Asma Khan, the chef calling out restaurants’ bad behaviour
Life and Art from FT Weekend
Forhecz Topher
4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2024
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Asma Khan breaks a lot of fine dining’s unspoken rules. She is the chef and owner of London’s beloved Darjeeling Express, an Indian restaurant whose entire kitchen is staffed by women. Her kitchen has no hierarchy, and her chefs were trained as home cooks. Asma’s advocacy for women has won her a spot on Time magazine’s 100 most influential people list, and her kitchen has been widely profiled and acclaimed. Yet she remains extremely candid about her industry’s problems, speaking out about bullying, sexism and racism in the world’s top kitchens. Today, we bring you Lilah’s conversation with Asma, which was recorded live onstage during the recent FT Weekend Festival in London.
-------
We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap. We’re on X @lifeandartpod and on email at [email protected]. We are grateful for reviews on Apple and Spotify. And please share this episode with your friends!
-------
Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):
– Check out Asma’s ode to the dried red chilli in the FT here: https://on.ft.com/3XtemvF
– Asma Khan is on X @Asma_KhanLDN and Instagram at @asmakhanlondon
– You can learn more about her in Season 6 of Netflix’s Chef’s Table
-------
Special FT subscription offers for Life and Art podcast listeners, from 50% off a digital subscription to a $1/£1/€1 trial, are here: http://ft.com/lifeandart
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos. |
| 0:06.2 | This week we are sharing a conversation that I had on stage at the FT Weekend Festival in London recently with the chef Asma Khan. |
| 0:15.0 | Asma is a leader in the restaurant industry and also someone who is really not afraid to criticize it. |
| 0:20.7 | So I didn't want you to miss it. |
| 0:23.0 | Okay, here we go. |
| 0:25.1 | I am very thrilled to be here with the trailblazing Asma Khan, chef and founder of Darjeeling Express. |
| 0:32.8 | Asma is from Calcutta and her love for cooking grew out of homesickness after she moved to Cambridge |
| 0:39.0 | with her husband in 1991. |
| 0:41.9 | She learned to cook. |
| 0:43.7 | Then over the years began hosting private supper clubs in her home. |
| 0:47.0 | Then those grew and grew and grew until in 2017, Asma opened Darjeeling Express, which has become an acclaimed, beloved, and pioneering London restaurant. |
| 0:59.1 | Asma has broken countless conventional rules. |
| 1:02.0 | She, for one, started her career in restaurants at 45 years old after a full career studying and teaching British constitutional law. |
| 1:10.5 | She has been willing to speak out against all of the shady behavior that happens in the dining world. |
| 1:16.3 | And famously, she has no men in her kitchen. |
| 1:19.4 | All of her chefs are South Asian women who trained as home cooks. |
| 1:24.1 | So our conversation is about how to break every rule of fine dining and get away with it. |
| 1:29.6 | Asma, welcome. |
| 1:30.4 | What an honor to have you. |
| 1:31.3 | Thank you very much. |
| 1:32.2 | Thank you. |
| 1:36.6 | So to start, when I first came to you with this idea, you know, about can we give people |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Forhecz Topher, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Forhecz Topher and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.