Cardoz on Top Chef Masters

Last week, Indian chef Floyd Cardoz, who was born and brought up in Mumbai and trained with the Taj Group of Hotels, beat two favourites to win the popular American culinary show Top Chef Masters. t2 caught up with Cardoz on what the win means for him and for Indian cuisine…

How does it feel winning the most prestigious show on American television?

I went into the competition wanting to win, but I didn’t know if I really would. In fact, when I was on the show, I was in the frame of mind where winning or losing really didn’t matter. I knew that I had the capability to win, but I just took each day as it came and cooked from my heart. When I won, it was a lot of mixed emotions, really. I was happy and grateful, emotional and elated.

Why did you enter Top Chef Masters?

Top Chef actually has two variants. The first is simply called Top Chef and is actually a competition between chefs who have just started and are learning the ropes of the art of cooking. The other is Top Chef Masters in which established chefs compete against each other. It’s a show that sees the best chefs from across the US showing off their skills. Indians in the US and across the world have made a name for themselves in medicine, astronomy, education, engineering…, but not so much in the world of cooking. I wanted an Indian to win the highest chef honours on an American show and I am so grateful that I have managed to do that. Also, the fact that I get to donate the prize money to charity (Cardoz has donated the $10,000 worth of prize money to a cancer charity in memory of his father who he lost to cancer) feels very special.

Did you have a strategy on Top Chef Masters?

Strategy never works. Good food made with a clean heart always does. Nowadays, people have too much of a competitive streak in everything, but I knew that if I wanted to do well on the show, I would just have to be true to myself — just cook passionately and put my heart and soul into each and every dish I came up with.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I was born in Mumbai and grew up there. I always wanted to be a chef, but my dad wasn’t too happy about it. It was my mother who supported me completely. After school, I enrolled at The Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition in Dadar (in Mumbai). After passing out, I got into the Taj Group of Hotels as a trainee chef. I worked there for a couple of years and learnt the basics.

In the mid-1980s, I went off to Switzerland to expand my horizons. I studied at Les Roches (a hotel management school in Bluche, Switzerland) and came back to India to work in the Oberoi Hotels. In 1988, I moved to the US. After more than a decade in the US, I managed to open my own restaurant called Tabla in New York’s Madison Square where I experimented with Indian food and flavours. It was a great hit, with The New York Times giving it three stars. Unfortunately, I had to shut down Tabla when recession struck and now I am the executive chef and partner at a restaurant called the North End Grill.

Coming back to Top Chef, your winning entry was a dish of upma, which has been trending on Twitter since. How and why did you come up with that?

The last challenge on the show was actually a round called ‘Memories’. The three finalists had to prepare a three-course meal comprising dishes that formed a part of our growing-up memories. I remember that when my brother and I would come back home from school in Mumbai, my mum would have steaming bowls of upma waiting for us. It’s an enduring childhood memory that still brings both a smile and a lump to my throat. On the show, I gave a twist to the traditional upma and made it like a kind of risotto with mushrooms and a tomato broth, tempering it with strong Indian flavours like fennel (saunf), garlic and chillies. I was very apprehensive about how the judges would take it. But they just couldn’t stop after eating a spoonful; they liked it so much! The other dish that I made was a kind of steamed fish in a tomato sauce, which reminded me of something that my dad would take me out to eat on Sundays. It’s a favourite food memory from childhood.

How does the West perceive Indian food?

Internationally, Indian food has not been recognised for the cuisine it is. Most people in the West think that Indian food is just Chicken Tikka Masala and Dal Makhni. Very few people here are aware of the fact that India has so much variety when it comes to cuisine. I feel that me cooking an Indian dish on Top Chef Masters will go a long way in educating the people here that Indian cuisine has so much to offer. For a long time, many in the US have been afraid of Indian food because of the strong spices. But now they are beginning to realise that there are other less-spicy Indian dishes too which are equally flavourful.

How have your initial days in Indian hotel kitchens contributed to the chef that you are today?

My background and my training in India stays with me. The chefs that I worked with in India, at the Taj and the Oberoi, were always very emotional and passionate about what they were doing. It is this passion for food, this ability to cook from the heart, that has been passed on to me. Plus, the discipline of working 16 hours a day in the kitchen has made me what I am. When I first came to the US, I would find chefs working eight hours a day and grumbling about it, while I could easily work through 12 or 14 hours! The great foundation that I had in India, the flavours, the spices, the love for food and the ability to cook and serve with care have all stayed with me.

You have cooked for quite a few celebrities…

Yes, there are a whole lot of them. There is Nicole Kidman, Elton John, Madonna, (former UN secretary general) Kofi Annan, Harrison Ford, Bill Gates…. Bill and Hillary Clinton are a lot into Indian food. They are always very appreciative of what I make for them. They are extremely gracious and are true foodies. It’s a pleasure cooking for them.

What are you planning next?

I want to reopen Tabla soon. I am also looking at writing another book on home-style food (Cardoz has written a cookbook called One Spice Two Spice). I want to do a lot with Indian food and flavours. I hope I get the opportunity to do something with Indian food in India. That would be really special.

Favourite world cuisine: Hard to choose but would be Japanese, Chinese or Italian
Favourite Indian cuisine: Goan
Favourite Indian dish: Hyderabadi Biryani
Favourite comfort food: Goan fish curry and rice
The dish I love to cook: Any dish with seafood
The most overrated and underrated dishes: Hamburgers are overrated while crabs in a shell is very underrated