Suvir Saran

SUVIR SARAN
Chef/Author/Consultant/Public Speaker/Hobby Farmer

Viewing the kitchen as both a culinary and spiritual haven, New Delhi-born Top Chef Master Suvir Saran has nurtured a lifelong passion for the traditional flavors of Indian cooking, which has led him to become an accomplished chef, cookbook author, educator, and culinary consultant. Saran’s approachable style has helped demystify Indian cuisine in America and formed American Masala, his culinary philosophy, which celebrates the best of Indian and American cooking.

A respected culinary authority, Saran is Chairman of Asian Culinary Studies for the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and travels extensively to teach audiences ranging from home cooks and fellow chefs to physicians and nutritionists. He has been a featured speaker and guest chef for notable gatherings such as the Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives, a course taught in collaboration between Harvard School Of Public Health and the CIA, Food Network’s South Beach Wine & Food Festival, the New York City Wine & Food Festival, and many others. Saran has also led classes for culinary centers and schools nationwide.

Renowned for his accessible approach to Indian flavors and techniques, Saran has penned three cookbooks: Indian Home Cooking: A Fresh Introduction to Indian Food, with More Than 150 Recipes (Clarkson Potter, 2004); American Masala: 125 New Classics from My Home Kitchen (Clarkson Potter, 2007); and Masala Farm: Stories and Recipes from an Uncommon Life in the Country (Chronicle Books, 2011). Masala Farm was a James Beard Award finalist for Best American Cookbook for 2011. His recipes have been featured in Bon Appétit, Cooking Light, Food & Wine, Fine Cooking, Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, Departures, InStyle, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Time and USA Today, as well as others. He has been a featured judge on Next Iron Chef and Iron Chef on the Food Network and has had numerous appearances on national broadcasts. In spring 2011, Suvir was a break out star on Bravo’s Top Chef Masters.

Most recently, Saran was Executive Chef/Owner at utterly original Tapestry, in Greenwich Village, New York. The menu featured Saran’s nuanced understanding of the many grand cuisines of the world. Featuring recipes from over a dozen countries at any given time. Cross cultural dishes, and seductive cocktails wowed critics and customers alike. The photogenic haven of undeniably chic interiors and deliberately chosen design accents put his merchandising and retailing experience to work. Saran was a buyer for home furnishings at Bergdorf Goodman, merchandising director at Henri Bendel and regional manager for the Metropolitan Museum of Art gift stores. Work that is second nature to him, and aided by tutelage garnered from his years studying at the School of Visual Arts in NYC.

Saran is something of a legend in New York food circles, having garnered a Michelin star at Devi, a first for Indian cuisine as well as the first for any non-French or Non-Italian restaurants in North America. Here he shared the authentic flavors of Indian home cooking. Under Saran’s leadership, Devi consistently received popular and critical acclaim and earned a four star rating from TimeOUT NY, three-star rating from New York magazine and two stars from the New York Times.

Saran is the only chef on the nutrition advisory board to Brigham & Women Hospital, at Harvard Medical School. In this role he works with physicians, dietitians and nutritionists to ensure that culinary innovation meet fact-based science where trends and flavor, meet taste and health. His three years spent training, presenting, and cooking across the many Sodexo accounts his food or work was featured at as Global Culinary Partner for Sodexo, the largest food service provider in the world, has honed his skills and his reputation for being the leading culinary authority with know-how to translate the tedium of medical, dietetic and scientific research into culinary ambrosia. Food that can be embraced by the diner and bring lucrative success.

"American Masala" is the name of his farm, his second cookbook, and his culinary philosophy, which embraces the best in Indian and American cooking.

When he is not on the road teaching, presenting or eating, Saran and his partner Charles Burd can be found caring for American Masala Farm, a nineteenth-century farm set on sixty-eight acres of rolling land in upstate New York and home to lovingly raised heritage-breed animals and pets, including two dogs, sheep, ducks, geese, alpacas, chickens, guinea hens, and one cantankerous goat. Saran and Burd are dedicated to the recommendations of the American Livestock Breed Conservancy (ALBC) in choosing the farm’s animal population and exemplify farm-to-table living by providing local restaurants with their heritage-breed eggs.

For more information, please visit www.suvir.com