plate, and it just came out of the caramel flowing, boo, wow, I did something amazing.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Yeah. I think um I don't think people, it's talked about enough how um how critical caramel custards were to our childhoods. They were everywhere, weren't they?

SPEAKER_02 7:27

They were. I mean, they're probably one of the top, you know, you see your gulab yamun and jalevis all the place. But caramel custard is not something which you would see on a little glass box in your Mithai shop. Yeah. This is an this is an exotic stuff. Yes. So you're always looking for the exotic stuff thing, that caramel custard. Yeah, naked kind of thing. And also when you see the TV started coming in and then chefs slowly started cooking in the television. Yeah. So those are the things they showed first. And when you look on a fancy restaurant, that's something which is caramel custard.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

So you tend to kind of get inclined, attracted towards that. That's that was a fanciest dessert of that time.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Yeah, which it's to me, thinking back to it now, it's so funny, right? Because um, you know, we come from this place of incredibly rich, sort of dense cuisine. But to us that was normal. And so to us, the exotic thing was this like, you know, the caramel custard that came in like a pack, right? This powdered custard, which is it's it's a funny thing. I think like when somebody goes to India or truly for that matter, any place, like um, I think you expect everybody when you go to Mexico to just be eating Mexican food. But of course, you know, in in Mexico, the people, you know, they they they want to try what's exotic to them. And so it it creates all these kind of rich, sort of strange, unexpected layers to a cuisine, to a culture that I find very, very interesting.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

So I think I also think that uh colonization also kind of drew us a little yes, slightly differently. Our just just they they just adjusted our DNA to to believe that what you have is not the greatest thing you have. Yeah, but what you what is brought to you is the best thing. Yeah. So that's also that, for example, Cadbury chocolate was like an exotic. Yeah, because they it's believed that it is coming from Britain, even though it was made in India, I think. I don't know. Uh but uh it's a British stuff. Yeah, like I knew that. So they believe that that's the best thing ever made. I mean, yeah, yeah, those type of things. So probably that's also an uh story idea.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

It's my favorite sort of genre of um of uh you know package goods to buy is when I go to like um my wife, uh her family's from Hong Kong. So when we go to like a Chinese store, you see these all of these goods that were marketed, made in Hong Kong for people in Hong Kong, but marketed as being British, right? And every country has that, right? Well, we had, of course, our our custards, we had, I mean, Britannia. Well, you could just you didn't think about the name, right? Britannia. Literally, it's there, you cannot pick, you might as well call it the Queen's Jam or something, right? And it was it was uh I don't think a British person ever has tasted Britannia, right? It's made in Ambatour Village in Chennai. Yeah, exactly. But it was market and to any, I'm sure to anybody coming from the West, it would be a pretty poor jam, I would imagine. Or poor, you know, we have our own version of cheese and all that stuff. But for us, again, it was just the most exotic, the most luxurious thing. Best thing ever. I wanna I guess the bigger point that I want to ask you about there, right? Just in staying with your sort of childhood, um, when you think back now, with all of this sort of experience, all the world that you've seen, all the cooking you've done, you know, what what made that cuisine very broadly uh Indian cuisine where I've heard you say this and I believe this there is no such thing as Indian cuisine, but specifically South, and maybe even specifically like you know, Kerala cuisine, what made it unique in the kind of greater context of the world's cuisines? Um the food that your family was cooking day over day, what what to you makes it so interesting now, understanding it as a chef?

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Two sides to it. One, um, you're made to believe that that's the best thing. Because, like they say, most people, we all say that uh who's the who's the best cook? My mom. Actually, your mom is not your best, not the best cook, but mom maybe but the problem is your your head, your brain is made to believe that's the best food you thought. You yeah, it is. So that side of the story is always that your food is always uh amazing to you, that side of it. But I also feel that I want to be honest here because um the food I grew up with, I ate it from the south of India. Uh if if I look back now, today what the modern world is striving to be is probably kind of the food what we had we have over there. For example, a lot of it is plant-based, a lot of it is uh, if you look at it, uh a lot of it is gluten-free, a lot of it is plant-based. Two major things over there. Most of our fat is coconut fat, even though there's studies beyond that, how good is coconut oil to you and coconut. Number one, and number two is uh your uh what is it called, uh um gluten-free. We again going back to it, rice and the sugar story and all those things that, but today we're striving to get this whole gluten-free story that we never had gluten, that gluten came to us later when we I mean that's a long story. That's we did not, at one point we did not have rice uh because uh of whatever happened at that point, and we brought in wheat uh for that. That's how the Kerala Parata uh took birth. Before that, it was always uh mostly plant-based and gluten-free diet, what we had back home. And also uh low on animal fat, uh, the ghees of the world came later on the stage. Butter is not something which is used in any cuisine. So there's a lot of the the the healthy side of the story does exist, even though there are other sides of the story also, uh, which I probably don't want to discuss that now because I'm trying to justify the goodness of my cuisine. Yeah, you never mean uh that's one thing for sure. Uh and the other side of the story is seafood. I mean, uh I'm a coastal boy. I mean, I'm from the southwest uh coastal side of the story. So the addition of that seafood into the uh into the game of our cuisine makes it even more robust and amazing, yeah, and also healthy on that side of it. Uh so those are the things which stands out for me as a cuisine, which uh which is probably uh not there in the rest of the country story, uh as well as the rest of the world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

I uh I'll look into the camera just to say this one part. Um if you have tried Indian food and you have not liked it so far, um, go specifically to a South Indian restaurant and then decide if you actually, in quotes, like Indian food or not. I think people don't realize, firstly, just how many different types of Indian cuisine. I think I heard you say there is no Indian cuisine, there's cuisines of cuisines of India because how do you how do you justify this thing, the Indian cuisine?

SPEAKER_02 14:13

How does it even work? Because every town has a cuisine there. Okay, let me give that. At least every state has cuisine, and few states have a robust, solid uh two, three cuisines in one single state.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

I think people don't with food specifically, but in general too, I think it's hard for people to fathom the just the size and scale of India, right? And the the the density of it. Because, you know, you're talking about uh a landmass as big as Europe, bigger, right? In some cases, with states that are the size of a European country, with their own ethnicities, right? In every way, as ethnically different, like you know, people from my people, from UP and and North India are as different ethnically from your people as Germans are to French, if not more, right? That's true. Different language, very often different religion, much more difference in sort of geography and geology, right? Which of course affects cuisine a lot. Uh the closest ocean to me was a thousand miles in any direction. And you literally grew up at the intersection point of three separate oceans. That is true. So to me, um, there is at the again, I don't think people realize um to call to boil it down to two dishes from Delhi, right? Uh butter, chicken, and sakbonir, is you could not do it, would be like saying, Oh, do you like European food? And then to say the two European foods, of course, are pizza. That's criminal. That's criminal. Like it's that's the biggest thing you can ever do. Yeah. It just was okay. So let's let's talk about this. I want to switching to the next part of this, you did a beautiful job of kind of making me feel like I'm in your childhood, you know, kitchen. Um you know, let's uh fast forward a little bit in the story. You go out and you train at uh CIA, not the intelligence agency, of course, the at the Culinary Institute of America.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

The one point I want to touch from from you said before that is that you mentioned about how how different is it for an UPI or a or a deliade or a Rajasthani to South Indian food. Yeah. It's funny that I was talking to an uh Peruvian or Chilean uh server or uh Salamarian server, uh and I was he was asking about uh the food at Copra, specifically we were just talking about he's a server there. And I was saying uh that you know, he was saying, how do how do I the exact problem you had, like I have to listen to uh a server who does not know even 10% of what I probably know is explaining to me. Same sort of he asked me this question, and I said I said that, you know, uh don't worry about it because the only people who would know South Indian food are South Indians, you will have to explain it to them because the amount of knowledge a German would know about South Indian is probably the almost the amount of knowledge a North Indian would know about South India. South Indian.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Because it is, they are different cuisines, they're completely different cuisines.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

There might be one or two things they talk about and and talk as if they know a lot, but actually they don't know anything.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

It's it's that's the honesty.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

No, this is this is an excellent point. I think uh so I had this experience of going to Copra, your restaurant, right? With uh friends uh were, you know, I uh the crowd was 50% Indian, including me. Four people, two Indians, two non-Indians. And uh, you know, at first I was joking about this, and I was I was joking about it when you got here, which is there's a it's a uniquely funny experience to to have somebody not Indian, an American person. I think I think our server was European. I felt I just wanted to put her out of her misery and myself because she was having to explain, you know, Indian food to me. And at first I I thought it was really funny that, you know, she has a job to do and you know what she's explaining. But then I realized pretty quickly, no, no, no, she actually there were dishes that if she didn't explain it to me, I wouldn't know. We wouldn't understand. Yeah, exactly. So that is a very uh you you're you're exactly you're on the money about that. Well, I want it okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

So that's the food critic. I remember a friend of mine who was has a restaurant in called Quillon in um in London. Yeah. When he opened his first Southern restaurant like 15 years or 18 years ago, a food critic who dined at his place, food critic, remember that he dined at that place, and this is London, and he said, uh the food's great, food's good, amazing. It's a classic South Indian restaurant there. I mean, it's a southwest coastal restaurant. I mean, how in the world you forgot to put none on the menu?

SPEAKER_00 18:37

I don't know what nan is. Yeah, no, it is for for people listening that maybe don't understand that. It's like going to an Italian restaurant and saying, like, why is there no schnitzel or why is there no whatever, you know, why are there no grapes on the menu? Yeah, it's crazy. Sorry, uh in terms of that. Well, that's it's actually exactly relevant to what I want to ask you. Right. So you go from this very like vibrant, rich culinary uh tradition to, you know, you have a very um very highly pedigreed culinary education, right? You go to CIA, you work at uh kitchens all over the world, um, you work at a two Michelin-starred kitchen in in London. Um, I guess my first question to you there is what did you notice as being different about what your understanding of food was going into this with the world of Western cooking, right? And then what you experienced there. Like what was the biggest new thing that you learned about I guess maybe especially Western cuisine uh when you got into that universe?

SPEAKER_02 19:38

I think uh I would compare that to um not in the city, Indian streets uh in our hometown versus a street in London uh is a comparison for or on any part of Europe or in America. I'll tell you why I said that. Uh because uh if you go to a street in London or any other uh the so-called first world nations, you will have avenues and blocks and it's all it's all put together, like in Chandigar, we have.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

Uh it's all organized and well placed, and if you know everything and all this thing. But you go to my hometown or my uh little uh Tavandum or wherever it is, or even Bangalore for that moment, Bangalore, notoriously Bangalore. Go to that place. If you see there is no block, there is no avenues, no nap.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Yeah, it's everything everywhere all at once.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Yeah, there is robust material there, but there is no none of those organizations. Yeah. It's exactly how Indian food versus uh versus uh the Western food situation. Yeah, culturally, in kitchens as well as in cuisine, how it was put together, it did not have uh it it even it till today it does not have a very organized way of uh uh documenting or uh organized way of uh uh you know uh kitchens being drawn and restaurants being done in those days. Now it's changed a lot. It's a similar way. If you look at Indian cuisine, Indian cuisine uh a lot of it has not been recorded. A lot of Indian kitchens were not very organized. Uh the organizational uh skill sets came from the Western world to India. If you look at hotel kitchens in India, those days there used to be one person who knew to cook. He used to do a bunch of marinades and a bunch of cooking. He the people used to look at him and learn. He doesn't even have the uh have the uh balls to ask the guy how it was made because he has uh his own way. There's no recipe um documenting, none of those things. There's nothing existed. The cuisine is probably like three, four thousand um years um uh old, but nothing was there, it was not organized in place, even till today there are secret recipes exist. Yeah. And people don't know what that was not the case in uh in uh Western world. It was a lot, there's a lot more organization. Place.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

So that's something which I really learned. And I I'm pretty sure all the chefs today would agree with me. They learned this from the Western listen because they had everything in place. Everything was measured. Even today, if you ask your ask your mom or ask my mom, how is it made? She says that uh, you know, full of the skin, yeah, handful of that, and the teaspoon of that. Yeah. And she's talking about a teaspoon which was which is very different from the teaspoon you can imagine. So that's the same story. I mean, that that was the difference. I learned that uh how to put things in place. Yeah. Uh, from the Western world, for sure. That's definitely an eye-opener for me.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

When I ask my mom for a recipe now, um, she will try struggle. She for years she would struggle to try to write it down on WhatsApp or whatever. Now she has decided she'll just make the full dish and just video record it and send that to me. Smart is the only way she can describe it. She has no units of measurement attached to anything. Uh, but okay, that that that makes a lot of sense. I think that actually for me brings up a related question, which is so I had this experience um last year. I went to this really fantastic restaurant in Jodhpur. It's like a farm stay, they're doing like an agro tourism thing. Um, and you know, when I was leaving, the chef had come from Indian Accent in uh in Delhi, and I think he'd also been in Indian accent, New York. And when I was leaving, uh, he came out to say hi. And so I said, Thank you so much for the meal. You know, I I would love to see you with a star one day. Uh and he said to me, he said, Well, for that to happen, they would have to come to India first. And I it is, I think, surprising to a lot of people. Um, you can correct me if my numbers are wrong, but is there any restaurant with a star in India today?

SPEAKER_02 23:38

No, there are many restaurants uh with with stars in India, but they do not have stars because the Michelin is not in India. Yes. They much Michelin has not uh been I mean gone to India, they've not introduced their their whole inspection situations. So that's not because they they don't deserve or India Indian India doesn't have India India has now India has restaurants which are of highest caliber. Yeah. Because Indians, I mean, we've got to be proud of us. Very talented people, he's a very smart bunch of people. Yes. So uh it's a shame that Michelin did not go to India yet. And it must be on their books very soon. They must be visiting that place.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

So maybe there's a broader point, Chef, um, which is you know, Michelin is one institution like this, but there are you know hundreds of others, right? Correct. These people uh who sort of make a living, right? Um, I guess judging cooking and judging cuisine. Um why isn't Indian cuisine seen as, or why aren't Indian cuisines seen as being on the level of you know, the obsession in the West with Japanese cooking, right? Or with French cooking, is it just as simple as as that that you know we just didn't write it down and we're not as organized? Um, it's not as well documented. Or is there is there another reason, is there a combination of reasons? Why isn't it seen as one of the great cuisines of the world?

SPEAKER_02 25:06

So um the first part, yes, uh not documenting not all those things makes it harder. That's not it. That's not it. Uh in my opinion, I I don't want to reduce it to that narrow thing, but I I I I will say one thing we also did not do really well was not one thing, two things. One is the biggest thing would be um we as Indians for some reason did not do the screening of the story from the top of the mountain, number one. Yes, number two, we did not celebrate our cuisine as much as the other side did celebrate. Because the celebration part of it, we are we are silent, we do things in some kind of an underground work kind of a thing. We don't, we don't I don't know why. Are we not proud of it or we didn't realize how how good we are uh in compared to others? I don't know why we as a as a as a as a country, as a culture, did not celebrate our cuisine enough. Yeah. Now we are. Now we are the new generation is celebrating. Uh when uh it was, I mean, I'll I'll tell you a sad story about myself and my people from my generation. I being in India uh did not realize the importance and the amazingness, I don't know if that is a word, of Indian food. Uh and I always wanted to learn the Western cuisine because I was told the other other thing is better, even though I was eating that cuisine all day. Yeah, I don't know why it's a dumb thing, I thought. Uh but uh when I came outside India, it's when I realized, dude, this is this is all a fluff. I mean, there is a lot we have. You didn't realize this is amazing. Yeah, and then I just turned around my ship saying that no, no, no, no, no, this is not, this is not it. Yeah, you gotta do more to what uh I we grew up with and we did, and we have. Yeah, it's just there. I mean so celebration and storytelling are two big things we did not do a very good job with. Yes, which the generation today is starting to do, starting from my the thing. I mean, I'm talking about being here for almost 20 years. Yeah, uh, it took me some time, but uh I realized it and started telling stories and started celebrating and screaming at everyone's ear, saying that what you have is gem. You're not even realizing it. Yes, and now it's all coming together. Yeah, and uh not just as a food, I mean India as a country's. Yeah, you should know that better than anybody because it's coming together in a big way.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

So I I I'm glad you brought that up because I I've been thinking about this a lot. Um, with kind of every part of a culture, there's this sort of conversation online where Indian people, young Indian people will talk about like, oh, Prada came to India and took the Kolapuri sandals, right? And they didn't credit us, or they'll say about yoga that you know, people took yoga and didn't credit us. Right now, big conversation in fashion is around like these scarves where a lot of brands start selling it, started calling it Scandinavian. But to any Indian person, it's very obviously, you know, a Sad Rad communities, right? Um, and I appreciate that point, you know, when Indian people make that argument, and I'm sympathetic to it. It's a long history of things being taken without being credited. But I do think there's some amount of self-reflection that we do need to do, which I think you just did a great job explaining, which is, you know, when I was growing up, if I'm being honest, yeah, today I can be angry about uh people taking yoga and not crediting Indians for it. But when I was growing up, there was nothing lamer that anyone could do in my life than do yoga. It was what old lame people did, right? And I had no interest in doing yoga. I wanted to do whatever, I wanted to do parkour, I wanted to do jujitsu, I wanted to do what whatever was happening, I wanted to make custard, right? Exactly what I said. Yeah, exactly. And so I think there's some amount of self-reflection that it's not just for Indian people, but every culture needs to do, which is like, yes, you should fight to be given credit, but also recognize that you didn't appreciate the thing until people from the outside started appreciating it, right? And um and yeah, I think that like um, you know, I I had this kind of guttural reaction. I was watching, I think Andrew Zimmerman um on some podcast and he's talking about he said, There are only two great cuisines in the world. It's Chinese food and Mexican food. And my reflexive reaction was like, Oh, you don't you forget one there, Andrew? But then I was like, but it's not on him to know that. That's true.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

It's we need to have more copers and we need to have more celebration storytelling. Yeah, that goes back to that, and just uh that's the only way to educate people. And this is this is something which I'm trying hard to do. And there are so many chefs today are trying hard to do in different parts of the world, including uh in this country, New York, as well as here. I mean, we're trying hard to do that. And it's I think it is an amazing thing which is happening now. Yeah in the last 10 years or so, uh, at least five years, it's become robust. Uh, last 10 years or so, it's it's actually taken off. And also, it's supported by uh the I mean, everything needs money, everything takes money. And that's what we have right now. Yes. So that's all helping.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Yeah. Well, so I want to um bringing this back to your story a little bit, right? Um, so you come from this very vibrant food culture, you experience the very kind of methodical, uh, almost scientific world of Western cooking, right? And again, at the CIA and at these two Michelin Star kitchens around the world. And then you have this moment that you just mentioned of realizing, what am I doing? I mean, in some ways it's the perfect place to be, right? To have both the skills and the the sort of this very like scientific approach that you've learned, but also to have this incredible background to kind of pull on. When that moment happens for you, you know, and you decide I'm going to make Indian food and I'm going to make it in a very particular way. I guess my first question there would be what were you what were you hoping to do? When you first thought of like, this is what I want my cuisine to be, what was that for you? What what what were you trying to put out? And this can be both about was it just that you thought, okay, I'm gonna make traditional Indian dishes with um the uh, you know, the methodical in the methodical way that Western dishes are cooked? Or were you thinking, no, no, I'm going to start to innovate on Indian food? Well, how did you approach the beginning of your journey making Indian food?

SPEAKER_02 31:35

It's kind of all of it. I mean, what you just said, there are a few things you touch, they all actually are relevant here. Um you I definitely wanted to I mean, I as a human being, uh, it's not easy for me to unlearn something which I learned because it's not worth doing that, because your time is limited in this in this planet. So you just can't just all of a sudden, okay, I learned all this year, I'm gonna just ignore it. So I was thinking, I'm an Indian, I learn Western uh a lot, I have cooked a lot of Indian food also. I understand Indian food a lot. I'm in California, uh, I'm in a place where uh I can get this amazing ingredients. So now what do I do with all these things in my hand? Yeah, this is a bunch of puzzles in my hand. Uh if I put it right, I can create an amazing uh story for myself and for the cuisine. If I don't, then I might look like a stupid. Yeah. It's fine. It's okay. Um, but fortunately for me, uh the time was with me and uh I was in the right place, I thought, uh, California, which where people kind of did uh accept and appreciate what I did at that point. And as I evolved, uh I also have enough support from our own diaspora. Uh that also came into uh a good help. And then as I grew up from there, I also found the right people to fund me to further do things more.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

To me, it was all perfectly timed somehow. I did not plan on those timing. Uh uh I came into this country in 2007. Uh and I in 2008, everything goes down in the market, everything is going for a shit. No, we're paying $200 for a meal off and then it's mean. Yeah, I had like four or five people dining at my restaurant at that point. Literally four or five people. Yeah. And I was backed by a bigger hotel company, so I could get my paychecks. If not, I would probably not have a paycheck. I would have got fired. Yeah. You know? So uh that's one thing. I'm very thankful and grateful for that. And then following that, I also had the patience to not overthink and do what I was doing continuously. Uh, plus, I also had this support that not if not the support at least nobody bugged me saying that wind it up and go home, kind of a thing. So I had that time to continue. And over the time, a year, a year and a half, I was trying to reinvent myself there. Yeah. And my story thing, and what can I do with what I have in my hand?

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

So that's how this whole cuisine of Calendan cuisine story came into play. Uh, wherein I created this whole menu with uh California ingredients, a lot of California ideas at the same at the same time, some of the Indian techniques and Indian spices and all those things. So we created a cuisine over there at Campton Place uh restaurant. Yeah. Then 2010-11, we got we were just recognized by Michelin at that point. Yeah, we were fortunate. Uh, never planned for any of those things. We thought, I mean, I thought I'll just do what I'm able to do, kind of a thing. But I had a few things in my mind, and none of those things I thought would take me this far. But we built that, and in 2014, uh we continued doing that. In 2014, here we go. I was a we were the first um uh Indian restaurant to get two stars. You were the first Indian chef, right? It's true at that point, yes. I mean, I mean, I I I feel bad to say that honestly, because you're being very South Indian. So many Indians, chefs who were who are uh was better predigree pedigree and better uh skill sets, probably, I don't know, a lot talented than me are back in India. They did not have stars because this Michelin never went over there. Yeah, that's kind of BS, but I what what do I say?

SPEAKER_00 35:13

I mean, I was fortunate. I mean, I'll take that. No, okay. Chef, if anybody was ever interested in the difference between North Indians and South Indians, culturally, this is if I was the first Indian chef to have two stars, it would be the first words out of my mouth when you met me, okay? It's the fact that you're being so humble, you're making it about the market dynamics and about the recession and about about who funded you. Chef, you were the first Indian chef to have two Michelin stars.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

That's a really hard you know, humble humility. I always say this uh to my team, you know, uh that's core of my how I operate. That that that needs to be that the word I I I read it somewhere recently. The word human and humility are the word which comes from something called humus, which is mass, which is living living soil. These both are coming from the same word. So I think as human, humility is like understood. If somebody claims that I am like high level of humility, I think I'm just doing my job. And in humility is as a human. That's that's all you're doing. You know, it's the same thing. So I think uh, I mean, uh yeah, I mean, I still think there are a lot of people who deserve uh who deserved before me because I know chefs, uh chefs like Floyd Cardo, chefs like uh so many, so many chefs uh who all deserved uh stars and beyond that at that th those days. But yeah, I was I can I can uh happily say that I was probably one of the first, and in and I'll I'll take it.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Yeah. Well, I I have a lot of questions about this part because I was uh living two blocks down from Taj Campton Place when when you got those stars, and and so I remember this very well. I guess the first I would just want to focus on the personal moment of winning, I guess, your first star and then winning a second star. Um yeah, just talk me through finding out just the day that you found out that you had won a star. Um, what what was that day like for you?

SPEAKER_02 37:11

It's a history now, but yeah, uh but then uh it's funny. The first star, yes, I we just got a call from it's as usual. They they just call you. They just call you on the morning, that morning. Yeah. And first I didn't even expect what the hell it was. I mean, somebody called me up and uh said, uh, hey, uh so and so. I actually got an email asking for confirming who's the chef and all those things a few weeks ago or a few months ago, whatever it is. I said, Yeah, as usual, somebody's just writing you. It's okay, I'm so-and-so. Yeah, uh, and this is the number bar. And they called me up uh in the morning at around eight o'clock or so. Uh your restaurant has been awarded with uh one mission star, and uh you're invited for the event this evening a Wednesday with a so-and-so place.

unknown 37:55

What?

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Then I looked up online with Google obviously, that's true. And I told a couple of people, hey, this thing, there's a guy, one guy uh from Europe, he had told me, seriously, yeah. Oh man, you're gonna be full this evening. Be careful because we've been doing like six or seven goals, but yeah, you're gonna be like 60 tonight. Wow. Uh level of thing, and then uh two stars, it was actually a pretty shocking surprise for us, a good surprise, a kind of thing. They called me up and again called that day. You guys have been promoted to two stars, and we have an event today at the Swenso Place.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

Wow. Oh my god. Um okay, I want to set this uh in the context of um everything that was going on at the time. So I want to I have two separate questions. We'll get into when you started doing this, or I mean you you're still in the process of doing this, what was going on with Indian food in India? We'll get to that in a second. But first, I actually want to talk about the context of um what was happening with Indian food in America when you start uh at Taj Campton place and you go on to Win Stars. Um, I guess I'll start with a question which is why is Indian food in America so fucking bad? Why is there's why is it so rare for there to be a Taj Campton place, for there to be a Copra? Um, especially back then, right? Like it it's one of the largest diasporas. There's so much money, it's the wealthiest diaspora in America. You would think that there would be more good Indian food. And I'm talking about at every price point, I'm always surprised maybe it's just my problem with having standards that are too high, but I don't think it is. I I I do think that it's I don't think it's the same as true for London. I think London's always had really good Indian food. True. For some reason, in America, Indian food has always been um, you know, 40 to 50 percent worse than uh uh than what we can get in India or in uh in London or something like that. Why is it so hard to find even today? Warm Intro is brought to you by Wii Funder. WeFunder created this thing called the community round that lets you raise money directly from your community. So instead of going to VCs and rich people, angel investors, you can go straight to your friends and your family and your customers. And, you know, this is not a traditional ad read. I used Wii Funder for my company three times. We ran three rounds in Wii Fund and we raised over a million dollars. And I found that it completely changed how everybody felt about our business. Customers all of a sudden didn't feel like they were just customers. They felt like they were owners in the business. They shopped with us more, they told their friends about it. My team felt like what we were doing was important because our community had shown up to invest in us. I tell every founder I can find to go raise a WeFund around. Especially for companies that care about community, there is nothing greater you can do than letting that community invest. Go to WeFunder.com slash join to check it out.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

I'm pretty sure there was a time in London which we uh when they were like in uh like in America today, yeah, at some point for sure. Because the phenomenon seem to be almost similar from uh India's a different story because uh cuisine is but I think uh London and US cities, it's probably the same phenomenon. They probably would have had crappy Indian foods at some point too. Uh and today we are in a lot better place. Today even US is in a lot better place, but London is in a slightly higher place today. So I think that's the evolution over the time with changed and resources. I think that I think the the the biggest phenomenon is probably uh having uh having uh passionate, educated uh and uh chefs coming to this country would be the number one step uh who has skill sets. That's the number one step. And that happened, that never happens in the initial stage because the restaurants normally in Western world started because somebody who had money, somebody in those days, there's no tech that much. Is there financial institutions or doctors or one of those people who came from India to settle here and had a lot of money, and then they realize I don't have good food to eat, and then I want to create a small restaurant where I can eat. So, you know, that's how it starts. You know, I don't have food. I need to create something for myself. The selfish thought of someone who actually uh made the because I don't think anybody who come came from came from India uh came here uh for a uh railroad uh work or any kind of menial job. They all came for very highly educated uh those days, not today. Uh uh so obviously they did not have to go build a restaurant for the for to win bread for themselves. Yeah. They definitely came here for doing different things. Then they realized that shoot, I don't have good food here.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

Uh so how do what do I do? Either get my I mean, you know that the maids situation in India, everyone had a everyone who could afford had a maid and has a maid today. So they brought in people for that, and then they start made them the chef there of that particular little joint they created, and that became a restaurant. And the guy who cooked over there, who was a maid, all of a sudden thought that, oh shoot, there are people coming in eating my food that I'm a chef today. Yeah. So they become a chef. Yeah. Uh and eventually uh they taught a bunch of people, and they also become a chef. Yeah. And the story is a bunch of um uh uneducated chefs got created. Yeah. And then they created things what they thought is right. Yes. And then they created what they thought is Indian cuisine. And now we have an Indian cuisine which is not an Indian cuisine. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean?

unknown 43:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

Or cuisines of India, however, you call that. And then they uh started repeating. And then also they did not have Chat GPD or Claude or um uh Google search. The time they could not do any research. So all they had was the little um uh carbon dioxide they've been breathing the same uh you know uh resource they had sakpaneer, butter chicken, yeah, talter guy and black doll. So that kept repeating like a swing. Yeah, and that's how it it it all began. That's the evolution of that cuisine. Yes. And then all of a sudden, uh they realized, oh, there's some thing called this whole thing called profession called chef. They actually go to educate themselves, they work with other people, they understand the cuisine, then they get to the science of the story and they create something new, and then they they don't stick to the so-called authentic only, and then they actually jump out of the uh think out of the box and do things beyond that. That's how cuisine evolved. And that's how it happened new as this happened. This uh this was uh this whole thing of the American Indian cuisine or a British Indian cuisine, uh definitely for for them it's British Indian cuisine, for us it's American cuisine, uh stayed in uh like almost like a like a like you know, like a pressured balloon for the longest time. And then all of a sudden, in the last 15, 20 years, it exploded. And then uh people realized this is not this is not amazing. Yeah. Uh and then the good chefs started coming in, they're traveling, people started investing uh in this, uh, in this world. Yeah. People, even though they realize it is not the high margin business, they started, they had enough money to do that. They had that that 10% they put aside for the random work. They had that money, they invested in restaurants, and good chefs were born, and then they created new things. And now uh the it's it's in the upport trajectory. Yeah. That's exactly what happened in London that happened in uh happening in the US.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

That is a really interesting point that you just made. That um I think it's the aging of a diaspora, right? Because I mean the the the biggest bulk of Indians in America came in after the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s, but really in particular in the late 70s, 80s, right? That that's when it really starts, Indian immigration. And of course, in London it's much, it's much older. So I think I don't know. It reminds me of like, I think it's Aristotle or someone said, I study philosophy, so my sons can study the sciences and their sons can study the arts. Right. And it's a little like you need to get to that point in a diaspora, right? Where the Indians that came maybe uh a half a generation or generation before you and I did, they were busy just trying to make anything. I mean, they needed food, so they they started restaurants, but they were they were they weren't here for that. They were here to to be doctors and to be engineers.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

They were scientists, doctors, engineers, and later on people in NASA and all those things. But uh definitely they didn't come here just to build a restaurant to make that life living.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Yeah, I I want to just explain this to Americans just so they understand, because I feel defensive, but you know, I feel like I need to kind of defend Indian food here. Imagine if you went to a country and they served you a hamburger and uh they said this is American cuisine, and then you found out that all the burger restaurants in that country were started by the Facebook employees that didn't sent out there, right? I'm sure there are people that work, if my sister works at Facebook, I'm sure there are people who make a great burger. Um, but it's not the group of people you would rely on to make incredible cuisine to represent your cuisine very well, right? Exactly what it is. And I think that's what happened with Indian Americans. But so this is about what was going on with Indian cuisine in America or you know, maybe around in the world outside of India. Uh we have this great term in India, which is ROW, right? Rest of the world, which is an iconic. I it's such an Indian way to think about things. We describe everything as India and then ROW, the rest of world. Oh my jeez. But so I want to go back to the not ROW, I want to go back to India for a second. Something I find very interesting. I don't I go to India once a year, um, and something I find very interesting is um the most innovative food I have in India, the stuff that is new every year. I find that I'm having much more of that uh at street food uh uh with street food vendors than I am at uh the supposed sort of fine dining restaurants in India. I'm finding that the street food vendors in India are being far more innovative and experimental than, and maybe this is specifically North Indian or Delhi thing, but than the supposed high-end kitchens. High-end kitchens are basically, I find, decided there are 10 to 20 dishes that all of them are gonna make, and they're just gonna sort of put their slight twist on it, but they're just gonna keep making the same thing. But every year I go, the street food people are doing something new, something different. The I have two questions there for you. Firstly, is that has that been your experience? And then the second question I have, which is sort of a broader point about where does cuisine come from, right? Is it when you think about the Indian context, there's a story that somebody can tell you about how a lot of Indian people like telling the story. I don't know why, that all Indian cuisine comes from royal kitchens, right? That's a story many Indian people love, that it was all the cuisine, it's the cuisine of kings and queens, and how it was uh written down in their royal cookbooks and then got passed down that it became the common man's cuisine. And then there's a different understanding, which is of my mom and your mom. And it came from all of the innovation came from the homes and the streets, right? My I guess, yeah, very specifically, is that your experience with Indian food? Is that like the you find the homes and the streets are being far more innovative than the high-end kitchens? And then secondly, as a more broader kind of historical point, do you find that that's um that's always been the case, that the homes and the streets are more innovative? That's what produces developments in cuisine, not so much, you know, these whatever high-end kitchens of the time. How do you think about that? And it's a good question, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 49:57

No, uh, it's a very good question, actually, very interesting question. This this is this is actually both, because uh India, given the given the nature of how this country, I mean, it's just it's just a line drawn between a bunch of kingdoms. That's how it was always India is that it's an idea which was just uh thrown around by somebody who's probably never even spent five years in India, drew a line around this, and this is what India is going to be, or this is what subcontinent is going to be. It's very funny, but unfortunately, the I mean, that that's a that's a real story. Yeah. Uh going back to your question, yes, um, the cuisines definitely is formed. Uh uh one, it's a natural phenomenon of farmers uh bringing in their stuff or people growing their own stuff and trying to put together and boil it together, or bake it together, cook it together, and creating something. That's one, that's a very organic way of peasant food situation. And the other side of it is the robust uh trying to please, trying to make somebody feel good, uh trying to massage somebody's ego would be the would be the uh dishes out of the palaces and dishes out of the kingdoms. Those would always, you can differentiate that very easily. You know, it's it's super easy to differentiate. If it's a if it's a fully built up, uh, you know, um loaded with ghees and butters and you know, though the the most difficult uh expensive thing to buy, saffrins and all those things to buy, that would certainly, most certainly be from someone's uh uh someone's palace. I mean, some king's palace or one of those things. And the the the basic things like you know, lent dal or lintel boiled with some little bit of tomatoes and garlic and uh onion, that's got to be most probably from some someone's home. So there is definitely our chana, which is boiled at some masala and just have it with some kind of a roti. That's gotta be from somebody's uh it's an organically developed somebody somebody's home or whatever it is. So uh this amalgamation of basically bringing together these two things made uh the cuisine of that town. I won't call it cuisine of India because there's so many cuisines. Similarly, that that's how cuisines evolved, for sure, 100%. Going back to your question of uh you see more innovation on the streets, uh uh yes, it is true. It's not that innovation doesn't happen in restaurants, but innovation happens in the restaurant. A lot of innovation which happens in the restaurant or the ideas which you pick up either from homes or the ideas which you pick up from the streets. A lot of ideas I have picked up is from streets.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

And a lot of ideas what I've picked up and I've done is in uh derivation of something which I whom I saw uh someone doing that on the on the bus station or a rail station or in in Can I ask you for an example?

SPEAKER_00 52:48

I'm I'm so curious about this. Like what are the kinds of things you picked up from the streets?

SPEAKER_02 52:52

Okay. Uh so many, but I'll I'll give you uh one recent example I can tell you. Uh there's a there's a uh there is a um it's a dish I did, very simple dish. I did um what is it called? Uh uh in Tamil we call it Tenga manga sundal. Sundal is basically something which is basically peanut uh it could be made with so many things, could be with chickpeas, it could be made with uh peanut steamed peanuts. You basically you stand this guy standing in a little cart with a little uh a kerosene stove with a little pot on top of it, uh literally there's so much flame going on it, and this is constantly boiling. And what he does is he basically takes it, puts it in a bowl, adds some onion, tomatoes, cilantro, uh, some kind of some masala of his own. Mostly it is dried red chili, he calls it secret spices. There's nothing secret about it. He gets in a little shaker and just put in that secret spices, yeah, mix it up and put it in a little cone, paper cone, newspaper cone, and gives it to you. Yeah. And I've always enjoyed this. I've always made one uh uh way or the other in one of our restaurants, uh either as a salad or as an appetizer or as a stuffing to something. Yeah. That's that's a classic this thing. I add different things. For example, if I get tart green apple, I instead of green mango, I add green apple to it. Yeah. I keep changing things around. Similarly, you have so many, so many ideas of big top. Uh an example of uh uh, what is it called? Uh the fried chicken you mentioned at Copra, which you really enjoyed, and most people enjoy it, yes. That's again something which uh in my hometown where people put a big karai of uh or scum, uh what is it called? Rat. And you put oil, which has probably been frying there for like five days, yeah. And they're a nice little fried chicken being fried out of it. It's so enjoyable, so amazing. Yeah. And that's uh tattigara fried chicken because tattigara is basically little little shop that you find on this thing. Yeah, it's classic. So many of the dishes were taken. Similarly, the going back to your question, innovations, yeah, innovation happens uh on the streets more because the investment to do that innovation is almost zero. Yeah. Because you just go there, wake up in the morning, and it's like, huh, let me put amel cheese on top of the tomatoes and shout inside two breads and press it between a panini. That's innovation right there. Because how much did he spend? Nothing. But you have to do that in a restaurant, you're actually thinking about so much investment and thinking, unless you already have an um established. It's not that it doesn't mean that restaurants, restaurants is a lot of innovation happening on a constant basis, but these types of visible innovation lot happens at on the street level a lot more. Yeah, and plus plus, think about the number of restaurants versus number of street vendors. Yeah. So millions. Yeah. So you see more innovation, obviously that because number by itself, or the virtue of being on that level, that number of people doing that, innovation obviously increases because they're all they're all in one way, they're all chefs. They're all innovative chefs. Yeah. They may have done only one innovation in their life, yeah. That is an innovation, but millions of them are doing it. So you have uh even if it is five percent, it's five percent of a million.

SPEAKER_00 55:58

Yeah. Um, no, you explained it beautifully. I think um one thing that um I think about a lot is you know, in recent years, uh, especially on Instagram and TikTok, videos of Indian street vendors uh doing, you know, all kinds of insane things to food have gone very viral, right? And it's become, for many people, the main touch point they have, the main understanding they have of what life is like in India is of some Indian street vendors just doing crazy things with food, right? And I, you know, fine, uh have your laughs, I guess. But I do really hope that at some point these people get to experience the other side, right, of the magic that happens on every block of India. Well, we don't have blocks as you already mentioned, but that happens in every, you know, mile of India, every hour of every day, right? Like the innovation of a man who feeds a family of six with a cart the size of you know six feet by two feet, right? And what he has to do to stand out, and how much pressure is on him to change up something that literally 10,000 other sweet vendors make the exact same dish and he needs to find a way to stand up.

SPEAKER_02 57:16

Um luckily we have a not 350 million people, 1.4 billion people. So that kind of helps. Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_00 57:23

But I really hope that you know, once everybody's done laughing and sort of like mocking uh Indian street food and these guys, like I hope we then have a moment where we all recognize the other side of the spectrum, which is the sheer ingenuity, the genius, the hard work, the honesty fantastic taste of Indian street food. So I hope I hope I live to see that moment um in my life. But bringing this back to now the very other end of Indian cooking, right? Your restaurants, um I I want to start with, I guess, this one thing, um, which is you know, just thank you. Um I I know you don't feel this way, but I was living in San Francisco when uh you got your first star and then you got your second star. And I remember a lot of my friends, and my non Indian and non-Indian friends had never seen an Indian restaurant like the one that you ran. And I I'm sure there are many great Indian chefs who've done this all around the world. But for me, that was you, you know, and I got to have that moment of um um uh of having an Indian restaurant to talk about the way that my um, you know, my French friends would talk about French restaurants and my Japanese friends would talk about Japanese restaurants. And that was all you. So I I just wanted to, there's not a question there. I just wanted to thank you.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

So no, I it I mean uh yeah, I'll I'll take that. But but I I will say this is so true because I've experienced that firsthand, not once, not twice, so many times that uh Indians bringing their uh uh non-Indian friends on Indians bringing the non-Indian um uh in-laws uh and proudly showing both to you, that sounds right away, and showcasing, hey, listen, this is not just you guys. I mean, we got something too here going on. So it was a proud moment for so many people. Uh and I always thought, well, that's true, because I never planned on all these things, but I was just thinking, hmm, that's an amazing phenomenon going on here because and then when I see towards the end of my um uh time there at Canton Place, I saw it a lot of these uh these kind of interracial people coming to dine. And I thought that wow, this is all about show show showing off. I mean, yeah, there's a lot going on. I mean, it's it it felt good, honestly thinking it's felt good.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

Yeah. Um I have uh one question for you about you know your your your current restaurants. Um when the the non-Indian, the rest of the world part of that table, right? The rest of the world when they when they're part of the table, and they walk into your restaurants, right? And they're walking in with you know people of all levels of experience. There are there are non-Indian people who know a lot more about Indian cuisine than I do, of course. But when a person like that walks in, the average American consumer with their average set of assumptions about Indian food, um, at Copra, at Ethan, what are you what are you trying to tell them with the food, right? I mean, even down to quite literally, what are you telling the servers to say? Um I it's a two-part question, which is what is the assumption that you think most people are walking into your restaurants with? And how are you trying to challenge it or or even in some ways feed into it? How do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:47

Number one goal for a non-Indians in our restaurants is to is to basically showcase what has not been showcased at the same time showing what has been showcased in a wrong way. Those are the two things. And educate them. There is no challenging, there is no uh criticizing. It's about educate them. And the greatest thing about uh most, I mean, everybody, there's bad apples everywhere. But the greatest thing about uh um about this new world countries like America is most people who come to a restaurant are actually receptive, are actually uh are fine enough to actually sit, listen, understand, and respect. Yeah. There is a few people there are a few people uh who are not, I'll come to that. But most people, I always have a good experience of they respect um what you do and they they are curious to know uh what uh is being fed to them, or they also find to uh say their two cents if they know a little something about it. And that's all good sign. I mean, that's that's that's very good. Uh there's also a small group of people. I've I've had a uh a person, uh I mean, I have no problem saying it loud, uh somebody from Russia who's actually from this industry, um uh who's a chef. Uh the person is a chef, and uh he or she had that meal uh and then uh actually made a comment saying that how do people even eat this food? You know, literally, and uh I'm pretty sure any given day we do uh that room full, and that day also was a case. I was not there personally that day. And my first question was, what did you what did you think when you said that when uh two three hundred people around you are just sitting anything without saying anything close, remotely close to what you just said. Yeah, you know, yeah, that's so ignorant. You do have people like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

I uh also the the irony of a Russian chef saying that is I had uh an American man, I was taking a group of uh you know, fellow when I was in Berkeley, a bunch of them came to America. I'm sorry, uh bunch of them from America came to India and I was taking them around. And after one day of eating, this guy who I he was the only person in the group I didn't like, already I didn't like, and he came up to me and said, Chai, come on, you have to be honest, man. Like uh at some point, all of this spice, um, it's there's you can't tell the difference, can you? And I said to him, I don't know why, I think I'd had a drink or two, and I said to him, Um, that is like a dog saying to me, at some point, all the colors look the same, don't they? I was like, that's a you problem. Like, I that I can pick up on all of them.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

I mean, uh, yeah, I mean, I mean, I if I I was not there that day when this happened, but I would have actually said that I mean the the potato stuffing verdosa has been already made. Otherwise, I would have given you a potato before making the stuffing, the whole potato. Yeah, I mean, you would have been nearly happy.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:01

Yeah, it's been spiced already, sorry. Yeah, exactly. I think I um when I hear somebody say that Indian food is X or Y, uh, it's to this or it's to that, I just say, look, man, a fifth of humanity eats it every day. Okay. Um it's uh this is a skill issue on your part, okay? Like this is not a don't blame the game, my guy. Just because you can't you can't handle the spice, which again is a very my wife when she got married to me had a spice tolerance of three out of 10. She is now a solid nine out of 10, right? Wow. You'd say it's I she would agree. It's um 12, 13 years together, we'll do that to you. But um uh it's it's plainly uh and again, I think when I try, uh there's so many dishes I have had in my life, and I'm a much far freer than you have, that I didn't understand at first. But I think it's I mean, to just to kind of close out this section and like how I hope more and more people enter Copera and your restaurants is um when you try something that you don't understand or you don't like, I think uh I would recommend making the first thought, um, okay, maybe this is something I don't understand and I can learn over time, as opposed to no, no, no, there must be something wrong with it, right? I think that in all the the proof you need for for this is just uh, you know, stories like yours, how much effort, how many people, how many hands touch every single dish, right? How many years of wisdom and experience, both your individual life and thousands of years of your family, right, are going into making every dish, that it's just statistically speaking, it's much more likely that the dish is right and you are wrong, right? Uh and I just hope that more people can maintain that openness when they try something that they don't immediately understand.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:54

It's time to realize there is a planet beyond the amazing two spices, salt and pepper, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

Yeah. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Okay, let's let's talk about the the all of the ways in which it has worked so well, right? Um I guess I just have one question that you know you've gotten critical acclaim. I have never seen an empty table at your restaurants. Um did it does it surprise you still that you've done as well as you have, or is it like, no, this is a natural product of my hard work?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:30

No, I mean it it's just it's everyday learning. I mean, I I will say one thing, and since you just brought this up, I mean, I'm probably the little face of all these things, but there are some there are some amazing people working beyond the screen, uh beyond the um uh house who are just working so hard to not just on a daily basis, on a on a high-level basis, strategic basis, on the financial basis, on the uh process basis, there are a bunch of solid people working. And I get to uh take a little more uh of the you know um the bigger wedge of the pie, at least to showcases that I'm doing it. You know, there's there's there's people, there are people like my partner, yeah. I mean, the kind of eye for detail she has, the kind of uh kind of uh uh the stake she brings in, the kind of expertise she brings in when it when it comes to the how the place looks and how it is created and all these things. I mean, the role she plays in building all these things, the effort she puts in bringing to this to the to the to life. She always says that I give birth and you uh you just grow the baby up kind of a thing. You raise a child, yeah. Yeah, raise the child, kind of a thing. Yeah, it's it's it's it's actually she jokes it, but actually it's true. And even that, I don't raise a child because there are other people who are raising their child. I have the CEO who works tirelessly, there are director ops, the chefs, and each places are chefs and the general managers, the manager. Jesus Christ, I mean, yeah, this takes a not a village, a few villages. Many villages around this place.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:16

So for me to sit here and yap around saying that, wow, I did it, it's stupid. It's like, so uh, I don't even know what the question you what was the question you asked me.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:25

No, you well, I don't remember, but it was you answered it perfectly, which is and um there's that signature South Indian humility again. It's but I don't know, but I do I do think that it is like I don't think people realize. Um, so I'm glad you brought it up, how much effort from how many different people goes in to a restaurant like Copera or Ethan. It's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:46

It's yeah, it's a question now. You asked me, yeah, it's it's it's yeah, it's not, it's definitely the amount of work we collectively put in is probably the reason why, the reason for this accolades and and uh um being able to fill up the tables on a day basis and serve what we think is good. I mean, there are so many people. There might be that there is definitely some people who think we don't do uh the best, but that's okay. This food is a subjective uh item. It's it's not something like you come and just decide. No, it's a very subjective item. You come in with an idea of this. You already walk into a restaurant thinking that this is what I'm gonna get. That's a natural phenomenon which goes in your brain. Yeah, nothing wrong with it. And sometimes you don't find it good. That's perfectly okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:30

I mean, what do we do?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:31

Well, okay, so I have um um, I guess a two-part question there. Um is there now, at this stage in your career, is there a compliment that really still hits home for you? Because you know, I I imagine they're compliments that you get so many times a day that you probably don't even hear them anymore, right? That's a part of everybody's life. Um, but then there are the things that still, when you hear it, it really, you know, it strikes a chord with you. And then I guess the other side of it is is there a criticism that when you do hear, you, you know, have to take a moment to think about it? Um, because again, it's the same way with with criticisms, the things that I just know are not true, I never think about, right? But with your cooking, with your restaurants, is there anything like that for you, the compliments or a criticism that really does kind of cut through a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:17

I think I think compliment-wise, I'll I mean everybody likes compliments and awards and occulates and rewards and all this thing. But I'll tell you, one thing which always have made me uh uh made me think about it and just when nobody's seeing, I just uh give myself a pat and just smile. Uh uh, you know, that is one thing which when people say, What that thing, what I had, it took me back to my college days. Uh it took me back to my childhood when I had it at home. It's just like my aunt prepared. That type of little things really uh uh in a good way bother me. Yeah, you know what I mean. Wow, okay, that could do something. That's amazing. Uh that feeling of it is um surreal because it's not like I got something, but I it feels, wow, that's good. So something I'm doing right kind of a feeling that definitely takes you home. In terms of criticisms, uh, people critique in different ways. Some say some talks about, some talk about it's not authentic sometimes. It some could be like overly authentic. Some are say, some would say that uh I couldn't keep up with that spices because it's overly authentic. I mean, yeah, what am I supposed to say now? And some would say that it's not authentic enough because my aunt prepared it differently. Yeah, yeah, but mine was a different aunt, not yours. I mean, I'm sorry. I mean, I wish it wasn't mine, it was the same aunt. Sorry about that. Yeah, you know what I mean? The sugarcane you got was different from the sugarcane I got or she got, so it's different. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:54

I'm glad you brought up the idea of authenticity as it because it's so connected to to the the compliment, right? True, true, true. Of like, okay, it's not how my mom made it, or it's it is how my mom made it. Yeah, yeah. I think um the the mistake that I think people make so often when they talk about authenticity, right? I think people make two mistakes a lot with food, I'm saying specifically. One is I don't think anybody understands the history of any cooking, right? True. I mean, anything that you would call authentically Indian, there's about a 60, 70% chance it came from outside India, right? And same for any cuisine in the world, right? Um, so I think what one, people just don't understand history and how recent things are or how much global influence there is. But the other mistake that I think people make is like, to me, at some level, it's just a matter of like, how far do you zoom in the lens when you make when you draw the line of authenticity? Because if you draw it at the line of um, is it authentically South Indian food? That's a very broad lens. But if you zoom in to your house or my house, right? Custard for a nice dinner was a very authentic thing. It's as authentic as you could get, right? And I mean, my mom, when I would refuse to eat when I was a kid, she would the her go-to was she would take mangoes and she would make pulp out of it. And it would be roties, ghee, and mango. Oh, yeah. That was my no Indian restaurant in the world, at least not to my knowledge, deserving roti with ghee and east too. Exactly, exactly. And you know, there are millions of examples of that. Like my aunt, um to get me to eat uh day old subsea, right? Like uh alugobi with like potatoes and cauliflower, she would throw them in the pan and she would do this thing the Italians do with old spaghetti, right? And she would press it down into the pan until the whole bottom was charred and crisped. And then she and she would smash a rotating, she would basically make uh an Indian quesadilla out of it. And that's how I would eat it. That is as authentic to my family as anything you can have. But um, if you don't zoom in enough, it can seem very inauthentic. So I'm glad you've brought up that point. And actually, I have two questions to close this out, and they're both related exactly to what you just said. Um, you know, you live in a world of food and you're surrounded by the scents of food. I want to I wanna ask you the question that you know your guests or your your the people at your restaurant are are feeling all the time, which is what is for you a flavor or a scent that takes you right back um to your childhood in the south of India? Like, is there anything that still has that effect for you where you try it? Maybe it's even a specific food you had recently that just took you right back to you know your grandma's kitchen?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:29

No, uh the more than I mean, yeah, there's a lot of some, a lot of some obviously uh number one thing, many things, and just too many things coming in my head right now. Number one is um the tadikah we make at home. We call it you know, uh simple things, you know, like things like coconut oil, you add mustard seeds and sometimes penugreek seeds, broken dried red chili and curry leaf. That noise it makes and that that aroma comes out of it, and you just dump it inside the inside the sauce you made, and that creates another one, and you put a lid on it. That's that's like that's like you cannot forget that. That that yeah it sticks to your mind for until you're gone. I mean, sounds like number one, and the sizzle what a dosa can make. I mean, we don't at home we don't make those thin, crispy things what we make at Copra today or anywhere, but we make like regular dosa, which dosa is made basically made on a little skillet. You put that and just not even that thin, uh just thicker one. That noise it makes and a little bit of ghee or whatever you put in, some puddie we put on the top of it. That dosa is that noise it makes, that that that's again, uh it's kind of what what is a word, uh what word do I use? It's like captivating, or it's like it's amazing, it's just a mesmerizing kind of uh uh thing. Those are all like, you know, and the the uh I still remember uh little she used to have this little aluminum pot where or uh sometimes it's character pot. It's a long, I don't know for what reason it is, and it just the red rice bubbling all the time and the lid, lid moving up and down, up and down, and she moves the lid a little bit to create a little gap and then the bubble coming out of it. Yeah. Yeah, the longest.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:21

But yeah, amazing. I oh my god, I I can't believe I was about to finish the episode without talking about tarkas. Um tarka for those that uh the the unacquainted is I think it is, I mean, it's of course it's a critical part of Indian cooking, but it is also the I I find the best analogy for all of Indian cooking, right? Correct. Which is, and maybe for all of India, honestly. It's you take, please correct me on the technique, Chef, but you take uh oil, you put it in some kind of small container. Sometimes they'll literally do it in a big meal or something. Fat fulmar, any fat fuller. Exactly. And you take, you get that oil bubbling hot, and then you put dry spices in there, right? And so you literally fry some spices, and then you take that and then you put that on top of whatever dish you made. So he made dal for again, like a lentil soup, which to a normal person, I'm sure is a perfectly complete meal, but to an Indian person is about you know seven degrees too lacking in flavor. Yeah, yeah. So you fry a bunch of dry spices and you dump it on top, and you're so right about the sound that the first the frying of the oil makes, then when the spices get added, that the the smell, the sight of that, and then when it gets thrown on top of an already prepared dish, right? And then having to like a bomb squad, having to quickly put a lid on top, like all of that is there's no better analogy. Then like David like concoction of flavor.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:41

True, that is the oldest uh infusion technique uh probably invented. Yeah, because I think I don't know if there is another infusion technique which got invented before that, but that's been there forever and that's been going on forever. So uh that's what a technique. Yeah, what an amazing technique. Yeah, it changes the it it's day and night before Targa and after Targa. It's like completely different story.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:06

Yeah, you know what I mean. The craziest thing about it is you'll take 45 minutes to make a dish, and then in the final seconds, you know what it's one minute, yeah, exactly. It's it's it's a different flavor altogether. I I love Tarkas as an analogy for everything Indian. Yeah. Um, I have my my last question for you, Chef, is kind of, I guess, a dark one. Um, but it's tied to the first question I asked you, which is what do you hope your last meal will be? And take your time with this. There's no limitation in number of courses, but let's say, God forbid, you you have the I guess privilege of selecting your last meal, right? Which only the very unfortunate in our world do. But if you get, if you have the ability to pick your last meal, what do you hope it is? As many cuisines as you want, any cuisine you want, as many courses as you want.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:58

Yeah, I mean, I think uh uh I don't want to go for a complicated meal in the last meal. I just want to keep it very simple because uh I don't know how far I need to travel because I don't know if there are toilets there. But I'm definitely gonna go for a nice, simple, crispy dosa with some potato filling and a nice coconut chutney.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:17

Ah, that's a beautiful place to end. Chef Sri, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thanks a lot. Oh my god. Thanks so much for having me. Oh my god, yeah. That was so much fun. Warm intro is produced by G1 Moon and Alex Aiko, hosted by me, Chai Mishra. Presented to you by WeFunder.