Key notes from celebrity chef’s journey

Food is my life, love and passion. It makes me very happy,” proclaims celebrity Chef Floyd Cardoz. The Indian-American chef was most recently Executive Chef of North End Grill, a seasonal American restaurant and bar owned by famous Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group, which he left in April 2014 to pursue personal culinary projects that focus back to his roots of cooking with Indian flavours and explore a project in India.

Chef Cardoz attended culinary school in Mumbai, where he apprenticed in the kitchen of the Taj Mahal Intercontinental Hotel. To broaden his familiarity with classic culinary technique, Cardoz moved to Switzerland and he spent his days at Les Roches, a Hotel Management Culinary School in Bluche, and his evenings cooking in Italian, French and Indian establishments.

An exclusive interview with the Indian-American Chef Cardoz, founder of the erstwhile ‘Tabla’ restaurant and the recent ‘Paowalla’ in New York, and the man who won the Top Chefs Masters Season 3 with upma

He later moved to New York and worked under Chef Gray Kunz of the venerable Lespinasse. Floyd spent five years at this world-famous restaurant, rising from Chef de Partie to Executive Sous Chef before leaving to open the famous Tabla in 1998. “I never thought I will become a chef. I wanted to become a doctor or a marine biologist but one day I read a book about hotels and that changed my mind.

After finishing my BSc, I did hotel management in Mumbai and then in Switzerland. And I have been cooking since then and I love it. If I had to do all this all over again, I would love to do it,” the Chef shares. Chef Cardoz was the Executive Chef and Partner of Tabla, along with Danny Meyer. The restaurant celebrated his groundbreaking new Indian cuisine that expertly married the sensual flavours and spices of his native land with Western techniques.

Under his leadership, Tabla received numerous accolades from the press (including Three-Stars from The New York Times) and was considered among New York’s most popular restaurants. After 12 incredible years hosting countless life celebrations, Tabla closed its doors in December 2010.

“I worked for Danny Meyer for 17 years, 12 of which were at Tabla. It was a great opportunity for me to open a restaurant that I felt strongly about and Danny had the mutual feeling about it. It was a neo-modern Indian restaurant at that time,” he shares.

Speaking about the closure of famous restaurant Tabla, which carved a niche for itself the chef says, “There were a lot of economic issues, which led to the closure of the restaurant. When the restaurant closed my plan of action was to help the staff as we worked there for 12 years. We were looking for space so that we could reopen it but we could not find it. Then I took time off and worked on other projects.”

Chef Cardoz states that his ability to understand spices and Indian food made him a star among food aficionados. “The ingredient that made me celebrity chef is that I was able to understand Indian food and spices and I could translate it according to Americans’ taste buds. I made Americans realise that eating spice is good and that made me what I am today,” he says.

The Goa-based chef grew up in Mumbai and says that he is immensely attached to the city. He always wanted to come to India and open a restaurant and started a speciality restaurant Bombay Canteen in Mumbai. “Bombay Canteen’s idea came when I started looking for space in New York and I always knew that I wanted to open a restaurant in India. Finding a space in New York is very hard. It took me around 4 years to find the place.”

The name ‘Bombay Canteen’ suggests that a lot of nostalgia is attached to the restaurant; throwing some light on it Chef Cardoz says, “If you ask anybody, who lived in the city in the 60s and 70s they always call it Bombay, and we wanted to take people back to that time and the Bombay, which they remember. So far our endeavour has been successful.”

When asked about who cooks at his home, Chef in a jocular tone says, “When I am working my wife cooks and when I am not working I cook.” Apart from making lip-smacking dishes, Cardoz has also penned two books ‘One Spice, Two Spice’ and ‘Flavorwalla’, and he says that hopefully he will come out with one more book by the end of this year. Speaking about his project he says, “Finally, we got a space in New York and I am coming up with a casual restaurant, ‘Paowalla’.

By:Navin Pivhal