The James Beard Foundation announced the 2022 Restaurant and Chef Award winners.
A celebrated Indian-origin chef and an Indian restaurant in North Carolina serving “innovative and affordable” street food have won the top honours at America’s most prestigious culinary awards that recognise exceptional talent in the food industry.
Chintan Pandya of the popular restaurant ‘Dhamaka’ in New York City won the James Beard Award for “Best Chef: New York State” while ‘Chai Pani’ in Asheville, North Carolina, won the award for “Outstanding Restaurant” in the US on Monday, June 13.
The James Beard Awards, “considered to be among the nation’s most prestigious honours, recognise exceptional talent in the culinary and food media industries, as well as a demonstrated commitment to racial and gender equity, community, sustainability and a culture where all can thrive.”
James Beard Foundation CEO Clare Reichenbach said that the awards “recognise outstanding food and beverage professionals” and also “honour our entire industry—and the incredible resilience, fortitude, talent, and leadership so many have shown over the past two years” amid the COVID19 pandemic.
Pandya is considered among the leading and most celebrated Indian chefs in the US. The ‘Chai Pani’ website states that the restaurant serves “Indian street food from five-time James Beard nominated chef Meherwan Irani, a Parsi, born in London and brought up in India.
During his acceptance speech at the awards ceremony, Pandya said it is “actually unbelievable and I never imagined that I’ll stand here at any point of time.” He was Accompanied by his business partner Roni Mazumdar on stage.
Pandya, referring to Mazumdar, said: “the reason he’s over here is that I always came up with ideas which were very idiotic and stupid. And over the 22 years that I’ve been cooking, nobody believed in it.
“I met this guy five years back. And after a few years, I realised that he’s a bigger idiot and more stupid than me because he believes in my ideas.”
Pandya is considered among the leading and most celebrated Indian chefs in the US. The ‘Chai Pani’ website states that the restaurant serves “Indian street food from five-time James Beard nominated chef Meherwan Irani, a Parsi, born in London and brought up in India.
Irani, the Executive Chef of Chai Wala was born in London and raised in India, has been nominated four times for the James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Southeast.
“His restaurants have been written up in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, GQ, Food & Wine, Men’s Health, USA Today, and Bon Appetit, among others. Not bad for a former car salesman – although his mother who still lives in India is not impressed,” his profile on his website says.
In his acceptance speech at the award, Irani said that when he opened the Indian street food restaurant in Asheville, he had no formal culinary experience and had never managed a kitchen or restaurant.
“But the only guiding principle that we had was an Indian spiritual quote ‘Mastery and servitude’. And this idea that if every day, every act you do is an act of service, that you can not only transform yourself, but transform the community, society around you and maybe even the world and it’s been the greatest privilege of my life.”
“Restaurants are so much greater than the sum of what’s inside the four walls. A restaurant has the power to transform the people that work there, transform the people that come in, transform the communities we’re in, transform society, restaurants can transform the world,” Irani said.Dhamaka’s website states that “Dhamaka is Explosive. This is the other side of India, the forgotten side of India.” Describing itself as “Unapologetic Indian”, ‘Dhamaka’, from chef and partner Pandya and restaurateur Mazumdar, serves “provincial Indian cuisine to the new Essex Market.” Pandya and Mazumdar are the duo behind New York City’s other popular Indian restaurants ‘Adda’ and ‘Rahi’.
‘Dhamaka’ has also featured in The New York Times list of the 50 most vibrant and delicious restaurants in America in 2021.
On its website, the ‘Chai Pani’ restaurant, which opened in 2009 says that it “literally means “tea and water.” “It’s slang in India for going out for a cup of tea, a tasty bite, a snack, or ‘a little something’. In Downtown Asheville (and now in Downtown Decatur) it means innovative, fun, affordable and delicious Indian cuisine. We’d go so far as to say it’s ‘mindblasting’,” the website said.
The James Beard Foundation’s Restaurant and Chef Awards were established in 1990 with the first awards given in 1991 and is one of five recognition programmes of the Awards, the organisation said.
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