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Indian celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor is a striking character. In India, his name is synonymous with his long-running and popular television show, best-selling cookbooks and restaurants throughout the country.

For the opening of this year’s Indian Food and Art Festival in Jakarta, the Embassy of India, the Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center and Four Seasons Hotel Jakarta invited the master chef to present his culinary skills at Seasons Cafe.

Upon his arrival at the Four Seasons Hotel, Kapoor was swarmed by beautiful Indian girls in vibrant-colored saris. Some asked for his autograph, while others took pictures with the celebrity chef. Kapoor greeted them all with a big smile.

Kapoor’s cooking show, “Khana Khazana,” has been broadcast for more than 17 years on India’s Zee channel. The master chef has also authored more than 100 cookbooks in English, Gujarati, Hindi and Marathi. He operates 18 restaurants worldwide, including two in Dubai, one in Doha and one in Bahrain.

Despite his fame and fortune, the chef keeps a relatively low profile and is unfailingly gracious and charming. When the Jakarta Globe shared a dinner table with him last week, Kapoor offered some insight into his passion for cooking and different cultures.

Born in Ambala, in the northwest of India, in April 1964, Kapoor excelled in math and biology as a child. As a teenager, he had wanted to become an engineer or a doctor but his pioneering spirit led him in a different direction.

“It had to be so different that nobody in my family, none of my friends and none of my neighbors should do that,” he said. “It had to be something that is highly creative and a little bit bizarre.”

At that time, cooking fitted all his criteria. “For somebody who is educated to take up cooking, everyone was thinking, ‘What’s wrong with him?’ ” Kapoor said.

Ignoring the skeptics, he enrolled at the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering and Nutrition, in Pusa, New Delhi.

“As soon as I started, I could feel that cooking was something which I would enjoy a lot and could keep on doing until the end,” Kapoor said.

His parents supported his career choice. “At that time, in India, men would hardly be seen in the kitchen, especially home kitchens,” he said. “But my dad was fond of cooking. So, in our house, a male presence in the kitchen was OK.”

After he graduated in 1984, Kapoor started his culinary career at the India Tourism Development Corporation. Under their kitchen management scheme, he became a chef within one year and an executive chef after eight years.

In 1993, Kapoor received the Mercury Gold Award from the International Flight Catering Association of Geneva for the Best Meal Concept and Creation. That same year, he was nominated for, but lost, the Best Executive Chef award from Hotel & Food Service India.

“Working in a professional kitchen is physically very demanding,” Kapoor said. “It’s long working hours, a lot of physical work and no [time] off on holidays. In fact, on holidays you work more. There are not many people who continue with this.”

Two years later, in 1995, he won the Best Executive Chef award.

Having reached the peak of his career at a relatively young age, Kapoor felt he needed to move in a different direction. He started his own cooking show, which soon gained a huge following in India. The show won the Best Cookery Show award from the Indian Television Academy in 2001 and 2002.

During his three-day visit to Jakarta last week, the master chef visited Padang restaurants and roadside food stalls. “I’ve tried them all: sate, nasi Padang, nasi goreng and laksa,” he said.

“It’s an exchange. I teach what I know and I also learn from the local cuisine.

“Indonesian food, like Indian food, is very bold and robust,” he said. “There are certain cuisines that are subtle, which you have to really discern in order to understand them. But Indonesian and Indian cuisine is not like that. They’re in your face. You either like them or you don’t.”

Kapoor has written another cookbook, “Tandoori Cooking @ Home,” which he had planned to launch at the opening of the Indian Food and Art Festival, but was unable to because of a problem with customs. “In India, tandoori cooking is very popular,” he said. “However, people don’t normally have a tandoor [a clay oven]. So, this book shows you how to cook at home without a tandoor.”

In his spare time, Kapoor enjoys playing drums and cooking for his wife, Alyona, and their teenage daughters, Rachita and Kriti, at home. “There is no cooking like home-cooking,” he said, with a smile.

Kapoor's Book

Sanjeev Kapoor’s latest book “Tandoori Cooking @ Home,” and his previous one, “Flavours of the Orient,” are available through the Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center Jakarta. The new book was set to be launched last week at the Festival of India, but the importation of a shipment of the books was delayed by customs officials, who said that documentation was incomplete. The 104-page books are priced at Rp 250,000 ($26.50) each.

Jawaharlal Nehru Indian Cultural Center
Jl. Imam Bonjol 32
Jakarta Pusat
Tel. 021 315 5120