Chef Asma KHAN :
the Darjeeling Express route from Bengal to Calcutta, along the foothills of the Himalayas…
- Indian celebrity Chef based in London
- First British Chef featured on Netflix’s Chef’s Table
- Indian recipes from the Darjeeling Express route
More Indian Chefs. Other Casual Chefs. More female chefs here
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
COOKED FROM THE HEART
Asma Khan moved to Cambridge from Calcutta in 1991 to join her academic husband. She is Rajput on her father’s side and Bengali on her mother’s. After studying law, Asma Khan went on to do a PhD in Law at King’s College London. Cooking was her passion and she began her food career in 2012 as a supper club in her home.
In 2015, Asma Khan opened a pop-up in a Soho pub and Darjeeling Express restaurant opened its doors in June 2017. A year later, her cookbook “Asma’s Indian Kitchen” was published by Pavilion in October 2018. The book was the winner in the U.K. category for food publishing in Indian cuisine in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Asma’s Indian Kitchen was also shortlisted for best debut cookbook in the Fortnum & Mason 2019 awards.
Asma Khan is the first British chef to feature in Netflix’s Chef’s Table. The series’ sixth season, which includes Asma’s episode, was nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Documentary section. The Evening Standard listed Asma in The Progress 1000 as one of London’s most influential people 2019. In June 2019 Business Insider named her number 1 on their list of “100 Coolest People in Food and Drink”. Asma Khan has been included in the eighth edition of the GG2 Power List –profiling Britain’s 101 most influential Asians. Her restaurant Darjeeling Express has been listed in the Michelin Guide 2019 and 2020. In addition, Michelin highly recommended Darjeeling Express in their 2020 top 10 Indian restaurants in England & Ireland.
Darjeeling Express concept
Darjeeling Express started as a dinner for 12 guests at home, serving Indian food lovingly cooked from family recipes that go back to generations.
The food is a true homage to our founder Asma’s royal Mughlai ancestry and the busy streets of Calcutta, where she grew up. What results is a lovely mélange of street food like papri chaat and royal recipes like lamb dum biryani, that take you on a journey from Calcutta in the east of India to Hyderabad in the south. Food here is served the way Indian food is meant to be eaten – platters of dishes boasting texture and flavours which complement each other, encouraging you to gather and share in the style of the traditional ‘daawat’ (feast).
An all-women team of housewives runs the kitchen at Darjeeling Express, and have been doing so from day one. What you will taste is home-style food, cooked with passion and the aim to nourish your body and soul.
Top critics from the Evening Standard, Daily Mail and the Financial Times have hailed the food at Darjeeling Express, which was named by the Evening Standard as one of the 15 best London restaurants of 2015.
More Indian Chefs. Other Casual Chefs. More female chefs here. Go Back Home.