TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

Speaker 1 (00:08.494)
My name is Abhay Dandekar and I share conversations with talented and interesting individuals linked to the global Indian and South Asian community. It's informal and informative, adding insights to our evolving cultural expressions where each person can proudly say, trust me, I know what I'm doing. Hi everyone. On this episode of Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing, we share a conversation with the executive chef at Semma in New York City, Vijay Kumar. Stay tuned.

Speaker 2 (00:44.494)
you

Okay so in the multiverse of choices that you made today, thank you for choosing Trust Me I Know What I'm Doing. It takes effort to engage here and make it part of your day and even a small part of your life. And guess what, Trust Me I Know What I'm Doing is homemade and has no added colors or toxins. I appreciate everyone listening on all the podcast platforms, rating and writing reviews, and sharing this with all your friends and family. This episode as always is also available on YouTube, so please check out the full video episode there too. Now if you've really got something to share, celebrate,

just feeling friendly, send a message over to info at abhidharandekar.com as I'd love to hear from you or give you a shout out. So speaking of homemade, we talk a lot on the podcast about bringing one's backstory to life and what it feels like to have that recognized, especially when the cultural anchors seamlessly integrate into the excellence of our daily work. Now where I think this manifests the best and maybe in the most tangible way is through the food we eat and the people with whom we share it.

When the New York Times named Semma its 2025 number one rated restaurant in New York, who'd have thought that South Indian homestyle village food would take center stage in the city that never sleeps with patrons from around the globe? But so I actually think that for executive chef Vijay Kumar, creating food from his family roots in Tamil Nadu that's boldly soothing, authentically innovative and nostalgically transformative is just the most natural extension of simply being himself.

Vijay's journey from growing up in a small farming community near Madurai to culinary school to working on cruise lines perfecting his techniques showcase his humility, passion, and dedication. From his time in San Francisco at Rasa to joining the Unapologetic Foods Group and opening SEMMA in 2021, he has helped garner acclaim in multiple accolades, Michelin stars, and most recently the 2025 James Beard Award for Best Chef in New York State.

Speaker 1 (02:41.026)
So as we caught up recently to talk about everything from food experiences with his mother and grandmother to leading a team and managing the expectations of his nightly guests. And if you watch the video version with the backdrop of some of his awards behind him, I first wanted to know whether he has any morning routines that help keep him disciplined and focused.

I as soon as you can see, there's a few things on my back wall. As soon as you wake up, see the thing. That's like my motivation. you know, it's waking up when you wake up, you know, it's always you feel lazy, like, you just like, you know, just when you look at this one, hey, look at this, you have a responsibility on your shoulder right there. So you need to wake up, just, you know, start your day with your big energy, then you have a long way to go. So that's a big motivation for me right there.

Once you get that kind of gratitude of looking at those frames on your wall and really sort of like thinking about the responsibility and the respect, do you automatically have something that you make sure that you also tend to? Like, hey, I need to exercise, I need to meditate, or is it right away, I need to think about what's going on for the day's work now at SEMMA?

Well, I mean, don't know if you're talking about exercising personally. I mean, I, for me, like, I think that's something I need to work on it. I need to physically like, you know, take care of exercise because I'm physically active in the kitchen. I'm on my feet like 10 to 12 hours a day. Like, you know, it's a, but besides that I'd have to like, you know, take, make sure that I have to exercise, which I need to as a doctor. I mean, you would know that. So I have to do this.

And, but I think for me, as soon as I wake up, like I said, I just get ready and start looking at my text messages, know, our emails, you know, make sure like things are working in the kitchen because you know, you get messages from vendors, from your staff to make sure, know, everything is ready for the day. So I just wanted, that's the first thing I do. Very, very first thing, make sure that everything is good to go for the whole day. Then I check all the emails. mean, obviously you have to catch up with all the paperwork.

Speaker 2 (04:39.662)
You know other things that my first two or two three hours will be gone and just the paperwork and you know dealing with those other things

sort of administrative things that go into...

Exactly. As soon as you get into the kitchen, there's no way you can go into your laptop or you can do a list of work. So yeah. So yeah. Then my regular dates start at 1.30 to 2. Then till the night.

When you're in the kitchen, there's so much going on. The concentration of course is on the food and the dining experience, but at the end, right, like you mentioned, like when you focus on the administrative part, you're sort of dialed in there, but when you're focusing on the food and the operations, you're dialed in there. You can't get distracted. I'm just curious. mean, there's an element of repetition here for sure. I mean, for someone who has gone through the entire journey and pathway here, one thing that was crossing my mind, especially in...

seeing some of your work, but do you have any idea of how many dosa you've actually made in your life?

Speaker 2 (05:36.288)
my god yeah i don't know i don't really keep tracking it but

Thousands. More than that, right?

Probably more than that actually. We do sell about at least 100, 150 dosa day. So if we open the door like four years, almost four years now. So if you do the math, I don't know how many is gonna come out. And it's not like I'm not the only one who makes the thing. I have a team who also like so.

Yeah, I can't take credit on my own. my team is right there who's doing everything for me. You know, it's a big restaurant, it's big kitchen and it's, you they had to feed for 200 people. There's no way, it's only one man can do everything for the entire, you know, thing. So I'm blessed to have a team, you know, who does like, you know, who's been phenomenally working so hard and, know, with the dignity and pride and, you know, everything. that way I feel so blessed.

You know, I mentioned the DOSA part on purpose because you know, things actually that we do on a repetitive basis, you know, we feel like, hey, we can do it in our sleep. And yet sometimes, right, like, it's the boring things, it's the mundane things that still actually have so much joy and beauty from that. you know, something like DOSA that you can potentially make in your sleep or, you know, there's so much repetition that is involved. And do you still find joy in those? Of course.

Speaker 2 (06:52.925)
Yeah, of course. mean, this is something like what you enjoy doing it, right? So I never felt that this being either monotonous or like, being boring or whatever it is. Because, first of all, you have to enjoy what you do, like, you know, regardless of whatever you do, right? And the fact that you get connected emotionally with the guest, you know, that gives you a lot more joy, like a lot more, you know, enthusiasm, like a lot more.

like representation, a lot more responsibility to do the thing what you're doing. In fact, do better than what you're doing. So I think it's actually give me a lot more joy than feeling boring.

That's great. Yeah. You know, you, you mentioned, of course you've mentioned it in the past and certainly to lots of others that that SEMMA's food is home food, right? And that, that authenticity, that idea of being authentic and sincere in that presentation is so important. But guests and customers, I'm thinking about this from two different aspects, you know, like a guest or a customer who comes in, they also crave personalizing.

things and they crave it so that it feels like it's a meal just for them, where they might be able to ask that I want my gunpowder dosa with medium spice or mild spice. But our grandmothers were probably not necessarily asking us that question when we were growing up. So I'm curious, how do you blend the kind of authentic experience of saying, hey, this is the way the food is in that sincere way versus the kind of

personalization that sometimes customers really want.

Speaker 2 (08:31.726)
Well, think first of all, a brand is unapologetic foods. mean, lot of guests who comes to the restaurant, I mean, they know a brand is unapologetic. We're trying to be who we are. We're not trying to either turn down the spices or like, you know, or make it more spicy, whatever it is, because, you we're trying to cook the food just like how you could back home. So they respect that fact, the fact that, you know, how the food is being unapologetically cooked and how it's cooked unapologetically, authentically.

and how the food is being served, just like how we cook back home. definitely, definitely people respect that a lot. And we don't get those kind of requests very often. I think it's, it's, I don't think we need to worry about that part, actually. I mean, except there's a kid, let's say there's a small kid comes there, like, you we might skip the gunpowder because we don't want it, you know, so those, that's the way we can be a little consider like, know, so other than that, I think the guest has been very, very,

considerate, they're very thoughtful, then they don't really like bother us too much like modifying things in for their own way.

And does, you know, being unapologetic and being very sincere about the authenticity of that, is that something that, you know, things that people kind of have to get more used to, especially in a culture where, you know, the Instacart, the idea that you can have something at your fingertips at any moment, that unapologetic mantra or ethos, I mean, it takes a lot of care and it takes a lot of crafting to do. And, and when people come to your restaurant, are they, are they somewhat surprised by that?

In a good way, by the way.

Speaker 2 (10:07.372)
Yeah, like surprised by why the food is being unapologetically it is. Yeah.

You know that like, hey, this is the way it is. And if you really want the authentic experience, this is exactly what you have in front of you. There's no like,

Yeah, yeah, mean, people come with that expectation. They want the home cooked food because they come to Semma because they know they expect the food is going to be like, it's a home cooked food. It's not going to be the food for someone to please, you know, it's not going to be like that. So they know the food is going to be home cooked food. So they expect that way. Then they appreciate that the food is being unapologetically cooked.

Which is somewhat different from the kind of traditional mindset of an Indian restaurant or for that matter, many restaurants, not just Indian, right? And when people are thinking about that experience and the authenticity behind it and the sincerity behind that, it sounds like that's something that you, your team, you really all have to rally around in such a way that like, nope, there's no cutting corners on being unapologetic.

Yeah, I mean, we do have pride and dignity and representation and responsibility. So I think in that way, we are being very, very, I don't know if can use the word stubborn. We just, yeah, we just wanted to be like, you know, who we are. We definitely don't want to try and depict into somebody else mold or we don't want to.

Speaker 2 (11:34.114)
You know, we don't want to do things just to please others. Let's be who we are. That's our mantra, actually. I was going to steal your word, mantra. That's actually the...

Yeah, yeah, I think that's I think that's great. And again, it's sort of there's no better power than just simply being who you are. I want to ask you, you know, how much do you balance the nostalgia of the food of your youth with creating kind of new things out of those memories? Being who you are is certainly important. And that's anchored with all those great memories of the food from your home and from your mom or your grandmother.

And yet, you know, is it also powerful to take that and transform it or to innovate in new ways as well?

mean first of all the food at Semma, it's not just the food. It's the story, it's the life, it's my childhood. Not just my childhood, there's millions and millions of people who had the same kind of childhood, right? So it's basically a representation of maybe an astrological memory of my childhood or our childhood memories.

That's in Samma's plate actually. It's not just the food. It's actually telling the story of their life, like things like snakes, right? It's not just the food, it's the story of my life, like how we grow up. Not just my life, like it's a people are- Exactly, yeah. People are from Tamil Nadu, people from the village in Tamil Nadu. you know, it's just a lot of-

Speaker 1 (13:07.704)
you as well.

Speaker 2 (13:16.206)
dishes that's being like unknown. Like a lot of people don't even know there are so many dishes that are existing. there are people who even don't know what are the life state in the village. it's not just, again, it's not just the food. It's also like a life of farmers, life of village in Tamil Nadu. It's life of our culture. It's our cuisine, like everything.

The stories around that and the presentation, the way it's actually framed and the entire experience.

And I mean, yes, but can we, I mean, the goal is like, you know, we're trying to represent our food, we're trying to showcase our food. At the same time, we also can be elevated a little bit when there's Italian food, like French food, like, you know, you can name all the cuisines when they all look beautiful, not our food? Why can't we make it look more presentable? Yeah. Right. So yeah. So that was the thing. I mean, I'm trying to modernize my food, the food, but I grow a bit without giving away with authenticity.

Yeah, no, that's a great blend and it's not easy to do for sure.

I'm trying, I don't think I'm completely done yet. I think it's still way, way long way to go. This feels like it's just the beginning. I think we still have to keep pushing it. I think we're still trying.

Speaker 1 (14:31.586)
You're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. After a quick break, we'll come back to our conversation with award-winning chef Vijay Kumar. Stay tuned.

Speaker 1 (14:48.152)
Conversation. It's the antidote to apathy and the catalyst for relationships. I'm Abhay Dhandekar and I share conversations with global Indians and South Asians so everyone can say, me, I know what I'm doing. New episodes weekly wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (15:09.998)

This Krish Ashok, author of Masala Lab, the science of Cooking, and you're

listening to, trust me, I know what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (15:26.882)
Hi everyone, this is Chef Vikas Khanna. I'm Indra Nooyi.

Hi guys. Hi, I'm Vivek Murthy.

Everyone, this is Sid Sriram. and You're listening to Trust Me I know what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (15:41.592)
Welcome back to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. Let's rejoin our conversation now with the executive chef at SEMMA in New York City, Vijay Kumar. When someone asks you that like, okay, you you said that you have a long way to go and you still have to keep pushing it. Is it such that you feel that there are still areas of exploration?

100%, like 100%, this is a lot, I mean, I think, think about it, you know, it's like, know, it's cuisine is one of the oldest to oldest cuisine in the world, right? I'm sure like, you know, there are a lot of cuisines, like there's a lot of cuisines been there for many years and we are one the oldest cuisines, right? And in America, you know, if you, everybody knows about Mexican cuisine, everybody knows about Chinese cuisine. How many people they know about Indian cuisines besides butter chicken and garlic naan, right? Or maybe there are a other dish.

I mean, it's not like we eat only butter chicken. In fact, if you go in South India, like in Tamil Nadu, nobody even know what butter chicken is. Right. Yeah, right. And there's billions of people living up there. India is one of the most populated countries, the most diverse country. There's so much culture. There's so much to learn about India. And we don't even know a lot about India. Within India, what's happening in India? Even though I was born and raised in India, I didn't even know much about India. I'm still learning about India.

And I don't think that we're really representing the way we're to be, well, supposed to represent in America. mean, first of all, we need to educate ourselves and we still have to learn more. And then we have to let other world also know what our cuisine is, what our food is, how much more we adapt in the flavor, how wonderful our food is. So I think we still have a very long way to go.

Yeah, I mean, there's so much more, like you said, exploration to be had just even within ourselves. Yes, yes. And I think that that happens when you are also, you know, discovering new places to innovate and new places to actually, you know, start blending things as well. I'm curious about one part of that. The food of your village, right, in Thamminard could be different from a village that might be even just five, six kilometers away. Yes. Yeah, there's huge variations there.

Speaker 2 (17:46.263)
Yes, exactly, yeah.

and even more different from say my grandmother's food on the coast of Maharashtra. But something that they all had in common was the notion that there's a local tradition, right? There's the local tradition of land, of what's available with food and crops and what's in the community and customs of each village perhaps. So when you transplant that food now thousands of miles away in New York City, are you aiming in a way to duplicate it?

Or is it just naturally transformed? Therefore, the expectation has to change, right? I mean, you're not necessarily just in that same village anymore. You're actually showcasing it to a global community, but you're not also having the resources and the farms and the local flavors from that community. So how do you balance both of those two together?

Well, I mean, if you ask me if you're trying to replicate it, I don't know if you can see exactly how my mother's or grandmother cooked it, though. There's no way I can do that. How exactly they cooked it. Yeah. If you ask me if I'm trying, yes, 100 percent I'm trying to cook as close as to them. Right. I mean, I don't know if you can enable to like, you know, there's a small details and there's no way there's no way you can able to cook how your mother's or grandmother used to cook it. Sure. I mean, we can try. We can try, you know, to cook it as close as possible.

I I guess if you can't duplicate it, right? Like if the aim isn't necessarily to duplicate it, but yet you want to, in a way, give people a taste of what it's like to be in the same kitchen or at the same table as your mom or your grandmother, or even in that same village, right? How do you do so? And yet we're not there. The whole idea is that we are trying to give someone the experience, and yet the true experience is perhaps

Speaker 1 (19:40.864)
actually going back to that village and having the food that's there. Is the idea here that, you know, duplicating these things or replicating these things is just the first step? Is there, is there, are there steps that go beyond that?

This is the first step, you clearly said it's definitely first step, You don't have to create or innovate something crazy. Let's at least cook the food what your ancestor used to cook. It has so much of flavor, so much taste. Let's try to do that thing first and then we can either recreate or we can innovate whatever you want to.

Don't ever, ever give up your roots or authenticity and e-flavors and trying to fit into somebody else's mode. Saying that, you know, let's be like more fancy by adding some truffles or like, know, or some, you know, that, that's something which I don't think it's really a good idea. Nothing wrong in like elevating things or recreating or evaluating, but don't again try to fit into somebody else's mode.

Right, right. Let me ask you this. I would imagine that the food doesn't necessarily taste any different after you win an award, like a Michelin star or a James Beard award, but does the feel of the kitchen, the camaraderie, or even the way that you approach leading a team like this, does that now change with, of course, the weight or the responsibility now, the visibility that some of these awards bring?

And of course, someone like you who you're very humble when it comes to how you approach these things, but naturally the tone or the culture might change. Is that something you embrace or is that something that you want to keep to the same?

Speaker 2 (21:25.902)
See honestly Whatever blessing that that has been happening like last few years like you know with all this Michelin James weird New York Times like you you name it all this workloads right? Yeah, they are beyond blessing. There's no question about it like you know the fact that Whatever's whatever's been happened so far. That's it's none of us none of none of us like you know especially me I did not expect anything like you know because

Because you know, cooking humble food, home-cooked food, you know, which is, I did not expect, none of us, not just me, like the whole team, right? None of us expected all those things happening, right? The goal is we did not cook the food just to get all those workloads or all those things. From the day one, we just cooked the food with the, like I said, with the dignity and pride, and this is our food, you know? You know, when you cook the food,

you have such a responsibility when you cook your own food it gives a little more extra connection you know right so i think that that way i think my team has been from day one not just me the whole the whole team right like everyone has been cooking with the utmost responsibility and also with a lot of dignity right so i think i don't think we have to change just because you know we got everything i think we are here just because who we were in the beginning

So we don't have to change by anything else, right? I mean, like I said, it's a huge blessing, whatever is happening. you know, the one thing we had to remind is like, the one thing we had to remind ourselves is don't take things for granted just because whatever things happen. And we've always been worked hard. Now it's a time to work more harder because we have so much responsibility on our shoulder right now.

Now you're someone who's had a very, very long journey when it comes to first, you know, sort of imagining this moment, right? I mean, you do it with some, so much humility and, you know, gratitude there, but whether it's, you know, working on a cruise, whether it's actually working the line, being in Dosa in San Francisco, and then now, you know, with SEMMA,

Speaker 1 (23:27.148)
When you think about that journey and then you think about the idea of constantly reminding yourself that you have to pay attention to your roots, you have to represent, that must come with some practice. So how do you think that thinking about the journey of where you've come from and then now sort of constantly reminding yourself and your team of what it means to be an award winner and yet staying true to your roots? mean, how has this all made you a better leader, you think?

don't take things for granted. If I look back my journey, I came from such a humble background, such a humble family, farming family, where you literally have to, let's say your dad, he has to work and his entire wages will go just for our living, for our basic living, just food and everything.

And basically we just had a life to survive. We had a survival life, that's it, right? And the fact that if you look back the journey, it literally came from nowhere to somewhere. It's not like I came to somewhere, but still a very, long way to go. Life can never be taken as granted. Not just life and anything. Be thankful, be truthful, be who you are.

and continue to do best. So that's my mantra and I'm so blessed that my team is also believing the same mantra. Then I think that's actually make things more easier to keep pushing. Yes, I mean, know, so you can vision whatever you want. can do, you know, you were like, I want to do this, I want to that. I was going to change everything overnight. You can dream whatever you want. Without your team, cannot do anything. So that way, I feel so blessed to have a team.

was gonna say that helps a lot.

Speaker 2 (25:16.846)
They're not just teams, it's a family. It feels like literally a family behind you. Including my business partner, Chint and Rani, my entire team. We are like a family right there. You can see that how much the...

I'm sure that everyone has that experience.

We all have our bad days and difficult days. But the fact that how we lift each other up and help each other up, work as a team and as a family, that way I feel so blessed.

You're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. After a quick break, we'll come back to our conversation with Vijay Kumar. Stay tuned.

Speaker 1 (26:07.798)
Every story told is a lesson learned and every lesson learned is a story waiting to be told. I'm Abhay Dhandekar and I share conversations with global Indians and South Asians so everyone can say, trust me, I know what I'm doing. New episodes weekly wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (26:30.818)
this is Madhuri Dixit and you are listening to Trust Me I Know What I'm Doing with Abhay Dhandekar.

Speaker 1 (26:44.664)
Hi, this is Farhan Akhtar

Hi guys, I'm Ananya Panday. Hi everyone, this is Chef Vikas Khanna. Hi, I'm Kani Kusruti and you are listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing.

Hi there, I'm Abhay Dhandekar and you're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. Let's rejoin our conversation now with Chef Vijay Kumar. You mentioned, you know, again, that you're cooking not necessarily for the awards. You're cooking not necessarily for someone else. You're just being who you are. Right. And reminding your team of that all the time and sort of not taking things for granted. But, you know, I have a very basic question then about that. So in that case,

Is food really meant to be judged?

all. It's a food is food. Why do you have to judge the food? you know, I think even my acceptance speech, I think if you notice that I gave a speech like, is food. And there's no things called rich people's food or poor people's food, which I had some kind of experience in my life, you know, how I've been judged for eating snails back there, back home. know, don't need to classify this as like a poor people's food, you know, rich people's food.

Speaker 2 (27:58.702)
I don't think it's just the food, anything matters. You don't have to classify your sorts of people based on your skin color, your religion, caste, you name it. I don't think there is no necessity. think it's, after all, we are human beings. Let's all see each other as a human being and let's respect each other, let's love each other. That's actually my mantra too.

Life is, I don't know how much longer we're all going to live there. Let's all live peacefully. Let's live happily. Let's work as hard as we can and then, you know, live life happily. That's it. mean, try not to hurt others, humiliate others. Just be yourself and live happily.

When you think about that then, and then again, the kind of things that come with winning awards that in maybe not in your eyes, but in others, of course, require rigor or judgment or ways in which they're evaluating the experience or the food. I think it's a reminder of what you just said so beautifully that like, you know, we're all really just living to be ourselves and in a peaceful way without judgment. Do you think that then,

the profession of running a restaurant, being an executive chef, do you have to be professionally rigorous and trained to succeed, especially in a world where sometimes that open judgment is part of it? It's a reality of having a successful business.

Having a successful, I mean, to be a chef, mean, obviously you have to be trained, right? Like trained and classically. mean, not necessarily you have to be trained. I mean, there's one thing I have to say is you had to cook from your heart. You really have to do from your heart and you have to enjoy exactly what you're doing. And you just have to go to your work with your full, you know, with your full of heart. You don't do just because, you know, I'm just go there to make some money. That's not going to be for not just for cooking, for any.

Speaker 2 (30:02.67)
business, think you can say that. I think you really have to put your 100 % effort. I think especially with cooking, think it will show in your food. If you're not really happy with what you do, will definitely, it's going to show you the food. I want to keep saying that. I don't want to keep saying the word again, dignity and pride. I think that's something that you have to, like, you know, you have to, you have to have a little bit of pride of what are you doing? you know, and then you put your heart, put your soul, I keep reminding my team, and sometimes we make a joke with them too, like, you know.

I don't see a heart in the food, but it's a heart. So they laugh at me like, okay, so this is something, right?

I'm curious that if in that same way, right, you put your heart and your soul into everything you do, you remind your team of the same thing. How would your mom or your grandmother potentially, what would you think they would have to say about food?

about the food it's happening. They're critics, they're 100 % perfectionist. I don't think I could ever please them. I'm sure my mom is one of the most perfectionist in the world, even when comes to cooking or cleaning. Whatever she does, she wants everything to be perfect. So yeah, I think I kind of inherited a little bit of habit from her. Sure. Like in terms of picking ingredients, like even when she goes to any...

Yeah, you know like you know typical Indian mother when they go to markets and literally break the walker out check that can make sure the right Okay, you know they feel the tomatoes makes you know ripened enough They're not you know things like that even when she goes to any and to buy meat or something She makes sure the meter make sure it doesn't have a lot of fat a lot of bone or like you know It has a good amount of meat in it. you know they have criteria like in picking up meat vegetables or whatever it is so

Speaker 2 (31:40.974)
When I used to be a kid, it was kind of embarrassing to see her. Why she's doing all those things, it's kind of embarrassing, right? But I think it matters. It matters, know, reason why she picked the best vegetables, best meats, because she has to make sure that she cooks the best food. So I think that's something that I also learned that because, you know, any guest who comes to our restaurant, they are like my family. I just want to make sure they feel like they are in someone's home.

Right.

Speaker 1 (32:07.17)
By the way, is that perfectionism from your mom or from your grandmother and the way that they would maybe comment about the food? Is that part of putting your heart and soul into the food?

Maybe so. mean, maybe I just cut the habit from them. even, I mean, both my parents, both are like, you know, I I learned so much from them too. in terms of my dad is very, the most disciplined guy you can ever think of. he's like, you know, if you had to wake up five in the morning, you had to wake up. You get so mad if you don't wake up. Like, you know, you had to be, he's, there's a lot of things you like, you know, you have to be good at what you do. Like, know, just.

Just a lot of mantra you learn from your parents, right? There's a lot of good things. Don't look at the negative side. Don't worry about other people. There are people who are going criticize you. There are people who going to try to pull you down to not focus on them. Just know them. Just keep doing what you're doing. That's something that I learned from that.

Focus on the signal, not the noise. Yeah. Let me ask you question. I know that this happens to me. know lots of people out there who try to cook and cook with heart and soul. They suffer from, of course, the one thing that sometimes can get to them, which is just being bored by their own food or maybe even just the repetition of their own cooking. How would you suggest people and I mean, how do you yourself combat that?

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (33:26.936)
See, when you have a, kind of, you know, one of those days you have, like, you you don't feel like so energetic. You feel like you feel like down, right? The moment you go to dining room, the moment, like, you know, you go to dining room, you can see the hundreds of people's eyes on you, just eyes, but emotional eyes. Like, you know, you can see, like, you know, and the moment they talk to you, like, they literally hold your hands and they bless you, like, you know, like saying that this literally took me back home. yeah.

They're not just emotional. Literally, you can see the tears in the eyes saying that this is, know, I haven't had my mom's food in such a long time. Just to go back to my mother's food and not just, I keep seeing and hearing and seeing this every single day. Right. So that gives you a lot more, responsibility. Like, my God, this is, I think we're not just cooking food. This is beyond food. you know, it's emotion. It's emotion. It's, it's a.

It's like it give you like you if you're you are ten times like down it'll give you like 100 % more energy to be like you know balls back and you know to better things than what you're doing.

Yeah, no, that's great. I wanted to find out for you in thinking about a lot of these things. What if you actually had to unlearn or let go of about yourself in order for Semma to be such a success?

Good question. I think like I said, don't focus on the negative energy. mean, there's going to be a lot of criticism that's not even fair criticism. Something is constructive criticism, you have to take it. Otherwise, you can be so stubborn. you know, I'm always right. I'm the best. You can never do this. I mean, you have to the constructive criticism. You have to do the best thing you can do, right? There are some people, they...

Speaker 2 (35:22.104)
They purposely trying to pull you down. They make you feel sure so things like that Don't focus just ignore them. The haters are gonna be always hate you like, you you can never like, you know Sometimes it kind of takes me it takes me, know, gets me personal like it sure it's kind of Make you feel like so bad and it can affect you To do the other things and I think for that I think we have to let it go. We couldn't we should never take it personally. It should never let you affect you like

That's something that I started learning because there are certain days, like one or two days, they know they're doing it on purpose to make you feel bad or they're trying to pull you down or whatever. I mean, if something is really wrong, if you know that you know your heart will tell you this is not right, even though when you come home, you're being self-realized to yourself, I've actually done things better. Then yes, then you definitely know that some people are trying to do it on purpose.

that things I think just don't take things too personally just let

Yeah. And does that take practice? have to...

I think so. I think it practice experience in you know, I also had to I had to say that mean, I'm just I'm bringing it up all this negativity and I think I 99 % of the time, I'm you know, I just feel blessed to how much Yeah. Yeah, you know, and that is like, know, even the guest like, sure, it's an emotional gas like, know, yeah, everything has been so positive. So I don't even I don't need to worry about that one percentage at all. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:43.342)
optimism and positive.

Speaker 2 (36:56.974)
So that way I feel like beyond blessed how much the love, the positivity that things are happening around me, I don't even know, it's a word to explain how much blessed I am.

You know, yeah, and and you know with that right so you draw a lot of positivity from your guests and from the experiences from your team Do you approach mistakes or? Negativity differently now than when you were first starting

I would say probably negative when I was young. would probably say, right? I mean, now I think the more you're growing up, you learn a lot of things, right? So probably when I was young, I didn't know how exactly to react, to handle things when I was in 20s or early 20s or something. The more you're getting matured and then I think you're learning a lot of things.

Yeah. Does that help you become a better mentor to others? You know, in this

I had to ask my mentee who got mentored from my... I don't know if you can talk about myself that I did mentor them properly.

Speaker 1 (38:03.414)
Right. Yeah, I mean, so so for you, mean, does it do you feel proud proud?

I do, I think that I do a decent job. I do things, I'm sure. Yeah, I definitely do think that I do a decent job. But like I said, I have to ask them how do they feel about me.

Sure, Well, let me get you out of here on this. I'm certainly amazed by the positivity, the approach that you have to being so authentic and sincere. But for people who are visiting you and having the food, sharing in the experience, and especially for the first time, how do you hope they feel when they leave? What's something that you want them to particularly

leave Semma with that reflects a lot of the same attitudes that you just shared.

So, like I said, 99 % of the guests who live so, so happy and fulfilling, Now, all this recent blessing, with all these things, things can hype up a little bit. So that actually scares me a lot. Oh my God. People come to the next day with too. That actually scares me a lot. Now, we're not going to do the bad job, we're just going to keep pushing it, we're going to keep doing better than what we're doing.

Speaker 2 (39:20.814)
But you know, sometimes psychologically, when someone comes with expectation, like, oh my God, what are these guys are doing? Like, why they have all these, you know, clothes and blessings or whatever, right? And actually, that actually really scares me. oh my God, are we going to live up to everyone's expectation? you know, so that actually, to be very honest, every single day actually scares me now. Like, you know, it's like, oh my

Like it's like you can know like Indian food, South Indian food, first of all, it has been overlooked for such a long time and not just Indian, South Indian food. It's a humble food what we cook back home from village, from farms. That food got number one in New York Times. You you got all the like Mr. Lane, James Beard, all these blessings, right? So that actually really scares me actually. So, but.

After speaking to a few guests, whenever I have a chance, I touch table and speak to them. you ask them how was everything, the first reply from them is it completely lived up to the expectation. In fact, beyond the expectation. So that actually makes me like, oh my God, it melts my heart when I hear this. People do, they actually honestly say that. know what, honestly, I came with a higher expectation because sometimes it's not really...

You know, things never things are never going to be there as they described or whatever. Right. But right. But hearing from them saying that this literally like lived up the expectation, in fact, beyond the expectation. that actually makes me very, happy. But again, that being said, don't take things for granted. That's my that's the thing. My you know what? This is good. Now we have to be better.

Well, for everyone involved not taking things for granted, living up to expectations and of course surpassing those expectations and being so sincere and authentic and humble but also leading in this food experience along the way. Vijay, thank you so much for joining us today. What a treat and I hope we can visit with you again down the road.

Speaker 2 (41:26.36)
Please do and thank you. Such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

Thanks so much Vijay. Big shout outs this week to my brother-in-law Tommy C for turning 50, to my boy Neerav Shah for turning 52, and to the up and coming Harpal Khambay, who's a TV freelancer, blogger, and presenter in London. Check out Harpal in a production role this fall with the touring British Indian theatre show called Surinderella. Last but not least, a hearty congrats to a former podcast guest, Rajeev Ram, for his doubles win in Cincinnati. Hopefully the US Open is next. Till next time.

I'm Abhay Dandekar.