HT Brunch Cover Story: The reinvention of Gaggan Anand

Hindustan Times | ByRaaj Sanghvi

Jul 19, 2020 06:57 AM IST

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The closure of his Michelin-starred restaurant, a divorce and the pandemic: How the chef battled every adversity with a ladle… and won!

You know who Gaggan Anand is, of course. You have read about the decade of triumph after triumph for the Kolkata-born, Bangkok-based chef, who is counted amongst the world’s most influential culinary personalities. His underdog chaat-to-ceviche success story is also well documented in a much-watched miniseries on Netflix (his episode was nominated for an Emmy Award) and is widely written about by the global media.

Gaggan Anand’s underdog chaat-to-ceviche success story is also well documented in a much-watched miniseries on Netflix(Rohit Chawla)

“If I wasn’t a chef, I would have been a drummer like Dave Grohl”

After a bitter fall-out with his erstwhile partners last year, Anand walked out of the eponymous restaurant, he had spent his life creating in Bangkok (Rohit Chawla)

“Everything negative in my life has been cut off like a cancer and I am in a happy place”

(Above) Gaggan Anand’s daughter Tara, 4; (Top and right) Gaggan with his mother in Puri, Orissa, and as a toddler (Instagram @gaggan_anand)

“We will open [a culinary academy] in Thailand at the end of next year and I will create the full syllabus... We’ll only teach things that we practice”