The Chef Life
Chef ’s Table, unlike most food shows and documentaries, is slow in its pace. With one episode dedicated to a single chef, it focuses on the person making the food and understanding what drives them— maybe love, a need to prove their worth or wanting to break the mould. The food becomes almost secondary. Almost.
For Asma Khan, it was about making her position as a second daughter, born to parents who desperately hoped for a boy, count. The first Indian chef to be featured in the Netflix series, which released its sixth season in February, Khan’s food journey started when she was in her 40s and living a seemingly perfect life in the UK with her family, but constantly haunted by an emptiness. One day when the aroma of a stranger’s freshly-made paranthas brought tears to her eyes, she returned to Kolkata to learn to cook. Back in the UK, she befriended a motley crew of South Asian women and eventually opened her own restaurant, Darjeeling Express, in 2017. Serving a mix of street food and royal Rajput cuisine, one can get phuchkas here, followed by kosha mangsho and biryani loaded with golden potatoes gleaming next to the tender meat.
The profiles in Chef ’s Table, complemented by elegant cinematography, bring out something pure in its subjects. Even Christina Tosi, one of the tough-talking judges on MasterChef US, operates outside her celebrity status. With Khan, it explores the realities of being a girl in India, a PhD wanting to “just” cook and discovering herself in a moment of profound loneliness.