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    Why young chefs, mostly women, are creating hyperlocal, highly individualistic dishes

    Kunzes Angmo of Artisanal Alchemy(L) and Noon’s Vanika Choudhary

    Synopsis

    A new generation of Indian chefs is creating a gastronomic movement focused on local ingredients and sustainability, moving away from imported ingredients such as truffles and chocolate. The movement is characterised by feminine leadership and storytelling, producing dishes with no traditional antecedents that rely on fermentation and foraged ingredients. These chefs, including Niyati Rao and Vanika Choudhary, are creating highly individualistic dishes but face questions on a lack of profitability. However, their exposure to audiences through catering and small dinners, as well as their stories and personal journeys, may prove popular enough to make these restaurants commercially viable.

    Away from the super kitchens of chefs Manish Mehrotra and Gaggan Anand, influential fathers of modern Indian food, a new, new Indian gastronomy is emerging. This is fiercely centred on Indian ingredients — hyperlocal and directly sourced from farmers, sometimes obscure or foraged — which are turned into dishes that are the chefs’ interpretations of local cultures, but not reinventions of popular dishes such as vada pao or butter chicken. A few
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