CFE chats with celebrity chef Maneet Chauhan
By Sara Perez Webber
At the Florida Restaurant Show in Orlando in November, Chef Maneet Chauhan shared this advice to attendees who gathered to watch her prepare Tandoori Shrimp & Grits: “Be as authentic as possible.”
It’s a maxim Chauhan has clearly followed herself as she’s charted a meteoric rise in the culinary world since arriving in the U.S. in 1999 to study at the famed Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, New York. The native of Punjab found herself “the only Indian on campus,” she recalls. Now on the CIA’s board of trustees, Chauhan is one of the country’s most recognized American-Indian chefs and a popular Food Network personality, notably as a longtime judge on Chopped and the first-ever two-time champion of Guy Fieri’s Tournament of Champions.
She helms three restaurants as co-founder of Morph Hospitality Group—Chauhan Ale & Masala House and The Mockingbird in Nashville, Tennessee; and eet by Maneet Chauhan, which opened in December 2023 at the Walt Disney World Resort’s Disney Springs near Orlando (“eet” is a play on her first name). Chauhan’s critically acclaimed cookbooks include Chaat: Recipes from the Kitchens, Markets, and Railways of India.
Chauhan also appears often at food shows and festivals, where fans discover that she’s as warm and spirited in person as on the screen—down to her sparkly sneakers that she said she ordered “from the jungle” (or Amazon). “Food is the greatest connector on this planet, and that’s why it just inspires me and keeps me fired up all the time,” she told the crowd watching her culinary demonstration at the Florida Restaurant Show.
After Chauhan chatted and took photos with the many attendees who lined up to meet her, she sat down with CFE to talk about her career, her newest restaurant and her advice to caterers.
CFE: Do you enjoy attending shows like this and speaking to other professionals in the foodservice industry?
Chauhan: I love attending shows. Meeting all of these people, showing your skills, it’s incredible, because this is what grounds you. And that’s why the enthusiasm of doing what I’m doing stays with me perpetually.
CFE: I was sitting next to a female chef, and she said you’re one of her role models. You mentioned in your demo that you were the only female in a kitchen of 80 men when you started your career in a hotel in India, and you’ve seen incredible progress since then. Could you comment more on that?
Chauhan: You know, I meant it when I said that the responsibility for the next generation of female chefs is on us, right? We are responsible for making it a more conducive environment. And we know it’s not easy. Not only at times is it not a conducive environment, but also, as soon as we have kids, [it can be] a full stop, right? If we don’t support other mothers, then what are we doing? Then shame on us. And I think it’s very important. It’s critical.
CFE: How has being such a well-known Food Network personality influenced your career?
Chauhan: A lot more people know who I am, so I get a lot more opportunities like this. I have gotten to meet incredible people, and I feed off their need to learn, their need to grow. I think that is absolutely amazing, because I am a lifelong student. If there is a day that goes by that I haven’t learned something new, then it’s a day wasted for me. I was walking around [the show], and I’m like, “Oh, this is interesting. How can we use this to streamline what we are doing at the restaurant?”
CFE: So you pick up ideas for yourself when you speak at shows?
Chauhan: Absolutely, constantly. So I think being a celebrity has really helped me grow as a chef, as a human. But the most incredible part is that there is a fearlessness. What’s the most that will happen? You’ll do something wrong. Great. You’ll learn something from there. And I think that also comes with age, right? You’re not so self-conscious, and you’re like, “I want to try this. I want to see how I can make it my own. How can I put my own signature on it?” And I think that is what is exciting.
CFE: Did you ever foresee any of this when you were starting out?
Chauhan: No, never…there was a young lady who asked me, “What advice would you give to young chefs?” And I told her, there is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs, and you have to fall a couple of times. Because what I have learned from my failures—and there have been a lot of them—is so much more valuable than what I will ever learn from my successes.
CFE: What has been the reception to your restaurant at Disney Springs?
Chauhan: The reception has been fantastic. People have been really kind. It’s definitely a process for us, because we come from, I won’t call it “fine dining,” I’ll call it “everyday dining.” But to convert it into QSR [quick-service restaurant] was a great eye-opening experience for us. It was really exciting. You know, we’re very proud of the flavors that we present, and I have been very insistent that I don’t want to just give it my name. I want to be here. So I’m here once a month. We are doing meet-and-greets, and I love it. We serve things completely off the menu. We want to keep it exciting. And it’s such a goosebump moment when Disney invites an Indian concept on Disney property, right? It’s a huge moment.
CFE: Do you feel like it’s introducing Indian food to a new audience?
Chauhan: Indian food has come a long way, but it still has a long way to travel, right? It’s not like [people say], “Let’s go and have a curry.” That happens in England, but it doesn’t happen over here. So, we do have the responsibility of doing that. But the big thing is that we are exposing Indian food to audiences who probably are coming from places where they’ve never had Indian food. And we’ve made it fun, we’ve made it accessible, we’ve made it build-your-own-bowl. You have the control over what you are building, but we are putting our flavors on it. So it makes it a lot of fun.
CFE: Is there one dish in particular that’s popular on the menu at eet?
Chauhan: Our [tandoori chicken] poutine is really popular. But I think that the hidden gem on the menu is something which is so quintessentially Indian. They’re called golgappas or pani puris, and they’re these semolina puffs, and we stuff them with black garbanzo and potato and mint cilantro water, and you have it in a bite. It’s a sensory explosion. It’s incredible. People are like, “What is happening right now?” They love it, and it is so fun that we can introduce something which is quintessential Indian street food, which we thought that nobody would like, and it’s one of the favorite and the highest-selling things on the menu.
CFE: Caterers make up a lot of our readership. Have you done much catering in your career?
Chauhan: Oh my gosh, so much.
CFE: Do you have any advice for caterers?
Chauhan: I think that a lot of people think that with catering, you have to compromise on the flavors and the appearance, because you’re doing it for the masses, and that is not the fact at all, right? I mean, I have catered for 2,000 people. We’ve done pre-plated dishes and stuff. And I think at the end of the day, you realize that to be a caterer, you need to have an extra level of smarts, as opposed to just being a restaurant chef. Because in a restaurant, you have everything around you. I have been catering events out in the field, and the skies have opened, and you’ve got to figure out how to do it, because not to do it is not an option, right? And I think caterers have such an insane level of creativity.
But I also think that my biggest advice is to make a menu which makes your life easy. I am all for semi-prepared food, but I’m not saying to get grilled chicken and put it on the menu. What I’m saying is, get the grilled chicken. Put your signature on it. Spices are your friends. Marinades are your friends. Flavor is your friend. Make sure that that one bite that people get is a punch, right? Because that’s when you make your statement.
CFE: Like what you said in the culinary demo about being authentic to yourself.
Chauhan: Yes! And you don’t need to follow. You don’t really need fruit skewers if that is not who you are. And if you want a fruit skewer and you want to put Tajín on it and give it a Mexican flair, do it! Don’t be afraid. When you’re more authentic to who you are and you put your statement on a plate, that’s what people want more of.
For more information on Chauhan’s flagship restaurant in Nashville, visit chauhannashville.com. For more information on the Florida Restaurant Show, visit flrestaurantandlodgingshow.com.
