One of the UK's brightest chefs, Asma Khan, runs an all-woman restaurant in London.
Asma Khan is an India-born chef known for her restaurant, which is run by all women, a tradition inspired by her family kitchen.
In celebration of Women's History Month, MAKERS partnered with Be Bold for Change, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to inspire and activate changemakers today and tomorrow. On March 14, the two organizations hosted a community event, Be Bold Now x MAKERS, to celebrate women making a difference in their industries and communities.
India-born chef Asma Khan is one of the United Kingdom’s brightest culinary artists, well known for her unique London-based restaurant Darjeeling Express and award-winning recipes and cookbooks (her book Ammu: Indian Home Cooking to Nourish Your Soul was awarded The Times Book of the Year in 2022.) Not only was Khan the first chef to appear on British Vogue's list of its 25 most influential women, but she was also the first British chef to be profiled on Netflix's Emmy-nominated show Chef's Table. Khan opened Darjeeling Express in 2017 after the small supper clubs she hosted for women in her London community grew in popularity. The restaurant’s kitchen is run by all women, a tradition inspired by her family kitchen, and many of the cooks had never cooked professionally before. Khan is also trained as a lawyer, so her journey as an advocate and activist came naturally to her. “And it was really when I began my food journey, I realized that food is absolutely political,” she told attendees at the event, sharing about the conditions she’s seen women face working in restaurants and wanting to make a change.
“...when I'm in the kitchen, my wages [are] the same because these things are important. This is how you build a team by making them understand that everyone is equal.”
Khan also mentors women in the food industry, offering free use of the Darjeeling Express to aspiring women chefs. She has expressed interest in training women of all ages and ambitions, to manage and run restaurants. During the event, Khan told stories about close friends and family reminding her of her power, and how she strives to bring other people’s voices and stories into the narrative around food and justice. “So it is really a movement to change the narrative about how we clear the pathways for the future leaders. And this is why we are all here. Because it cannot be only about you, it cannot be about your legacy only. It has to be about the pathways you're clearing.”
Ultimately, Khan wants women to realize all the strengths displayed in the kitchen – healing, feeding, nourishing others – are valuable and can turn into something special, no matter what their dreams are. In the past few years, she’s hosted cafes and trained young women in refugee camps and was recently announced as the United Kingdom’s Chef Advocate for the UN World Food Programme. She ended her speech with encouraging words: “You can be anything you want to be. You write your own story.”
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Written By: Angelica Arnold, MAKERS Community Manager