The type of cuisine I do, especially after being on 'Iron Chef' for several years, is a lot of global cuisine. My strength has always been Mediterranean cuisine across the board from Morocco, Spain, Italy, Greece, France, but I think now I'm doing a lot of very different cuisines all the time.
In the 1970s we got nouvelle cuisine, in which a lot of the old rules were kicked over. And then we had cuisine minceur, which people mixed up with nouvelle cuisine but was actually fancy diet cooking.
I went to L'Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and I think French cooking is the basis for a lot of classical cuisine, a foundation of a lot of other cuisines. That said, it's not the only way to approach a cooking career.
Indian food beats everything else, in my book. The kinds of cuisine our country offers is just amazing. Every single dish has a variation depending on what region you go to, and that excites me the most about Indian food.
I feel like a lot of Indian fans don't know about my Indian background, so it's funny online that a lot of fans call me this Pakistani dude. No, I'm Indian, too.
Be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim, "I am an Indian, every Indian is my brother." Say, "The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother."
Basically I'm a female human being with brown hair, enjoy precision, reading the news, eating delicious food with my delicious friends and laughing at ridiculous things that don't translate while you are desperately trying to make them.
England understands good Chinese, Japanese and Indian cuisine; in France, we just get French.
My cooking philosophy, what I try to do, is to make a cuisine where the produce and the product shines, compared to some current trends that are maybe more adding additional things, like molecular cuisine, with a lot of additives and chemicals, which are now showing that they could be bad for your health.
Indian spices can find a place in any cuisine. It's just a matter of opening your mind and palate to new flavors.
All of these concoctions that we think are Mexican, are in no way reflective of the deep, incredibly old, complex and sophisticated deep regional cuisine of Mexico. Or the new modern Mexican cuisine, which has really been exploding over the last few years. I think we just have a completely misrepresented view of how good, how complex these flavors are. I think we could learn a lot more. It's a great cuisine that's really moving forward, faster than any other.
In Mumbai, you get good international food but there are few restaurants that serve good Indian cuisine.
My mom loves saris, and when I was a child, she told me 'a girl looks good in an Indian traditional outfit.' So, somehow it stayed in my head, and I really enjoy Indian wear.
You get a lot of young chefs who have a lot of savoir-faire, a lot of technical knowledge. What's important is to convey to them a cuisine that is made from the heart.
I enjoy eating Italian and Japanese cuisine, and abroad, I love Zuma, Nobu, and Cipriani.
The good thing about Hyderabad is the variety of cuisine available. From Nizami cuisine to Andhra food to Telengana delicacies, you are spoilt for choice.