This is Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos.

Aisha Nerjaya is the executive chef and partner at two of my favorite restaurants in New York,

Shuka and Chuket. And the best way I can characterize Aisha's food and her spirit is to quote a review

that called Chuket a Middle Eastern party. It has an open kitchen that runs the length

of the restaurant. The music is up. Every dish is a party. It's bursting with flavor. It's piled

with herbs. It's surrounded by dips. And Ayesha is the ultimate party host. I actually think

of Aisha as maybe Dionysus meets Demitra, like the god of pleasure and festivity meets the goddess of the harvest.

She knows how to use herbs and spices and fresh produce to create absolute joy.

So as the weather warms up and we prepare for spring cooking, I have invited her on to inspire us.

She's with me in person in the New York studio.

Aisha, hi. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much. That is such an introduction. I feel like I have to change the horn on my car to have that. I don't need a copy of that. That was amazing. Thank you so much. I was going to ask if I got your Greek gods right. You nailed it. I don't even know if they want to hear me anymore. I know. I don't think so. That was powerful.

Amazing. We have listeners from all over the world. I'm wondering if you could tell them about your restaurants.

Like, what kind of food are you cooking? Are you trying to emphasize something in particular?

Sure. I would call it Middle Eastern Mediterranean. I think I really take kind of the respect and the culture of Middle Eastern cuisine and its simplicity, where it's like olive oil, a few ingredients and nothing more. But really the seasonal approach that we have here in New York. So the green market is usually where the inspiration starts. And we tried to source the best ingredients as possible, so we don't have to over-manipulate it. Yeah. And hopefully that's what you're getting when you come to the restaurants. Yeah, that's all true, but it sort of makes the restaurants sound more conventional and orderly than it feels when you're in there. Let's place listeners at Chuket, if you don't mind. How does it feel? Tell me about this

concept of the rip and dip that you started. So I think when you come to the restaurant, you have to

kind of submit. You have to look at the menu and say, how does this work? What am I doing?

I think the whole idea of my philosophy of rip and dip is that everything complements each other. So there's no rhyme or reason. You can order your kebab first. You can get dips later. You can get your dips and only finish them halfway and then have a few vegetables and dip those vegetables and those dips. And rip and dip is all about sharing. It doesn't mean like you have to share with another person because you could kind of share within yourself. Right. But that you're building these dishes. I don't know how to explain it.

So you can order like a few different types of breads, a few different dips, a few kebabs,

a grilled fish. Right. Everything is sort of covered in herbs and olive oil and deliciousness and

butter. And so once you have everything on your table,

then you're creating this. You're like building your own feast, if you will. Right. It's the

most committed vision with non-committal type of structure of eating. That's how I can explain it.

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