I want to make India proud by celebrating our ingredients: Chef Niyati Rao, Ekaa, Mumbai

Radio Finely Chopped by Kalyan Karmakar

There was once a little girl in Mumbai who would go to school every day and fret over the three R's ... reading, writing and 'rithmetic. She was dyslexic and these shibboleths of the conventional education system just didn't talk to her. She would come home feeling frustrated, sit in the kitchen and see her mother (a Gujarati) and paternal grand-mom (an Andhra'ite) cook for the family. This was her happy place. She would see the joy that the food cooked by the two ladies would give to all at her home and then had her eureka moment, 'cooking can be my super power.' 'I want to be a chef,' she told her mother. Not that our young hero had any reference point to go by then. Her dad was a renowned musician. Her mother a scientist in pharmacalogy. Her parents did not say anything. A few days later, the little girl and her mum were travelling down Dadar in Mumbai in a cab. "See that building to our left?" asked mum to her daughter. "That is where India's top chefs come from." Fast forward a few years and our superhero, now a teen, cleared the competitive exams and walked into the hallowed portals of IHM, Mumbai, aka the 'Dadar Catering College." 'Hallowed portals' became synonymous with the story of chef Niyati Rao. She said goodbye to India's straightjacketed education when school got over. She came into her own at college and then walked down the 'hallowed portals' of Taj Mahal Mumbai, where she worked at the legendary Zodiac Grill, the Chambers and Wasabi, Mumbai, at the very start of her career. She then spent some time at A Reverie, Goa, where she learnt what it meant to helm a kitchen and create a menu. More 'hallowed portals' followed. She worked at Noma, Copenhagen, for a while before the pandemic and a personal health crisis made her return to India. After two years of cooling her heels at home, a message from Sagar Neve, once a fellow intern at the JW Marriott, Mumbai, led to their getting together and opening Ekaa, Mumbai. Will it gain 'hallowed portals' status one day is anybody's guess. Some say Ekaa is India's best restaurant...our food media glossies do tend to go overboard at times. Others were in a hurry to say why it is not 'India's best' ...we are the original 'crab in a pot' country after all. Chef Niyati has no time for this. As the co-founder and head chef of Ekaa, her focus is to put ingredients first. And the customer. That's all. Oh and yes, after her Noma experience, she is hellbent to make India proud by "the time I am done with it." Sounds like the stuff of a biopic? Hold on. Niyati is just 28 (!) and has many more stories to create. For now, do listen to the podcast where for the first time ever (yay) she talks about her life and dreams as a chef. Oh, and she is a fellow cat parent and our respective cats sat by us during the interview.

#FoodocracyForHer by Kalyan Karmakar is India's longest running podcast featuring women entrepreneurs in the food and beverage business. Please share the episode. Please click on like as it helps the video be discovered and please do subscribe to the channel to catch future episodes of the podcast.