What were your favorite foods growing up?
I loved my mother's Bhel Puri; loved Dahi Gujias (stuffed lentil turnovers) made by Panditji who was our cook in New Delhi; my mother's Trifle Pudding; and all the street food I was allowed to eat. I have always had a sweet tooth. And it did not help that between my mother and our chef at home, our household has always had some of the best desserts anyone can want. So, I ate lots of them and often. Breakfast dishes in our home were always wonderful and never boring -- weeks could go by without any being repeated. It was always fun to wake up on a weekend, and be seduced by exciting tastes early in the morning. Festival food in our home was amazingly wondrous and also steeped in Indian traditions. Not many households celebrate festivals with such authentic food and rituals. My paternal grandmother and my parents made the festivals and their celebration be a way of us kids learning about India, its traditions and rituals. I feel blessed to have been raised in that environment, for even now, seas away from India, when someone wants to know about rituals around a festival, I can tell them often much more than most people could. And food was always their way of seducing us kids and getting our attention.

When did you decide you wanted to be a chef?
I wish I could say that I wanted to be a chef from a very young age. That would be a blatant lie. I did grow up eating great food. In fact, I grew up in a home and around family and friends that celebrated food several times a day. Each meal period and every snack time was a revelation for the taste-buds, and a celebration of living and living well at that. With such a background, it was not easy for me, at the age of 20, to find myself as a student in NYC, where it took time, money and discovery to get a world of great food to open up for me. What was most disappointing was the home foods that I tasted and ate. As much trouble as people went through, the results were not always exciting to my different palate. The Indian restaurants, upscale and the dives, were even worse off. They robbed me of pleasure rather than being the places I would visit when homesick. It was this that led me to recreate in the US, my life growing up in India. Within weeks, not even months, my student apartment, shared with a roommate, became a "restaurant" where friends and theirs were coming to dine daily, and often with complete strangers who they had promised some of the better foods they would eat in NYC. This reputation, led me to take the task at hand very seriously, and soon I was called to cater special events for friends and their friends. Sometime after, having done many freebie catering jobs, I found myself getting paid to cater and recreate in homes, rented facilities and event spaces, the meals people had gotten accustomed to savoring at my home table. Did I want to be a chef? Never. Do I enjoy cooking? Yes!!! For me, the reason I immerse myself in the world of food, is not to be a chef with accolades and stars, but to leave people with memories around great dining experiences -- in their homes (through my cookbooks); at ceremonies they attend (through our catering arm); and through dinners at my restaurants. This is the reason I am happy being a member of the world of restaurants, food and hospitality, which has endless hours of work and dedication. For me, the justification for having not having much time for myself and to travel endlessly comes from seeing smiling faces and the creation of memories of wonderful experiences around honest food.

If you didn't become a chef, what would you be?
I still feel that when I grow up, I want to go to medical school and become a doctor. Or, I would go do a PhD in politics and religions of the Middle East and teach after. Or, I would try and become a community-focused social worker who can sow seeds of change, and be in important part of civic duty. Most of all I love to travel and teach and learn, so something in academia would be best suited to who I am. Hence medicine, teaching it even more than practicing it or law, litigating in courts, as a non-profit pro bono lawyer or a professor in a university are my top three choices of professions if I were not doing what I do now.


Who/what has shaped your cooking the most over the years?
I would say my mother has shaped my cooking the most. To her, I owe my confidence in the kitchen. Growing up in India, I am sure it could have been difficult for me to spend as much time in the kitchen cooking, playing in the kitchen and spending time around the chef and with women who cooked in kitchens, had my mother not felt it was okay for a young boy to cook and spend time in a kitchen. So, I owe my mother whatever freedom I enjoy in the kitchen. She never suffocated her son. In fact, she allowed me to blossom in any which way I could. And of course, as fussy as some Indian recipes can be my mother has taught me to create drama and magic with very little fuss. That is where she shines. She is the queen of "less is more" and knows better than anyone I know about that dictum. She shines in tough times. And her recipes are always brilliant and tasty, and yet hardly ever steeped in useless steps, fuss and pageantry.

Of the classes you taught at NYU's Department of Food and Nutrition, which was your favorite?
I loved giving the spice tour. It was marvelous to watch the faces of the people taking the class, as they discovered new ingredients and new uses for ingredients they felt they already completely knew about. It was also wonderful to see the expressions on the faces of people as they discovered some esoteric ingredients, and then realized that these were used for eternity, and that they may have even eaten some of them without ever knowing so. Of course there is a certain joy that comes from watching people thrive around the scents, smells, tastes, colors and hypnotic seductive manner of spices. This was one class where I felt no one left bored or unchallenged or unchanged.

What influences your cooking style and particularly the menu at your restaurant?
My cooking style and the menu at Dévi are influenced a great deal by the secular fabric of democratic India. Every plate comes together to celebrate the tastes, textures, flavors and magic of several regions of India at once. India exists at many levels, with very diverse people, languages, religions and traditions, all fused together rather closely. And in this very mixed melting pot of traditions, religions and peoples, there is a cohesive addictive power to inspire and heal -- that one cannot find anywhere else. I take from that India every minute I live. And in doing so, I find always, a way to open my senses, extend my hospitality to one and all, and to never be afraid of change, difference and what is new. The homes of India, the Indian population and their brilliantly inspiring home foods and traditions, have left a lasting legacy on who I am and what I do.

What are your favorite culinary weapons in the kitchen?
The confidence to not be afraid of failure is the best weapon one can celebrate in any kitchen. Without this weapon, one could never learn to cook and enjoy playing in the kitchen. To enter the kitchen, is to open oneself to adventure, and allow oneself to blossom and bloom, to make mistakes, but always be present, and correct things as they may falter, but never be afraid to experiment. A mistake only happens in the kitchen when you do not learn from it. And, to make mistakes means you are opening yourself up, to experimentation, which always leads to knowledge.

What is your favorite secret ingredient?
My favorite secret ingredient is to cook with are love and hospitality. I tell all I teach, that without a feeling of wanting to host someone, feed them, and to welcome them into your life and at your table, no matter how hard you work, how good you cook, and how superbly ethereal your cooking is, your food will neither impress, nor leave a lasting impression. The meals one remembers the most are served in places with great energy, great conversations and a warm and welcoming group of people around you. And so, I urge people to cook with a feeling of warmth and hospitality — knowing their food will heal, transform and leave lasting impressions. My grandmother always said that one ought never to cook when angry, as you would give people food poisoning. Her words resonate with me always. As cathartic as cooking can be, it is not something to do with a sort of vengeance. I do use cooking as meditation, but of another kind.

What is the one rule or value you try to instill in all of your staff?
It is my hope, and so a request of all our staff, to treat the restaurant like their home, and thereby, treat all customers as guests coming into their home. With that welcome, I hope they will go out of their way to meet the needs of the customer, and care for them as one would of guests at home, and give them memorable experiences to savor, remember and talk about for a lifetime.

What qualities to you look for when hiring cooks for your restaurant?
Most of all, I want a hunger to learn, to experience life, and to grow as humans. If a chef is willing to grow every moment he or she lives and works, I believe in them. When a chef comes in telling you about how they feel they know it all, they have great experience and have mastered the art of cooking, I have to question their ability to grow any further. And in doing so, I lose the desire to work with them. For me, every employee is a potential long-term partner, and someone who could be an asset we never realized we would find through employment. If they are unable to invest of their time and do not have a hunger to grow and learn, there is no reason for us to invest our desire to grow as a company with them.

If I'm trying to watch my weight and I'm eating at your restaurant, what am I ordering to eat?
If you know how to eat in moderation, pretty much all foods are safe to eat. We use clean oils, lots of vegetables — legumes, peas and beans. And we cook as healthily as we possibly can. Of course, as with any meal, served anywhere, there are always some healthier elements. I would stay away from Naan as it is made with white flour. You can ask for whole wheat parathas instead. We offer completely vegetarian tasting menus for those who are vegetarian or are interested in a meal sans animal fat.

What is your least favorite food?
I am not a big fan of pumpkins and squash especially when made by chefs that have not eaten the vegetarian cuisines of Asia and the Mediterranean. There is a sweetness to squash and pumpkin that to me is about being on the background, and not front center when cooked. Many chefs do not work around this. They make the dish they prepare using these vegetables even sweeter than they naturally are, and that kills my taste buds. I feel the same way about cinnamon in desserts. Apple pie, a wonderful dessert, is killed around the U.S. by over-zealous chefs who think they are making the apple pie tasty by copious amounts of cinnamon powder. In the end, they make the pie cloyingly sweet and all about cinnamon, less about the flavor of apple. Having grown up with spices, eating food spiced to extreme amounts, instances such as these, turn me off, to the point where I am very suspicious of trying most apple pies. Apple Pies and Pumpkins and Squash cooked in the American way, are some of my least favorite foods.


When you are not eating at your own restaurant, where are you eating?
I wish I could say I eat at Dévi or American Masala a lot. There is a certain loss of anonymity and pleasure in being the owner/chef of a restaurant. You hardly get to enjoy a meal. It seems like you are always on stage, or always working. And that kills any enjoyment around dining. When I crave the foods we serve at the restaurants, I end up enjoying them made in our home kitchen, made for friends and family and sometimes for complete strangers to whom I am bringing hopefully a new discovery around flavors and spices. When not cooking myself, or hosting people at our home, I love going to Ino on Bedford Street in NYC and Zafra and Cucharamama in Hoboken, NJ. I am a huge fan of DiFara Pizza in Gravesend, Brooklyn and the food of Cesare Casella at Salumeria Rossi in NYC is always wonderful and inspiring. I love eating at the home of my dear friend Mary Ann Joulwan who makes me some of the best Middle Eastern foods available in the US. When in Chicago, I crave the food at Avec. In SF, I crave the food of Marnee Thai, which is serving the best Thai food one could find anywhere around the world. In Sacramento, CA, I run to eat at Lemongrass, where I discover how exciting the flavors of Vietnam are, when not dumbed down for people from outside of that country. As I travel a lot, what I crave most is the comfort food dishes from around the world -- those which shine most at home, and are prepared most often by friends and family and that at some of the restaurants that I have mentioned above. It is then that I am ecstatic and proud to be out and about in a restaurant setting.

What is the most spectacular meal you have ever had?
The favorite meal of my lifetime was eaten in a small town called Muchmucha in Madhya Pradesh in India. We were guests of my friends the Pathak family. They own thousands of acres of land. Part of their existence is supporting the villagers that farm their lands, and enrich their community with food and culture. Every day they go on hunts, find the foods that are cooked that evening and the day after. They create for guests a nightly spectacle of entertainment. Not too different from Cirque du Soleil at the Disney Food and Wine Festival, where you can eat and watch a show at the same time. At Muchmucha, you get to eat wonderful foods, grown locally, cooked by locals and gathered by them, and served al fresco in a beautiful setting around entertainment created by locals, using local talents and inspiration. The music and dance are what these locals have grown up with. The instruments they use are what they can make using local vegetables and wood and strings. By the end of our stay, we had learned not only about new dishes, but also about the life and culture of a new part of India. When I think of a dreamy, magical moment around food, this is where my mind travels to. I hope someday to be able to take all my close friends with me to Muchmucha to experience what I did over a week of sheer indulgence.

What is your best cooking tip for a home enthusiast?
The best thing a home enthusiast can do is remain enthusiastic about cooking. It is the enthusiasm and the desire to discover, learn, make mistakes, correct the mistakes as you coast along the process of cooking and, the ultimate desire to entertain at home, cooking yourself, that keeps the process of cooking inspired and magical. This is what I wish for all home chefs to remember. The less you torture yourself or the food during cooking, the better the flavors turn out in the end, and the happier your guests will be. I also urge all that come to my home, and to our table, to join in the process of cooking at all stages. I end up giving some friends the chores of measuring spices and doing mis en place, others end up washing and chopping vegetables, some marinade the meat, and I use the help of yet another as I cook things to finish. All along including all present at the house. Cooking then becomes a communal activity that feeds the body, mind and soul.