Caviar kulchas, hollywood cameos

New Indian Express

a day ago

One recent evening at Jamavar London, restaurateur Samyukta Nair was dining with her parents when she happened to glance across the room—and did a double take. Seated just a few tables away were Hollywood royalty and meme-fodder favourites Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal, fresh off their new release The Materialists, immersed not in their phones but in Jamavar's indulgences. 'That was an 'aha' moment,' she says, laughing. 'If Pedro Pascal likes Jamavar, we must be doing something right.'
Indeed, Jamavar isn't just doing something right—it's hitting a culinary hat-trick. In less than a year since its launch, its Dubai outpost has joined its London and Doha siblings in clinching a Michelin star, cementing Samyukta's reputation as one of the most influential tastemakers in global Indian cuisine. It's a rare feat: a woman restaurateur with three Michelin-starred fine-dining establishments across continents—all offering unapologetically Indian menus wrapped in plush, culturally rooted elegance.
But this legacy wasn't conjured up in an ordinary kitchen. Born in 1986—the same year her grandfather, the legendary C.P. Krishnan Nair, launched The Leela Mumbai—Samyukta was raised amidst luxury hospitality. Her family home, nestled behind the flagship hotel, was a living archive of colonial-meets-Kerala aesthetics: four-poster beds, carved teakwood doors, heirloom bronze lamps, and a dining table where food, memory, and ambition sat elbow-to-elbow.