off initially. It’s only recently that people
have started travelling to south India a lot
and they have started understanding the
differences in regional Indian food.
Indian or specific north Indian, they don’t
tend to crossover.
So the first south Indian restaurant that
opened here and now has a Michelin
star in London is called Quilon. When
they first opened up, people used to go
in there, sit down and order some naans,
and they had to say: “Sorry, we don’t
have naan.” People were incredulous
and couldn’t understand why they didn’t
have naan bread. They would just leave
their menus and walk away because
British people were so used to having
naan with their Indian food – there was
no concept of eating Indian food without
having naan. I think now they understand
that they don’t have naan in south India,
they have pancakes, rice pancakes,
which are called dosas.
In India, I would say… I was very fond
of, what we call in India with a smile is
the spare parts, and that is liver, kidneys
and all that. So I used to make a chicken
liver dish - that was a huge passion of
mine and I learnt that recipe from my
uncle. And it was just pan-fried, very
Punjabi style, very north Indian style, lots
of spices and tomatoes and onions. You
just pan-fry the chicken liver really well. I
absolutely adored that recipe and I came
here, to this country, cooking that recipe
but in those days people didn’t look at
chicken liver too favourably but when
I started cooking it, Tamarind became
hugely popular. So, yes, I would say that
that was one of my best signature dishes.
I think other than chicken liver, everything
remained the same. Chicken liver was
British that’s all…
It’s also very much like if you… if you
go to a very strong staunch Italian
restaurant, one part has got pizza,
another part has got pasta, and any
restaurant that has both is actually
doing cross-border cuisine. That’s what
Indian food is all about. So I do dosas
once in a while and when I have a south
Indian dish on the menu, I do it as an
accompaniment but it goes back to the
same thing that I am not doing regional
food, I’m doing Indian food and it’s like
cooking European food so that’s what I
do… but as far as specialising in south
What was your first signature dish?
Where did you draw your main
inspiration from?
Family, my culture, my travels and, these
days, having lived in the UK for 20 years,
a lot of fantastic peer chefs. I look up
to them for lots of inspiration but the
biggest of all, which always amazes me
and keeps me on my toes, is nature. I…
I just love the way things get intensified
year after year - not many people notice
it but as a professional practitioner, if
you’re using the same ingredients again
and again, you realise that something
is changing about this ingredient and
it’s becoming stronger or milder or more
beautiful or more rounded. I don’t know
how much horticulturalists/scientists in
agriculture would have a hand to play
but, yeah, I notice that very strongly.
But, also, when it’s too cold you see
the changes in the vegetable. When it’s
too hot you still see the changes in the
vegetable. Not only vegetables - but
the meat as well. Meat and fish, and
when we often talk about the water
temperature in the ocean going up,
you see the immediate effect. How the
taste of the fish deteriorates, how bad it
becomes. So when we have cold winters
and then soon after that the first catch
is absolutely delicious because it’s spot
on, you have all that oil concentrated
in the fish and you enjoy it, so I always
look up to nature for the inspiration
and my creating a dish, I always go for
something like what you had just now, it
was somebody else’s recipe we tried in
the kitchen. It’s a beetroot ravioli. Nothing
to do with India but just Indian flavours,
inspiration is from Italy, but I used parsnip
with that. And if you notice in the field,
they grow next to each other and around
the same season. So nature has it all
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