In April Nikita Gandhi became the youngest chef to win MasterChef India, picking up a cool Rs10 million (Dh5,90,000) prize at the show’s fourth season’s grand finale in Mumbai. Even though the 21-year-old Abu Dhabi resident had shown desire to join a culinary school after the win, she put it on the back burner, preferring to explore culinary opportunities closer to home. “After winning MasterChef India I’ve been busy travelling to India — especially in Gujarat [her home state] — for food events, demonstrations and menu designing the last few months,” she tells tabloid!. “[As the winner of MasterChef] people are always looking to engage with me and my work, to share tips and my recipes with them”.
Back in the UAE capital, she will be participating in Taste of Abu Dhabi, starting Thursday, but has also been busy serving Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit here in August. Gandhi was part of celebrity chef and MasterChef India judge Sanjeev Kapoor’s team, who cooked a royal Gujarati feast for Modi and UAE diplomats.
“It was an amazing experience, more so because it was totally unexpected,” Gandhi gushes. “It was a group of about 15 chefs. Sanjeev Kapoor, his regional chef Akshay Nair and I looked after the plating, the cooking was done by the rest of the team. Chef Kapoor gave me a few tasks such as applying the gold warq [foil] on the sweets and generally checking the plates before they went out”.
At her first appearance at Taste of Abu Dhabi, she would be rubbing shoulders with culinary celebs such as Eric Lanlard, Siba Mtongana, Jenny Morris, Reza Mohammad to name a few. She will also be preparing two dishes at the Chefs Theatre and Cookery School.
“I’m so excited at the prospect of meeting pastry chef Eric Lanlard because I love baking and have interned at an Abu Dhabi hotel in pastry making too,” says the business and finance graduate. “I’ll be at the Taste of Abu Dhabi for two days. At the Chefs Theatre I will be demonstrating a dish I made on MasterChef [India] but as it was part of a team task it wasn’t given much prominence, though it garnered a lot of praise. It’s my take on my favourite dessert tiramisu, same flavours but a completely different look. At the Cookery School, I’m really excited about preparing a dish that is India-inspired and represents India — tofu Indian style”.
Gandhi speaks of her desire to open a cafe or restaurant in Dubai in the near future, exploring various restaurant concepts in the last months, when not shuttling between India and the UAE.
“The one reason I really love UAE is its food scene. Although it’s a Middle Eastern country, the variety of food available here is astounding. We can find authentic tastes and flavours for all the cuisines. I feel Dubai is a notch higher than the rest of UAE when it comes to food and because of its diverse expat population there. So I would like to open an eatery here. Also, it has a young working population who are quite adventurous with food. Older people still tend to stick to traditional food — even my own parents to a large extent are not open to trying different cuisines or fusion food”.
