From Physics to Food. How a passion for flavour led Chet Sharma through michelin starred gastronomy to his dream position to chef patron
The Doctor's Kitchen Podcast
Dr Rupy Aujla
4.8 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2024
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chet Sharma’s culinary intrigue, coupled with his academic and scientific interests, have made for an impressive and expansive career in hospitality.
During his university studies, which ultimately led to a PhD in physics from the University of Oxford, he worked part time at a number of London’s leading Michelin-starred restaurants, including Benares and Locanda Locatelli. After discovering a passion for hospitality, he went on to work at two Michelin-starred Mugaritz, Simon Rogan’s Umbel Restaurant Group, two-starred Mark Birchall’s Moor Hall, and the late, also two-starred, The Ledbury.
In 2017, Chet moved to become Group Development Chef at JKS Restaurants – with whom he eventually opened BiBi in September 2021. A progressive restaurant serving dishes inspired by ingredients and memories from the Indian subcontinent. BiBi draws on the years Chet has spent cooking and sourcing ingredients for some of the most esteemed Michelin-starred restaurants in the world, whilst also embracing the full multicultural span of Indian cuisine. BiBi was GQ Restaurant of the Year 2022.
Today we talk about:
- Chet’s transition from a science background into food
- Small scale farmers in the UK and India to champion forgotten ingredients
- His ongoing research with the British Library into pre-colonial Indian food
- We also talk about the stress of the job and how, to this day, Chet lives with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, a reactivation of Varicella Zoster Virus that affects his facial nerve brought on by stress during the pandemic.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Doctors Kitchen. |
| 0:03.0 | Recipes Health Lifestyle |
| 0:08.0 | Welcome to the Doctors Kitchen Podcast, |
| 0:10.0 | The show about food, lifestyle, medicine and how to improve your health today. |
| 0:21.0 | I'm Dr. Rupi, your host. I'm a medical doctor, I study nutrition and I'm a firm believer in the power of food and lifestyle as medicine. |
| 0:32.0 | Join me and my expert guests where we discuss the multiple determinants of what |
| 0:36.6 | allows you to lead your best life. Chef Chet Sharma is on the podcast today and he runs one of the most impressive and exciting restaurants in London today. It's called Beebe and it's one of my absolute favorites. It's one of the places that I tell people whenever they're traveling to London to come in and try BB. It's just something |
| 1:06.8 | that you won't get anywhere else in the world. And his journey to food is super, super intriguing. So during his university studies which ultimately led to a |
| 1:17.0 | PhD in physics from the University of Oxford he worked part-time at a number of London's leading mission-starred restaurants, including |
| 1:26.9 | Benares and Lekanda Locatelli, one of my wife's favorite Italians in London as well. So he discovers his passion for |
| 1:34.7 | hospitality and then he goes on to work at two mission-starred Muguritz which is a |
| 1:40.3 | phenomenal restaurant that is revered around the world in San Sebastian and then he goes to work at Moore Hall. |
| 1:47.1 | He also worked at the Leadbury and then in 2017 he moves to become group development chef at JKS restaurants that are responsible for a number of iconic |
| 1:56.5 | restaurants in London including Sabor and Bowe and a whole bunch of others and then he eventually opens BB in September 2021. It's a progressive |
| 2:06.5 | restaurant serving dishes inspired by ingredients and memories from |
| 2:11.0 | the Indian subcontinent. Bibi draws on the years that Cheet has spent in cooking and sourcing ingredients |
| 2:17.6 | for some of the most esteemed mission-starred restaurants in the world, |
| 2:21.7 | whilst also embracing the multicultural span of Indian cuisine. |
| 2:26.1 | And we go into that today during the podcast, Indian cuisine isn't just one thing, and I had no idea |
| 2:32.3 | just how expansive are ingredient repertoire is in the Indian |
| 2:38.0 | subcontinent. It is phenomenal. |
| 2:40.5 | BB was also GQ's Restaurant of the Year in 2022. And I can vouch for that. |
... |
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