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[Photo Source: Facebook/Vikas Khanna]
“From the very beginning, I knew I would be in this field,” he explained. “But I always thought that I wanted to be a farmer. They had so much pride with all the food they produced. It was so amazing and I felt like without them, we could not survive.”
Today, Khanna is an award-winning Michelin-starred chef, a successful restaurateur and the author of more than 25 cookbooks—but his relatively newfound fame hasn’t changed his humble demeanor.
As he circled around his restaurant, Junoon NYC, during the South Asian Journalists Association’s holiday party, to ensure that all was running smoothly, patrons whispered and pulled out their cell phones to snap a quick picture. Yet, if you ask Khanna about his celebrity status, he’d modestly deny it, instead citing his love for an art that “brings people from all parts of the world together.”
[Vice President of SAJA Aarti Virani with Vikas Khanna at their annual holiday party.| Photo Credit: Grishma Patel]
Khanna’s honest upbringing likely plays a big role in his humility and laidback personality. Having grown up in the small village of Amritsar, India, he developed a deep appreciation for his grandmother’s Punjabi cuisine.
“I always credit her for teaching me the power of food,” Khanna said. “She taught me that cooking was much more than putting spices together.”
As a young child, Khanna frequently experimented with different foods and developed his own recipes. He credits his admission into a top college in India as the first ‘big break’ in his culinary career—though it almost never happened.
“I didn’t know anything beyond the little town that I came from, so that was my big break,” he recalled. “My principal told me that the college rejected me at first, but he sensed that there was so much honesty and beauty when I spoke about food. He told me that this [passion] was something that he could not teach me and that it was something that comes from the inside.”
[Photo Source: Facebook/Vikas Khanna]
His hard work and dedication would eventually pay off. In India, Khanna, a judge on “MasterChef India” for multiple seasons, became a household name. It would come as no surprise that when he moved to the United States in 2000, he would go on to work for some of the most influential chefs in the world, including Gordon Ramsay, Bobby Flay, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten.
It was only a matter of time before Khanna’s culinary achievements would put him on the American map. In 2009, Khanna appeared alongside his former boss as a guest on “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.”
“He is a humble, honest and beautiful human being,” Khanna said of Ramsay. “When I met Gordon, I was very scared. I was worried about his status—next to him, I felt like I was no one, but he is not like that at all. He is a man of extremely high integrity.”
Nervous about the way his English would sound on television, Khanna recalled how kind and reassuring Ramsay was.
“He hugged me and he said, ‘You don’t need to speak, your eyes tell a much bigger story than you do,’” Khanna said. “He was really encouraging and told me, ‘If anyone deserves this, it is you.’”
Khanna has guest starred on a number of American cooking shows since, but said that his favorite appearance was “The Martha Stewart Show.”
“I absolutely loved being on ‘The Martha Stewart Show,’” he explained. “She didn’t understand a single word I was saying and I said, ‘Martha, I don’t understand a single word you’re saying.’” He even jokingly recalling his trouble pronouncing “Worcestershire” sauce.
“She was so amazing,” he added. “There is one thing she said I will never forget. She told me, “for most Americans, you are the first ambassador to Indian cuisine. Many have come, but you are the first one to come here and make it [Indian cuisine] ours.’”
[Photo Source: Facebook/Vikas Khanna]
Given his undying love for cooking, Khanna has difficulty choosing his personal favorite dish.
“It is always a haunting question because it is like choosing a favorite child,” he said. “I don’t want to leave [any dish] behind. I put the same energy into creating something new.”
Indeed, Khanna is undeniably passionate about what he does. At one point, he even politely paused the in-person interview to tend to a nearby Junoon patron who was running low on water.
“I find inspiration everywhere—especially here in New York,” Khanna said as he scrolled through hundreds of food photos on his phone. “I wake up in the morning, and I have to be inspired to do something every day. The biggest inspiration comes from nature… and memories. Memories play a very important role in putting a dish together.”
Much like Stewart herself, many would credit Khanna for popularizing Indian cuisine in America.
“When I came here, it was scary, but this was my dream,” he said. “I am grateful that America has transformed—it has more global citizens than any other country in the world.”
But Khanna also holds another title. In 2011, People Magazine placed him on its “Sexiest Men Alive” list, referring to him as the “hottest chef in America.” Shortly thereafter, a popular New York City daily newspaper put Khanna on its front page—and before he knew it, his fan base grew exponentially.
“I never understood what happened. I just got lucky,” a humble Khanna recounted. “All of a sudden, I would come into the restaurant and people would recognize me.”
The first time a Junoon patron asked him for a photo, Khanna was confused, grabbing the fan’s camera and pointing it at her—only to be told that she wanted a picture with him.
“Typically, I am only called to the table when there is an issue with the food, like it’s cold, or if someone wants to know where the bathroom is,” he said. “It was surreal. It happened overnight.”
When he is not working at the restaurant or writing new cookbooks, he doing his part as a philanthropist. Moved by the September 11 terrorist attacks, Khanna launched “South Asian Kid’s Infinite Vision” (SAKIV), a nonprofit that raises money for worldwide causes, such as the 2004 tsunami, which devastated countries along the coast of Indian Ocean.
“I came [to America] pre-9/11, so when I came [here], it was a totally different country—I can’t deny that,” he recalled. “I saw America changed, and it was very powerful for me. I knew I wanted to do something more.”
All of these things considered, our female readers may be surprised (but certainly not disappointed) to hear that Khanna is single.
“I am single—totally. If someone says, I am married, I say ‘yes, I am married to these 25,000-square-feet,’” he half-jokingly said of his restaurant, Junoon.
