The article first appeared in The Hindu on June 18, 2025.
Chef Vijay Kumar’s poignant speech on winning the James Beard Awards, 2025, for best chef in New York State, is especially powerful because it celebrates a huge change in attitude towards Indians and Indian food, and more specifically South Indians and South Indian food — a change that has been tirelessly fought for in Indian, and foreign kitchens for decades. Semma, set in New York City’s trendy Greenwich, is bright and buzzy, with a menu that embraces the food Vijay grew up eating in Natham, near Madurai, where his parents still live. For a long time, Indian cooking abroad was dismissed as spicy, greasy and generic, with curry houses serving an amalgamation of vaguely Punjab-inspired food: vivid bowls of butter chicken, spicy vindaloo and ‘naan bread.’
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