The Indian chef who took Tamil fare international and received a ‘meals Oscar’ via NewsFlicks

In Long island’s West Village, the place culinary traits can exchange with the seasons, Chef Vijay Kumar is shaping a quiet revolution.

His 2025 James Beard Award win for Highest Chef: New York State this month is extra than simply non-public popularity – it marks a cultural inflection level.

Chennai-based culinary historian Rakesh Raghunathan says: “Following within the footsteps of fellow Tamil-origin recipients like Raghavan Iyer and Padma Lakshmi, Vijay Kumar’s popularity displays a rising momentum for south Indian voices at the international culinary level”.

“Tamil delicacies – at the side of Sri Lankan Tamil and different south Indian regional traditions – is an increasing number of being embraced via international diners as one thing delicate, wealthy, and deeply rooted in tradition.”

Born within the small farming village of Arasampatti, Madurai in southern Tamil Nadu, the 44-year-old Kumar has all the time cooked from reminiscence – of forests and foraging, firewood stoves and his mom and grandmother serving foods created from scratch for the circle of relatives.

When he took the level on the JB awards rite, he stated “the meals I grew up on, the meals made with care, with hearth, with soul is now taking the primary level”. It used to be a second of deep emotion and cultural satisfaction for Kumar.

“There’s no such factor as a deficient individual’s meals, or a wealthy individual’s meals. It is meals. It is tough. And the true luxurious is as a way to hook up with every different across the dinner desk.”

For Kumar, the win is a private milestone but in addition an impressive act of visibility.

“Once I began cooking, I by no means idea a dark-skinned boy from Tamil Nadu may make it to a room like this,” he stated in his acceptance speech. It used to be due to this fact vital for him to put on veshti, the standard Tamil apparel for males, for the black-tie James Beard rite as a nod to his roots.

Just lately, Kumar used to be trolled via a couple of influencers in New York. Fast to upward thrust to his defence used to be Padma Lakshmi, cookbook writer and culinary ambassador, who known as the influencers out for his or her cultural insensitivity.

Chatting with the BBC, Lakshmi stated “Vijay’s tale is vital now not only for south Indian meals but in addition as a tale of any individual who grew up with humble method and cooked with restricted sources.”

“This resourcefulness has now not handiest propelled his paintings ethic however enhanced his sense of flavour, elements and sense of the sector. He’s a beacon of hope to younger other folks in every single place the sector that in the event you accept as true with and increase your senses and talents, you’ll be able to cross a long way in an inventive profession.”

Kumar’s adventure wasn’t easy to begin with.

Not able to find the money for engineering faculty within the giant town, he selected culinary faculty as a substitute – starting his adventure at Taj Connemara lodge in Chennai, cooking his approach thru cruise ships and kitchens, and sooner or later discovering his promised land in The united states, running at Dosa in San Francisco.

His actual step forward got here when he partnered with Roni Mazumdar and Chintan Pandya of Unapologetic Meals, a New York eating place staff, to open Semma – a Tamil slang phrase for “unbelievable” in 2021.

The trio discovered a “shared sense of short of to honour our heritage, to inform the sector who we in point of fact are thru our delicacies”.

“At that second, it wasn’t as regards to meals, it used to be about identification,” Mazumdar advised the BBC. “For too lengthy, Indian meals in america has lived below the veil of a manufactured, watered-down north-western lens. With Semma, we got down to pull again that curtain and percentage one thing extra truthful.”

Kumar jumped on the alternative to percentage his delicacies with the sector. “His eyes lit up once we began speaking in regards to the meals we grew up consuming, and that more or less meals hardly makes it to eating place menus,” remembers Mazumdar.

Kumar’s energy lies in serving unique village meals this is seasonal, hyper-local, and constructed fully from scratch. His farm-to-table method, he says, used to be to cook dinner the best way “my mom and grandmother did”. Semma, he provides, is a party of that simplicity.

That simplicity resonates.

Semma’s menu defies the clichés that regularly outline Indian meals out of the country. There is no butter hen or naan right here and Kumar’s epiphany got here with an not likely come upon: French escargot.

As a kid, on days when rice used to be scarce, he would forage along with his circle of relatives for snails within the paddy fields, which might be cooked in a savoury tamarind sauce. Kumar admitted that he used to be ashamed of it as a boy because it “felt like meals born of poverty – till I noticed the satisfaction with which the French serve escargot”.

As of late, the dish, nathai pirattal, sits proudly on Semma’s menu, reimagined now not as a reminiscence of shortage, however as a logo of resilience and cultural satisfaction.

Semma’s menu – pepper rasam, tamarind crab, banana flower vadai, the ever-present dosa – be offering an emotional connection for lots of diaspora diners, and a revelation for first-timers.

Kumar’s goal to convey village-style Tamil meals and show off it in upscale spots and within the cut-throat New York eating place area has received a protracted line of admirers.

There is intensity, regionality and a strong emotional connection on this meals.

The cocktails are a nod to Tamil movie stars like Rajnikanth and Silk Smitha, and the décor channels Chennai’s heat. Even the kitchen is an area of goal – chefs are requested to arrange meals with “gratitude and mindfulness”.

“I invited him to curate a black-tie gala dinner for 650 visitors on the Gold Gala in Los Angeles, and he made us all proud. A yr later, other folks nonetheless discuss how improbable the meals used to be,” says Lakshmi, applauding Kumar’s reward for bringing regional Indian delicacies to essentially the most glamorous platforms.

The awards and accolades really feel like a herbal development of his adventure. Semma is the primary New York eating place serving handiest south Indian delicacies to win a Michelin famous person and crowned The New York Occasions’s listing for best 100 eating places. And now the JBA for Kumar.

In some ways, Kumar is not only serving meals – he’s serving reminiscence, satisfaction and a quiet revolution.

His James Beard win is a popularity of his ability, but in addition an confirmation that regional Indian delicacies, with its daring spices and soulful simplicity, belongs on the centre of the worldwide desk.

Kumar’s win has piqued the “interest of younger other folks from in every single place the Indian diaspora and instilled a better satisfaction in our meals tactics”, says Lakshmi. “This will likely be his biggest legacy.”

Provides Mazumdar, “This win is a sign that regionality issues, and that our tales and our roots have price at the international level.”