New York’s solely Indian restaurant with a Michelin star earns badge of honour once more | Trending

Meals critic Vir Sanghvi took to X to congratulate the chef and his group. “Congratulations to the superb Chef Vijay for retaining his Michelin star for Semma in New York. Congratulations additionally to Chintan Pandya & Roni Mazumdar who run the group behind Semma,” he wrote.

All about Semma

Chef Vijaya Kumar was born and raised in Natham, a small city in Tamil Nadu’s Dindigul. He enrolled in a culinary college in Tiruchy and graduated in 2001. He ran two eating places in San Francisco referred to as Dosa and Rasa. The latter obtained a Michelin Star earlier than it was closed in 2015.

He collaborated with Roni Mazumdar and Chintan Pandya of Unapologetic Meals.Vijaya Kumar was immediately from Unapologetic Meals and labored to open a restaurant that sells genuine south Indian meals which was not toned down for the New York crowd.

The menu at Semma, which interprets to ‘superior’, as a Chettinad diner options dishes from Kumar’s childhood specializing in the micro-regional cuisines of Tamil Nadu. The restaurant obtained its first Michelin star inside a 12 months of being opened. “My grandmother lived in a distant space close to Natham. Folks used to prepare dinner and eat nathai there, which many within the city panorama discover absurd. Throughout my holidays, we used to sit down in paddy fields and relish the flavourful nathai pirattal, having fun with the picturesque view,” he had instructed DTNext in an interview.

(Additionally learn: Chef Vikas Khanna reveals how New York is treating his Indian eatery 8 months in: ‘To be offered out in…’)

The favored restaurant provides delicacies like Naithai Pirattal (snail curry) and Kudal Varuval (goat’s intestines) which aren’t thought-about part of mainstream south Indian delicacies.