United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service, Mumbai recently organised an interaction between celebrity chef Floyd Cardoz and a few renowned Mumbai – based chefs, with an objective to discuss about food and beverage industries and food culture in both India and the US. Chef Nilesh Limaye, Chef Vicky Ratnani, Chef Michael Swamy, Chef Salil Fadnis and Chef Sudhir Pai interacted with Chef Cardoz on topics such as food culture, preferences, fusion flavours, new trends, menus, etc. Chef Limaye is also going on the USDA’s Cochran Fellowship Program in Summer 2016.
Speaking to Food & Hospitality World, Chef Cardoz, said, “Connection between the US and India is important for me. Working with the US Consulate and interacting with Indian chefs helps to promote food, so it’s important to have that relationship. Indian food, for the longest time, has not been very popular in the US, but it is now slowly changing. There is a bunch of new things coming up in the US which will do well for Indian food.
“American food in India is nowhere close to authentic American food. Barbeque is famous in the South of the US; if you are in the North East, it’s sea food; if you are in the central part of the country, there are great steaks. So American food is not confined to just Burgers. American food is not explored enough. However, when Indians travel to the US, they realise that. There are also more American ingredients available in the India market now,” added Cardoz. During the interactive session Chef Cardoz also expressed that menus are not organised in the Indian F&B space.
Explaining the challenges for chef’s in the Indian F&B space, Chef Pai suggested that chefs in India are more free in stand – alone restaurants than in hotels, due to hotel policies. He stated, “In hotels, corporate sector is a huge market, which forms 70 per cent of the business. Chefs have to comply with the hotel’s terms and there’s less scope for innovation. So F&B business is slowly shifting to stand-alone restaurants.”
