From society kitchen to five-star food festivals, a home chef finds her tables

Hotels in Gurugram and New Delhi invite her to curate food festivals, particularly those showcasing Magadhi cuisine and traditional Indian flavours

Gurugram is a city that eats out. Its food map stretches from cafés and cloud kitchens to restaurants, luxury hotels and food festivals. There is always something new to taste: a new restaurant opening, a new cuisine being introduced and, increasingly, a new kind of food entrepreneur finding an audience.

A resident of DLF Phase 2, Sushma Kumari started as a home chef, cooking from her society kitchen and taking small orders from residents. (HT Photo)

For 45-year-old Sushma Kumari, that appetite for food became an opportunity.

A resident of DLF Phase 2, Sushma started as a home chef, cooking from her society kitchen and taking small orders from residents. Four years later, her cooking has taken her far beyond the condominium gates. Hotels in Gurugram and New Delhi invite her to curate food festivals, particularly those showcasing Magadhi cuisine and traditional Indian flavours. Champaran meat remains one of her specialties.

Hers is a story about the city she chose as her home.

Sushma said she wanted to become a chef since she was a child. “My father was an engineer, and by the time I was 12, I had decided to study hotel management. But growing up in Bihar, cultural expectations did not allow me to pursue that path,” she said.

The dream stayed with her.

Years later, her sister suggested an alternative: if she loved cooking so much, why not become a home chef?

That suggestion eventually brought the dream into her kitchen.

“When I began taking orders, I did not have a restaurant, commercial kitchen or professional team. I had the kitchen in my home and the recipes I had grown up with. I started with small orders within my society, allowing word of mouth to do what advertising could not,” she said.

In a city where residents have seemingly endless choices when it comes to eating out, standing out is not easy. Yet the size and diversity of the city’s food-loving population also create room for people who bring something different to the table.

For Sushma, that difference was traditional Indian food.

Her Champaran meat became one of her signature dishes, while her expertise in Magadhi food opened another avenue.

Hotels started inviting her for food festivals in Gurugram and New Delhi. The home chef who once cooked for residents of her society was now entering professional hotel kitchens and presenting regional flavours to hotel guests.

It is a journey that captures something fundamental about Gurugram.

The city has traditionally attracted people looking for jobs in its corporate offices, but its opportunities are no longer limited to conventional careers. It has created an ecosystem where entrepreneurs, artists, fitness professionals, chefs, homemakers-turned-businesswomen and people pursuing second careers can find customers and audiences.

For a home chef, that ecosystem matters.

A large condominium population provides the first potential customer base. Social media and word of mouth can take a home kitchen beyond one neighbourhood. Restaurants and hotels provide another platform for chefs with a distinctive culinary identity. And a city with residents from different parts of India creates an audience that is often curious about regional food.

Sushma’s journey reflects that evolution.

She first started travelling to Gurugram in 2009 and eventually made the city her home. Today, she lives in DLF Phase 2 and is raising her daughter, who is in Class 9.

Looking back, the distance between the 12-year-old girl who wanted to study hotel management in Bihar and the 45-year-old chef invited to five-star food festivals is enormous.

But perhaps that distance is what makes her story particularly Gurugram.

The city, she says, gave her wings.

(Sushma Kumar is a home chef and presently curating the Magadh Food Festival at Crowne Plaza in Gurugram)