Culinary Czar

Chef Sanjeev Kapoor’s foray into the US, with three new restaurants, is yet another ingredient on his platter of success

- Jasodhara Banerjee

Sometime in the early 1990s, women across urban Indian households began to find themselves glued to their newly liberated television screens, waiting for the smiling face of a man they were beginning to trust. Once a week, he would appear on screen at the designated time, without fail, grabbing attention like no other before him.

But instead of serenading heroines and fighting goons, he would be imparting invaluable insights into the making of creamy swirls atop chocolate icings of soft sponge cakes, or spilling the secrets of making the perfect malai kofta. His star-struck audience, pen and paper in hand, rapidly scribbled and hung on to every word he uttered during the hour-long programme.

Sanjeev Kapoor was India’s new matinee idol.

That Kapoor, now 54, quit his job as a chef in 1992, and opted instead for the uncharted territory of cookery shows on television— this was long before food became the sexiest thing on TV, with international names such as Gordon Ramsay and Nigella Lawson, and MasterChef still more than a decade away—was a sign of things to come. For him, and for the empire that he has gone on to establish.