Asma Khan

Asma Khan (born July 1969) is an Indian-born British chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. She owns Darjeeling Express restaurant in London's Covent Garden and was profiled on the sixth season of the documentary series Chef's Table. In June 2019 Business Insider named her number 1 on their list of "100 Coolest People in Food and Drink".

Asma Khan
Asma Khan
BornJuly 1969 (age 51)
Calcutta
Culinary career

Early life and education

Khan was born in July 1969[1][2] and grew up in Calcutta.[3] She has an older sister[4] and a younger brother. Her family lamented the birth of a second daughter instead of the desired son.[4] According to Khan "there is a deafening silence" in India about the disappointment a family feels at having a second daughter.[4] She has said that she and her siblings were treated equally by her parents, and that she and her mother "made peace while I was still very young."[5] Her father is Rajput from western Uttar Pradesh.[3] Her mother is from West Bengal and had a catering business in the 1970s and 1980s.[3][6] According to Khan, her father and grandfather worked to unionize laborers in India.[7] Khan attended La Martiniere in Calcutta.

Khan had an arranged marriage and immediately afterward moved with her husband to Cambridge in 1991.[8] She had never learned to cook[9] and missed the dishes she had grown up eating.[10] She first started learning to cook from an aunt who lived in Cambridge.[11] After her aunt died, Khan returned to India for a visit of a few months[10] to continue lessons with her mother and the family's cook.[11][12] She told Francis Lam that learning to cook from her mother helped their relationship.[6]

In 1996 her husband moved to SOAS University of London to teach,[11] and Khan started studying law at King's College London. She graduated with a PhD in British Constitutional Law in 2012.[3]

Career

In 2012,[13] after obtaining her PhD, Khan started offering a series of private supper clubs in her home for a dozen people for £35 each.[3][11][14][7] Vivek Singh attended one and invited her to host a pop-up at his restaurant, The Cinnamon Club.[10] Eventually the supper clubs grew to serving 45,[7] and in 2015, after her family complained,[14][15] she moved the supper clubs to a Soho pub, Sun and 13 Cantons, and started serving lunches instead.[13][11][16] She struggled early on to lead her team of home cooks, mostly local immigrants working for the first time in a professional kitchen, but then a review by Fay Maschler helped bring in customers.[13][14][15]

Interior of original Darjeeling Express

Simon Quayle, a regular customer and executive director of Shaftesbury, offered her the opportunity to compete for a lease in Soho.[10] When an investor backed out, Khan's husband gave her the money she needed, although he disapproved of the business.[3] Khan opened Darjeeling Express, a 56-seat location[7] offering Indian Rajput and Bengali[13] home cooking specialties,[4] in 2017 in Soho.[3] She named the restaurant after a train she rode as a child during summer holidays.[17] Her team consisted of Asian immigrant women who all had full-time jobs and were never trained professionally; they worked for Khan on their days off but were able to cut back hours at their other jobs and eventually give them up altogether.[14][18] Most of the all-female kitchen staff[8][19] at the restaurant are second daughters.[4] All are South Asian.[1] Food & Wine called Darjeeling Express a "smash hit".[20] Khan was profiled by the BBC in a short documentary.[10]

Khan, about to open a dum biryani

In 2018 her cookbook, Asma's Indian Kitchen,[3] was published by Pavilion Books.[21] The San Francisco Chronicle called it a "stellar debut".[22] It was shortlisted for the 2018 World Gourmand award for Best Indian Cookbook.[10][23]

Khan was approached by Brian McGinn, producer of Chef's Table, to be the first British chef profiled on the series.[11][7] Filming started in London and India in July 2018 with Zia Mandviwalla directing.[11][14] Khan recalls Mandviwalla, who was born in Mumbai and lives in New Zealand, "did not ask me pointless questions about my husband and marriage, I did not need to explain what my mother meant to me, she got it."[11] The programme first aired in February 2019. Khan is the first British chef to be featured.[3][4][11][13] The series' sixth season's theme is "the journey home".[13] The season, which included Khan's episode, was nominated for an Emmy in the outstanding documentary section.[24] According to Bloomberg it became difficult to get a reservation at Darjeeling Express after the series aired.[25]

Business Insider named her number 1 on their 2019 list of "100 Coolest People in Food and Drink".[1] Danny DeVito offered to invest in an expansion.[7]

Khan closed the restaurant in March 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.[26] By the end of the year she had reopened in Covent Garden in a 120-seat space serving tasting menus.[7][27]

Philanthropy

On Sundays, when Darjeeling Express is closed, Khan offers free use of the premises to women who are aspiring chefs and restaurateurs who would like to host supper clubs.[11][28] When Khan gave up the Soho space, she arranged with her landlord to allow Imad Alarnab, a Syrian refugee who had been running a pop-up restaurant, to use the space for the remainder of the lease.[7]

Khan's restaurants support a non-profit, Second Daughters Fund, which encourages families in India to celebrate the births of second daughters by sending packages of sweet treats to be shared with neighbors.[4][14]

In July 2019, to mark her 50th birthday, Khan traveled to Northern Iraq to open an all-women cafe for survivors of ISIS at the Essyan refugee camp.[1][7][29]

Personal life

Khan is married to Mushtaq, an academic.[3] According to Khan, he is not a fan of her food, preferring simple dishes and finding hers too complex.[3] The couple have two sons.[13] She is Muslim.[3][11]

References
  1. Hosie, Alison Millington, Tom Murray, Rachel. "The 100 coolest people in food and drink". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 27 June 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  2. Brehault, Laura (3 October 2019). "'You cannot be what you cannot see': Chef's Table star Asma Khan dishes on time-honoured Indian recipes and turning opportunity into advocacy". National Post. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  3. Tang-Evans, Ming; Som, Rituparna; Pundir, Pallavi (18 October 2018). "Kolkata-born Asma Khan Is One of the Upcoming Faces on 'Chef's Table' Season Six". Vice. Archived from the original on 21 May 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  4. Theis, Brooke (21 February 2019). "Asma Khan is the first British chef to feature on Netflix's 'Chef's Table'". Town & Country. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  5. Uppal, Megha (4 December 2019). "Asma Khan: The Indian chef who's got the world eating out of her hand". Lifestyle Asia India. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  6. "Chef Asma Khan shares emotional lessons learned in the kitchen". The Splendid Table. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  7. Iqbal, Nosheen (20 September 2020). "Asma Khan: 'Restaurants should be ranked on how they treat their people'". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  8. "How 'Chef's Table' Star Asma Khan Is Breaking Down Barriers With Her All-Women Kitchen". Food52. 8 March 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  9. Ward, Victoria (11 August 2018). "Female chef left 'seething' after Michelin-starred rival told her to 'take a risk and work in a man's kitchen'". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 30 January 2019. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  10. greatbritishchefs. "Asma Khan Chef - Great British Chefs". www.greatbritishchefs.com. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  11. Masing, Anna Sulan (3 October 2018). "Britain's First 'Chef's Table' Star Explores Identity Through Her Food". Eater London. Archived from the original on 4 June 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  12. Mah, Ann (26 October 2018). "In London, a Restaurant Specializes in Indian Home Cooking". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 12 May 2019. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  13. Barrie, Josh (22 February 2019). "Asma Khan, a Muslim immigrant to the UK, is the first British chef on Netflix's Chef's Table". inews.co.uk. Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  14. Morabito, Greg (1 March 2019). "'Chef's Table' Recap: Asma Khan Built an 'Oasis for Women' at Darjeeling Express". Eater. Archived from the original on 26 May 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  15. "The rise of Miss Khan". Hindustan Times. 23 February 2019. Archived from the original on 12 June 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  16. "Fay Maschler reviews Asma Khan's Darjeeling Express". Evening Standard. 22 July 2015. Archived from the original on 3 February 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  17. "Brexit has destroyed us". Condé Nast Traveller India. 27 March 2019. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  18. O'Neill, Holly (17 September 2017). "Darjeeling Express: the amateur cooks turned professional chefs". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Archived from the original on 9 June 2019. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  19. "Asma Khan among women celebrated at Urban Food Awards 2019". Evening Standard. 21 March 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  20. "London's Cult-Favorite Indian Restaurant Is a Love Letter to Second Daughters". Food & Wine. Archived from the original on 16 April 2018. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  21. Asma Khan (2019). Asma's Indian Kitchen: Home-Cooked Food Brought to You by Darjeeling Express. Interlink Publishing Group, Incorporated. ISBN 978-1-62371-912-8.
  22. "Our favorite cookbooks of 2019, so far - SFChronicle.com". www.sfchronicle.com. 21 June 2019. Archived from the original on 22 June 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  23. "GOURMAND AWARDS". www.cookbookfair.com. Archived from the original on 14 July 2019. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  24. "Emmys 2019: List of Nominations". Variety. 16 July 2019. Archived from the original on 18 July 2019. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  25. Vines, Richard (21 March 2020). "Coronavirus Shatters One Chef's Dream of Helping Immigrant Women". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  26. Vines, Richard (21 March 2020). "Coronavirus Shatters One Chef's Dream of Helping Immigrant Women". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  27. The Dish: Chef Asma Khan on breaking barriers with familiar flavors, retrieved 21 January 2021
  28. Bilgrami, Rida (4 October 2018). "Why London's Immigrant Chefs Are Embracing Supper Clubs". Eater. Archived from the original on 4 October 2018. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  29. Mukherjee, Kamalika. "How Chef Asma Khan Created an All-Women Kitchen". Condé Nast Traveler. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
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