Asma Khan is an Indian-born British chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. She owns Darjeeling Express restaurant in London's Soho and was profiled on the sixth season of the documentary series Chef's Table. In June 2019 Business Insider named her number 1 on their list of "100 Coolest People in Food and Drink".
Early life and education
Khan was born in July 1969 and grew up in Calcutta. She has an older sister and a younger brother. Her family lamented the birth of a second daughter instead of the desired son. According to Khan "there is a deafening silence" in India about the disappointment a family feels at having a second daughter. She has said that she and her siblings were treated equally by her parents, and that she and her mother "made peace while I was still very young." Her father is Rajput from western Uttar Pradesh. Her mother is from West Bengal and had a catering business in the 1970s and 1980s. Khan moved with her husband to Cambridge in 1991. She had never learned to cook and missed the dishes she had grown up eating. She first started learning to cook from an aunt who lived in Cambridge. After her aunt died, Khan returned to India for a visit of a few months to continue lessons with her mother and the family's cook. In 1996 her husband moved to SOAS University of London to teach, and Khan started studying law at King's College London. She graduated with a PhD in British Constitutional Law in 2012.
Career
In 2012, after obtaining her PhD, Khan started offering a series of private supper clubs in her home. Vivek Singh attended one and invited her to host a pop-up at his restaurant, The Cinnamon Club. In 2015, after her family complained, she moved the supper clubs to a Soho pub, Sun and 13 Cantons, and started serving lunches instead. She struggled early on to lead her team of home cooks, mostly local immigrants working for the first time in a professional kitchen, but then a review by Fay Maschler helped bring in customers. In 2016 Simon Quayle, a regular customer and executive director of Shaftesbury, offered her the opportunity to compete for a lease in Soho. When an investor backed out, Khan's husband gave her the money she needed, although he disapproved of the business. Khan opened Darjeeling Express, which offers Indian Rajput and Bengali home cooking specialties, in 2017 in Soho. She named the restaurant after a train she rode as a child during summer holidays. Her team consisted of Asian immigrant women who all had full-time jobs and were never trained professionally; they worked for Khan on their days off but were able to cut back hours at their other jobs and eventually give them up altogether. Most of the all-female kitchen staff at the restaurant are second daughters. All are South Asian. Food & Wine called Darjeeling Express a "smash hit". In 2017, Khan was profiled by the BBC in a short documentary. In 2018 her cookbook, Asma's Indian Kitchen, was published by Pavilion Books. The San Francisco Chronicle called it a "stellar debut". It was shortlisted for the 2018 World Gourmand award for Best Indian Cookbook. In April 2018 Khan was approached by Brian McGinn, producer of Chef's Table, to be profiled on the series. Filming started in London and India in July with Zia Mandviwalla directing. Khan recalls Mandviwalla, who was born in Mumbai and lives in New Zealand, "did not ask me pointless questions about my husband and marriage, I did not need to explain what my mother meant to me, she got it." The programme first aired in February 2019. Khan is the first British chef to be featured. The series' sixth season's theme is "the journey home". The season, which included Khan's episode, was nominated for an Emmy in the outstanding documentary section. According to Bloomberg it became difficult to get a reservation at Darjeeling Express after the series aired. In May 2019 Khan was featured on NPR's The Splendid Table. In June 2019 Business Insider named her number 1 on their list of "100 Coolest People in Food and Drink".
Philanthropy
On Sundays, when Darjeeling Express is closed, Khan offers free use of the premises to women who are aspiring chefs and restaurateurs who would like to host supper clubs. Khan's restaurants support a non-profit, Second Daughters Fund, which encourages families in India to celebrate the births of second daughters by sending packages of sweet treats to be shared with neighbors. In July 2019, to mark her 50th birthday, Khan planned to travel to Northern Iraq to open an all-women cafe for survivors of ISIS.
Personal life
Khan is married to Mushtaq, an academic. According to Khan, he is not a fan of her food, preferring simple dishes and finding hers too complex. The couple have two sons. She is Muslim.
