Asma Khan has changed the game - part 2
We have recently sat down with hospitality royalty Asma Khan. Asma is the founder and Chef of Darjeeling Express, London’s acclaimed Indian restaurant. Asma is legendary for various iconic reasons, from her infamous biryani to her all female kitchen - she is rewriting the rulebook for the industry. We hope you enjoy the following excerpts from our conversation.
Kelly’s Cause: I think often what we see is when people take their joy of cooking and become professional chefs or open a restaurant that they sometimes lose that. I think it is so evident in Darjeeling Express that you have not lost that. How have you managed to take the magic of cooking and creating that was so evident in your supper clubs and transferred it to a professional kitchen?
AK: I think one of the things is I don’t take myself very seriously. So I don’t see any difference from cooking in my house, to the supper club to the restaurant. I’m not too fussed about calling this a professional kitchen. I don’t really care. For me, I’m just cooking the exact same dish. I love cooking and I love serving people because I want to see their faces and explain to them the stories. So for me nothing changed, it is all a state of mind the same way as you treat everything. If the set or the scenery has changed, you don’t need to change. You need to do what makes you happy in the same way as it did before.
I think it’s unfortunate that people change the bigger they grow. People say to me all the time “you are exactly the same in person as you are on Netflix” - and I reply saying yeah, that’s because it’s me. It happens to a lot of people, they change when circumstances change and they react to that circumstance. I will not react to things going on around me because I am the master of my ship and I will decide my destiny. I will dictate how things go and as long as that doesn’t change then I’m fine. There are days where I feel overwhelmed and I struggle and I remind myself that this is what I love doing and It is also a unique opportunity to feed and heal people.
KC: We just wanted to quickly ask you about your charity. [ Second Daughters Fund provides supplies to celebrate the birth of second daughters in India as well as supporting girls education]
AK: The thing is everything right now is on stand still because of Covid. Schools were closing and it was girls that were taken out of schools and I’m afraid after the long lockdown many haven’t gone back. That is really what we will be focusing on because inevitably it’s the second daughters who will be home. When people lose the habit of sending their daughters to school it becomes a bit of a faff and they fall behind. In middle or low-income houses, online teaching came available but it was only for the boys and the girls were not given that opportunity. We have lost a lot in this pandemic and I’m determined to bring those girls left behind back up to scratch. You already live with the burden of being unwanted, and that boys are superior to you, and then when your grades suffer the temptation to drop out of school is very high. Then that opportunity is lost forever. Education is a chance to change your destiny. Unfortunately covid is very much still here, so all plans are on hold.
KC: I think that covid has put women all over the world behind and I think the gender pay gap has grown again because of covid, which is just devastating
A – Yes I think we will go back decades. We need to talk about this now - so many women were not furloughed in kitchens and they were never recruited back, especially the mothers. For the first time men saw what it is to have kids at home, because they were at home home-schooling. This is all going to work against us, we are again on the back foot and need to start the conversation again.
KC: You have built a professional kitchen with all women but we have noticed you employ men in FOH roles. It is obviously a system that is working really well and I would love to know the reason why, if there is one?
AK: Well the thing is, I felt that if a person is good for FOH, I would like to give them the opportunity. I probably would have given a man an opportunity in my kitchen if he knew how to cook. The thing is, almost every chef who is cooking today in a restaurant learnt at culinary school, batch, mass production cooking. Using equipment I have never seen in my entire life. So if there were somebody who had actually learnt from their mother and learnt intuitively I would have considered them. Patriarchy kills that; boys were never in the kitchen.
I could easily say this is a political decision or about promoting women but I don’t even want to lie about that. If there were a guy who was good, could cook intuitively without instructions, without freezing sauces and 85 items on his menu then I would hire him. I don’t have a female kitchen because I don’t want men; I just wanted people who could cook. Men cook in this really weird way that I have not understood.
India is a very hard country; we didn’t have power for 6 hours a day, if you ate something from a fridge you would die so everything we ate was cooked fresh. Darjeeling Express is the same; we don’t cook for lunch and dinner together. We cook everything fresh. Of course we have a few winging reviews about waiting 45 minutes for a meal but that’s because I am making it fresh not microwaving it. But what other people do is none of my business, I run my own ship and when the hurdles come I know I will jump it and I will win every time. I am not timing myself or setting expectations for my team or myself. They are driven by a desire to succeed, the need to be unique, interesting and make good food.
The men that work at Darjeeling Express are treated fairly. There is no wage gap between them, we do not bully, abuse or call them names. We are nice to our men. It is also important that the women need to understand how to treat the men. My personal assistant is a man and he is incredible and extremely close to all the girls in the kitchen. I rose above my prejudice, how can I ask others to rise above theirs if I wouldn’t include men. We try to take a diverse range of people at Darjeeling express. Simply, I’m not one of those women who hate men; I just don’t like bad people, men or women.
KC: That is exactly it. It has truly been a pleasure to share this conversation with you. Thank you for sitting down with us and continuing to nourish this entire industry.
