Asma Khan wants you to stop with the food pics

Asma Khan didn’t set out to be a chef. In fact, by training, she’s a lawyer. But fate (and food) had other plans. Today, she’s the powerhouse behind London’s beloved Darjeeling Express, the first British restaurant to be run entirely by an all-female kitchen. She’s also a Netflix star (Chef’s Table, anyone?), a fierce advocate for women in the culinary industry, and has been snapped in the company of everyone from King Charles and Olympian Tom Daley to Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon. Following the success of Asma’s Indian Kitchen (2018) and Ammu (2022), she is all set for the launch of her third and most personal cookbook, Monsoon (out on DK Red today), a treasure trove of recipes and stories. 

Seated in a cosy corner of her amber-walled restaurant in the heart of London’s bustling Carnaby Street, the 55-year-old chef sheepishly admits, “I didn’t know how to cook when I moved to England.” Yet, today her restaurant is an unmissable pilgrimage of sorts for people looking for authentic Indian—and by extension Bengali—cuisine in the Square Mile. As a thoroughbred Bengali myself, I can attest to not just the authenticity but the warm feeling of home and comfort that Khan brings to her table. 

Her relationship with food is rarely just about the food itself. So, it follows that her latest cookbook, Monsoon, isn’t just about food—it’s about gratitude. “I was born in July, during the monsoon,” she says. “If you haven’t experienced the monsoon in India, you haven’t understood how to be grateful.” That first drop of rain after months of unbearable heat... It changes everything. Khan recalls her childhood days in Beckbagan—a Kolkata neighbourhood notorious for heavy rainfall and its subsequent waterlogged streets. “We would have nothing at home—no groceries—and everything would be shut,” she reminisces. And that is when the real magic would unfold in her mother’s kitchen. The act of creating something extraordinarily flavourful, and communally eating it, while the thunderstorms chased on leafy branches outside her window. 

Today, globally revered culinary reality shows like Masterchef Australia, have seen South Asian contestants take home the winning title for championing household basics like panta bhat (fermented rice), and aloo bhorta (spiced mashed potatoes). Khan’s objective with her new cookbook is along similar lines. It is as much a celebration of the beauty of seasonality as it is of the lost art of eating within the context of time and place. “When I was growing up, I could walk into a market and tell you the season just by seeing the vegetables,” she says. “Mangoes meant summer. Cauliflower and red carrots? Winter. Sarson saag? Must be the colder months in Aligarh.” 

In Monsoon, she urges readers to slow down. To appreciate food as something sacred, something that nourishes not just the body but the soul. She recalls dinner-table conversations growing up—banter that would revolve around cricket, food, and her father’s love for Urdu poetry. “We’ve become consumers,” she laments. “We take a picture before we take a bite. We forget to acknowledge the hands that cooked and the farmers who grew the food.” 

Much of Monsoon is a tribute to her mother, a woman from an erstwhile Nawab family, who defied expectations as the first female entrepreneur in their family. “She didn’t go to college, but built a thriving catering business. She was a legend,” Khan says with pride. Growing up, her home was filled with the hum of kitchen activity—huge pots of biryani, mustard oil sizzling, trays of halwa being prepared for catering orders. She didn’t learn to cook then, but she absorbed everything. The way caramelised onions should look. The sound of perfectly tempered spices. “When I finally started cooking, I didn’t need a book—I had memorised it all through my senses.”

When Khan first arrived in England several decades ago, she found herself in Cambridge in the dead of winter—newly married and entirely uprooted from the warmth of home. No mobile phones, no FaceTime, just three-minute bank-breaking crackly calls to India. Loneliness wrapped around her as thick as the cold British fog, and food became her solace. 

As these memories evocatively roll off her tongue, I am immediately taken back to the opening pages of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, where a near-labour Ashima Ganguly struggles to replicate the tangy taste of the jhaal muri from Kolkata in the heart of a Boston fall. When I share this with Khan, her eyes light up with painful empathy as she recalls, “I too realised that if I could recreate the smell of home, I could momentarily escape.” And so, she learned. The popping of mustard seeds, the sizzle of curry leaves—each dish was a bridge back to the home she had left behind.

Her first real foray into feeding others wasn’t in a restaurant but on the street—selling samosas to raise money for Sarajevo during the Bosnian war. “A man bought three and handed me a 50-pound note,” she recalls. “I thought it was fake! It looked like a Monopoly note.” But it was real. More importantly, so were his words: “May God bless your hands, there’s something about you.” That moment planted a seed.

Fast forward to London, and Khan found herself hosting supper clubs in her home. Word spread. Her warmth, her food, and her unapologetic championing of home-cooked, heritage-rich dishes drew in a devoted crowd. From there, Darjeeling Express was born, a restaurant that pays homage to the food of the women who raised her—her mother, grandmothers, and an army of female cooks she grew up watching in Kolkata.

So, what’s her favourite recipe that she inherited? “Chholar dal. Hands down.” She describes it as a Bengali childhood in a bowl—gentle sweetness, a hint of coconut, the kind of dish that takes her straight back to family meals and wedding feasts. It’s even creeped its way into Monsoon. I tell her my grandmother’s variation of the recipe involved a generous garnish of finely chopped coconut slices. “That’s how I make mine too,” she adds, matching my beaming smile. Pro tip: Pair it with luchi and kosha mangsho, “I love the sweetness and texture of the dal with the meat. If there was nothing else, I would eat this for the rest of my life.” 

Despite the widespread love for home cooking, the professional kitchen remains a male-dominated space. “Every top chef says their mother or grandmother is the best cook,” Khan points out. “But where are the women in professional kitchens?” At Darjeeling Express, she made a statement by hiring only women, many of whom had never worked in a restaurant before. She’s not here for competition. She’s here to uplift. To remind the world of the magic women bring to food. “I want to highlight, embrace, and make people fall in love with real Indian food.” 

Between running a restaurant, writing books, and championing women in food, what’s Khan’s next move? Storytelling. “If you ask me to describe myself in one word, I wouldn’t say chef. I’d say storyteller.” She’s already working on a children’s book about food and, perhaps down the line, a book about her life.

For now, though, she’s content with feeding people—not just through food, but also through stories, memories, and a deep, unwavering love for home. Whether that’s Kolkata or London, the dust of one will always cling to her heart, even as the other gives her a stage to shine. And yes, in case you were wondering, her biryani absolutely must have potatoes. It’s non-negotiable.

Monsoon by Asma Khan, published by DK Red, is available at all major bookstores across India. ₹1,899