Tamil took a global fare and won ‘food oscar’

In the western town of Manhattan, cooking trends can be changed with seasons, the Vijay Kumar chef is forming a quiet revolution.

Its 2025 James Beard Award wins for Best Chef: This month is more than personal recognition this month – it marks a point of turning culture.

Chennai-based Culinary Historian Rakesh Raghunathan says: “Following the steps of the recipients of Raghavan Iyer Padma lakshmiVijay Kumar’s recognitions are increasing vocals in South India in the global culinary stage. ”

“Tamil cuisine – along with other traditions in Sri Lankan Tamil and South India – is becoming more and more refined in culture, rich and very rooted.”

Arasampatti, Madurai Born in the town of Nadu Nadu, 44-year-old Kumar has always had meals and grandmothers serving meals from the family, wood kitchens and grandmother and grandmother and grandmothers.

When he took the scenario during the JB awards ceremony, “I grew up when I took care of food, with fire, fire, the main scenario with the soul.” It was a moment of deep emotion and cultural pride for the Kum.

“There is no food or food that is rich. It is food. It is strong. And it’s a real luxury to be able to connect to each other around the dinner table.”

For the kum, winning is a personal milestone, but it is also a powerful act of visibility.

“When I started cooking, I never thought that a dark boy in Tamil could make a room like that,” he said in his acceptance speech. It was important, so Veshti, carrying the traditional dress for traditional male Tamil, James Beard black ceremony for its roots.

Recently, Kumar trained a couple of influences in New York. To quickly climb his defense, Padma Lakshmi, the Cookbook and the Embassy of the Cooking, called the influences for cultural influences.

When talking with BBC, Lakshmi said, “Vijay’s story is important for non-South Indian food, as well as grew with shelves and cooked with limited resources.”

“This resource does not propagate his work ethics, but not only the taste, ingredients and sense of the world, is the expectation of young people around the world. If you trust and develop your senses and skills, you can go far in a creative career.”

Kumar’s trip was not smooth to start.

The Bigan city has been unable to school engineering. He traveled to the Taj Connemara Hotel in Chennai, crossing cruise ships and kitchens, and finally found his ordined lands in America, working in San Francisco Dosan.

His real progress came when Roni Mazumdar and Chintan Pandya came together with the disabled food, New York restaurant group, to open Semma – 2021 to do “fantastic”.

The trio “he wanted to share the desire to honor our heritage, to tell the world to the world we tell us through our cuisine.”

“At that moment, it wasn’t just about food, it was about identity,” said Mazumdark BBC. “For a long time, the US Indian food lived under the veil of northwestern Lencers. Along with Semma, that curtain is pulled back and something is more honest.”

Kumare jumped to share his culinary world. “When we started talking about eating the eyes, we started talking about food, and that kind of food rarely makes restaurant menus,” said Mazumdar.

Kumar’s strength consists of serving food in the seasonal, hyper-local village food and completely built from scratch. His farm desktop vision, says “Mom and grandmother was cooked. Semma, it adds, is a celebration of this simplicity.

This simplicity is echoed.

Semma’s menu defies the topics that often define Indian food abroad. There is no chicken butter or Naan here and Kumar’s Epiphany did not meet a meeting: French escargot.

As a child, the rice was scarce on the days, with his family snails for lunch paddy on the fields, the tamarindo sauce would be cooked in salt. Kumare accepted that he was ashamed of a boy, “he felt like the birth of poverty, until I saw the pride who serves French escargot.”

Today, Nathai Pasattal, proudly in Semma’s menu, is not as a memorial of the scarcity, but as a symbol of cultural resilience and cultural pride.

Semma’s menu – Piper Rasam, Tamarind Crab, banana flower Vadai, an emotional connection to the diaspora daspora tables and offer a revelation for the first timers.

Kumar intends to bring village style food and show the perfect places to show and the spaces of the New York restaurant in the new throat has won a long line of admiration.

There is a powerful depth, region and emotional emotional connection in this food.

Cocktails are a film star like Rajnikanth and Silk Smitha, and the warmth of Décor Chennai. The kitchen intent space is required to cook the cookers “gratitude and mindfulness”.

“I was invited to commit the Gala of Los Angeles’s black gala. A year later, people still had an incredible food,” says Lakshmi, clapping the gift of Kumar to the brightest platforms.

Awards and errors look like a natural progression of his trip. Semma is the first restaurant in New York, to win a Michelin star, to win a Michelin Star and find the list of New York Times for the best 100 restaurants. And now Kumar’s JBA.

In many ways, Kumar is not only served food – serves memory, pride and quiet revolution.

Her James Beard won his talent recognition, but also permission from the regional cuisine of India, with its thick species and souls, which is located in the center of the global table.

Kumar’s victory “has sparked curiosity of young people in India, and has given greater pride in our food,” says Lakshmi. “This will be his greatest heritage.”

Adds Mazumdar, “This winner is regional responsibility, and our stories and our roots have value in the world phase.”