Home Chef Champions

The 18th edition of the UpperCrust Food & Wine Show was privy to a historic occasion. It offered a stage to the first ever Home Chef Studio, a collaborative endeavour between UpperCrust and FinelyChopped

Text: Team UpperCrust

Photographs: Vijay Barathe

The idea behind the event was to offer due space in the sun to our home chef heroes.

The stories of whose resilience, hope and care as depicted in their work during the pandemic, have left us in awe.

When your favourite restaurant, bar and hotel had to shut down… when you were afraid to step out of your houses… when you were tired of cooking every single meal for yourselves and washing up after that…home chefs were the first to emerge from the ruins and send you food from their kitchens. One began to see a festival of regional Indian food happening in our cities… Kashmiri, Keralite, Bihari, Bengali, Maharashtrian, Mangalorean, Punjabi, Assamese, Rajasthani and what have you… you had it all at your disposal while sitting at home. With each passing day, the professionalism of the home chefs became sharper and this showed in the impeccable quality of food on offer, improved packaging and the emergence of global and gourmet cuisines, too. Strong home chef brands began to form, slowly but confidently. Some grew their business and advanced to creating cloud kitchens, offering a serious force to reckon with in the Indian culinary space.

It was not just about food. It was about empowerment. The fightback of mankind against the virus that had begun to rule our world. Or should one say womankind? For many of these home chefs were women who were actually running their houses through their businesses, when the men might have lost their jobs or livelihoods. The patriarchy was overruled with the men coming out in support of their wives and their new ventures.

It was not just about talent and passion, but about steely determination. The home chefs did not turn back when big corporations resurrected (hotels, restaurants). They held their own and continued to grow their business. The home chef movement allowed many to follow their dreams and take steps towards reaching them which they had never dared to before. This included men from the professional sector who used the time to do something they had never had the courage to do before. To cook and feed people. And feel proud about it.

The historic first ever Home Chef Studio was held on 5th March 2022. The second day of the UpperCrust Show, and the entire day in the chef demo area was dedicated to the event. The Home Chef Studio was declared open by our very own Farzana Contractor who shared her words of encouragement and appreciation to the home chef community at large. She was present through the sessions, individually lauding each home chef who took part. The event was anchored by Kalyan Karmakar, author and brand consultant at FinelyChopped. India’s top celebrity chefs, food writers and social media experts were there to mentor the home chefs. There was a sense of joy, pride and accomplishment pervading the day. It was as if everyone present had come together with a shared sense of purpose to celebrate the work of the home chef community. Added to this was the excitement of meeting each other in person after a long time and in many cases, where friendships had been forged during the pandemic, for the first time ever in person.

The highlight of the day was the much anticipated Home Chef Studio Cook-Offs. There were four one-hour-long cook-off sessions. Each with a different theme. There were three participants in each round and one judge-mentor. The participants had earlier taken part in an Instagram contest and the winners were chosen by an expert jury

The first session was Jump Start Your Day. The brief: To make breakfast dishes that make you want to jump out of bed. What came out was a fascinating mix of traditional recipes with a stylised presentation guaranteed to make anyone a breakfast person. The judge-mentor for the session was actress and cookbook author, Tara Deshpande. She begun the session by saying how she strongly believed that home chefs could play a big part in making Bombay a world food city thanks to the sheer variety of food that they offer.

The three finalists here were:

Sneha Senapati of Odia Bhoji with a stylised presentation of Dahi Vada Aloo Dum, the humble street food favourite from her state.

Chris Kane of The Singing Home Chef who made an East Indian Chicken Vindaloo Pie.

And the historic first ever winner of the Home Chef Studio Cook-Offs, Marina Balakrishnan of Oottupura, who presented ragi iddiyapam, veg ishtew, fresh chutneys and a frothy filter kaapi.

The second session was called On the Go. Meals which can be prepared for those who go out to work or for school and college tiffins. Meals which are nutritious and yet taste good and can hold their shape through the day. The theme was reflective of our times when we are looking at resuming our lives after being at home through the pandemic. Our sponsor Switz Foods had made this product available for this round and all three contestants chose the Switz frozen puff parathas. The judge-mentor for the round, celebrity chef Ranveer Brar spoke about his deep respect for home chefs and the fact that they had brought out the marvels of the Indian kitchen in a way that no ‘white-coated’ (professional) chef could. His advice to home chefs was for them to concentrate on their strengths and to not lose their individuality in a blind search for scale. It was interesting to see each of the home chefs bring out a regional dimension to their paratha rolls.

Debanjan Das of Bhutu’s Kitchen, one of our two male contestants in the whole contest, took his grandmother’s Dhakai Shorshe Chingri into a paratha format and made a burger out of it, too.

Supriya Ravi of Oh My Feast presented the home-cooked Pepper Chicken Fry in a roll format.

The winner of this round, Pallavi Amberkar of Flavours of Malvan, won the day with her kardi (tiny shrimp) tossed in Malvani masala and served in a roll.

The third round of the day was Party at Home. The task here was to show what to serve when guests come over home, especially with house parties being in vogue as the era of social distancing ends. Judge-mentor for the round was everyone’s favourite ‘foodie’ and now a popular food YouTuber, Kunal Vijayakar. Kunal expressed his gratitude to all the home chefs who fed him wonderful food during the lockdown and spoke about how home chef and home chef-initiated enterprises star in his YouTube channel Khaane Main Kya Hain. In this round, the contestants had products from ITC Master Chef Frozen Foods to work with.

Namita Shah Khambatta of Let’s Sizzle It wowed the audience by making a vegetarian sizzler. Making sizzlers which can be home-delivered, to offer a restaurant-like experience, is something that she and her husband, Hemal Khambatta, had come up with during the lockdown days to great success. She used the ITC Master Chef frozen fries.

The multifaceted Inderpreet Nagpal of Rummy’s Kitchen made an elaborate Goan party platter based on memories of her recent trip to Goa. Starring in it were: cafreal with a twist (smoked chicken and pineapple cafreal, cream and feni reduction sauce and pineapple lonche and poee on the side, kadipatta-infused butter garlic ITC Master Chef frozen pepper chicken fries, chorizo butter and chorizo focaccia and kokum-infused feni cocktail.

The winner in this round was Mudit Srivastava of The Oudh Table. He won the hearts of Kunal Vijayakar and former Lucknow girl, Farzana Contractor, with his Awadhi platter which featured galawat kebab, shammi kebab, seekh kebab using ITC Master Chef frozen kebabs and Awadhi Mutton Pulao. One of the most emotional moments of the day was when his mother, Neeru Srivastava, was invited to the stage to receive the award with him. Like any Indian mother, she was worried when her son, a finance professional decided to become a home chef. Today he did her proud and she filmed every moment to send it to her daughter-in-law (Mudit’s wife) who had gone to Lucknow. It was lovely to see so many of the contestants accompanied by their spouses, children and friends, all rooting for them.

The last round, Think Sweet was about making innovative desserts using Fabelle's hazelnut chocolate mousse as an ingredient. The ever encouraging and warm chocalatier par excellence, Zeba Kohli, was the mentor- judge in this session and gave meticulous and practical tips to each participant, while cheering them on enthusiastically.

Meeta Kataria of Chiselled Meals by Meeta made a dish that she named Zindagi Gulzar Hain. It had three types of tarts made with walnuts, almonds and cashews as their bases. The tarts were topped with chocolate ganache and accompanied by orange flower- shaped mawa peda.

Mona Adkar of Dough & Crème made a dessert named Holi ka Dahan showcasing a blend of both Indian and western culinary traditions.

The winner of the final contest of the evening was Dinelle Lobo, of Learned From Mom, whose delectable Chocolate and Almond Tart was the perfect ending to a happy day.

There was more though. Learning was a big part of the Home Chef Studio and the afternoon saw the Home Chef Lab, masterclasses taken by subject experts on practical aspects that home chefs need to deal with. The sessions had a full house and were broadcasted live as well.

Much sought-after professional food photographer, Assad Dadan, took a session on photography where he showed how the use of tripods, filters and compositions could help home chefs enhance their photographs even when using camera phones. A very hands-on session which saw Assad and his earnest students walk across the grounds of the food area, shooting brownies in different light conditions and then editing them.

Celebrity pastry chef Pooja Dhingra of Le 15 won hearts with both her session on using Instagram to one’s benefit and with her recently launched Le 15 cookies which she handed out. Her advice to home chefs was to use Instagram to build engagement with customers, while retaining their individual personas. Be yourself and enjoy yourself, said the ever-smiling pooja.

Author, brand consultant, and curator of the Home Chef Studio, Kalyan Karmakar, took a session on branding for home chefs where he exhorted home chefs to build their distinct brand personas based on what they were trying to offer to the customer. He showed how to move this to a higher order emotional benefit and not just a rational one, with case studies to make the corporate jargon relatable for home chefs.

The final session was by Sherry Mehta who had started off her career in food as a home chef before collaborating with top hotels and restaurants through food festivals, and who has now launched her much-feted and award-winning cloud kitchen in Bombay, Kanak By Sherry, where she offers food from undivided Punjab. As someone who has gone through the grind herself, Sherry shared invaluable tips such as the need to have ‘anchor recipes’, to standardise recipes and to listen to the customer, for those making the journey from cooking for friends and family to becoming home chefs.

We would like to thank our sponsors for helping us bring our idea to life: ITC Master Chef as the Principal Sponsor and Switz, Borosil and The Brooklyn Creamery as the Associate Sponsors.