Mumbai: Celebrated chef Floyd Cardoz, the name behind top restaurants such as Tabla in New York and The Bombay Canteen and OPedro in Mumbai, died of Covid-19-related complications in New Jersey on Wednesday. He was 59, and was last in India earlier this month.
A statement by Hunger Inc, the Indian hospitality company he co-founded, said that Cardoz tested positive for the coronavirus disease in the US on March 18th, and was being treated for it at the Mountainside Medical Centre in New Jersey. Over 55,000 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the US, of which more than 30,000 have been infected in New York and New Jersey alone.
Mumbai-born Cardoz is widely credited with giving Indian fine-dining its due in the US, and for adding a modern, relaxed vibe to Indian cuisine in Mumbai. Trained as a biochemist, he attended culinary school in Mumbai and the Global Hospitality Management School in Les Roches, Switzerland, before moving to New York in 1988.
There, he quickly climbed up the ranks to set up Tabla with restaurant guru Danny Meyer in 1997. It had a successful run in midtown Manhattan, and by 2012, Cardoz, who won Season Three of the show Top Chef Masters and donated his winnings to cancer research, had become a prominent member of the city’s culinary set.
It was in the 2010s that Cardoz truly came into his own, opening three restaurants in the US, and becoming the culinary director and creating the launch menu for Mumbai’s The Bombay Canteen in 2015. When it opened, the restaurant introduced a light, inventive take on Indian dining, serving dishes such as a seafood bhel, a spicy club favourite “Eggs Kejriwal”, and a tuna ceviche with sol-kadi sauce. This, along with the Bombay Canteen’s tapas, and fusion desserts such as the gulab-nut (a gulab jamun-donut hybrid), set the restaurant apart in a market then dominated by comfort European food and high-priced imports such as Norwegian salmon and New Zealand lamb chops.
{{/usCountry}}It was in the 2010s that Cardoz truly came into his own, opening three restaurants in the US, and becoming the culinary director and creating the launch menu for Mumbai’s The Bombay Canteen in 2015. When it opened, the restaurant introduced a light, inventive take on Indian dining, serving dishes such as a seafood bhel, a spicy club favourite “Eggs Kejriwal”, and a tuna ceviche with sol-kadi sauce. This, along with the Bombay Canteen’s tapas, and fusion desserts such as the gulab-nut (a gulab jamun-donut hybrid), set the restaurant apart in a market then dominated by comfort European food and high-priced imports such as Norwegian salmon and New Zealand lamb chops.
{{/usCountry}}Restaurateur Riyaz Amlani, former president of the National Restaurant Association of India and proprietor of dining chains Smokehouse Deli, Saltwater Cafe and Social, says Cardoz’s death has stunned those in the hospitality industry. “He was the first true ambassador of Indian food abroad to a new generation of diners who saw Indian food as trendy and high quality,” Amlani said.
Cardoz authored two books, most recently Flavorwalla in 2016. But to food lovers, he will be remembered as the man who gave Indian food (long considered cheap and stodgy in the West) a fresh, light makeover. To Indians, he’s the local boy who made good internationally, and returned to change the game and inspire local chefs.