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We’ve all seen the social media posts that have proliferated our feeds throughout the pandemic. Celebrities the world over have kept us updated on how their lives – like those of most across the globe – have been uprooted due to Covid-19.
Some successfully gained a loyal following thanks to their down-to-earth candour (see Dame Judi Dench and Tom Hanks), while others did not quite hit the mark with their inaccessible lifestyles (case in point: Gal Gadot s star-studded cover of John Lennon s
Imagineor Kim Kardashian s holiday).
As some countries, such as the UK and US, begin to loosen restrictions and many stars have started going back to work, we ask some of today’s biggest celebrities, from across the world and a range of industries, how Covid-19 has affected their lives, and what lessons they have learnt amid this unusual experience.
(MELANIE DUNEA Melanie Dunea)
On March 6, 2021, actress Priyanka Chopra-Jonas announced the launch of her new restaurant in New York City, Sona, on her Instagram account, calling it a space that was “the very embodiment of timeless India and the flavours I grew up with”. Probably one of the best kept secrets of the culinary world, this restaurant is helmed by Chef Hari Nayak, the Udupi born culinary genius who has left his distinctive stamp in restaurants across the world.
Looking Back
Born in the coastal town of Udupi in Karnataka that has a vibrant culinary landscape, Nayak admits he was always interested in cooking professionally. After graduating from a hotel school in Manipal in 1994, he joined the Culinary Institute of America, New York, and topped the class as an Honors Student in 1998. Sharpening his skills working with chefs like Daniel Bolud, Marcus Samuelson and Albert Adria, he also trained as a pastry chef. “Coming from a small town and doing it all by myself in
22 Stellar Indian Restaurants in NYC
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Robert Sietsema/Eater NY
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Indian restaurants in New York City go back over a century, and Times Square was an early hotspot. Perhaps the most famous example of the era was the paradoxically named Taj Mahal Hindu Indian Restaurant, founded in 1918 at 242 West 42nd Street at a time when many South Asian students, businesspeople, dock workers, and sailors lived in boarding houses in the vicinity. The
New York Times mentioned it glowingly.
Midtown remained the main repository of Indian restaurants, also causing curries to migrate onto the menus of more effete restaurants and hotels. By the 1970s, there were many steam table establishments serving Punjabi fare in various parts of the city, ladling rice and curries into compartmentalized plates and slinging tandoori items that competed with our earliest barbecue joints when it came to smoky flavors.
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A look at the menus he’s crafted over the years can give you a glimpse into the creative mind of Indian chef Hari Nayak.
In Dubai, he’s been a culinary consultant for restaurants Masti, Bombay Bungalow and Moombai & Co. While Moombai & Co is an old-school cafe, reminiscent of traditional Irani-Parsi joints found in Mumbai, Masti, which translates to “mischief” in Hindi, is a place where saag paneer lasagne, beetroot carpaccio and butter chicken pizza can peacefully co-exist.
And the chef is bringing some of that creativity straight to his newest venture. Just a month ago, Sona, which is Hindi for gold