How This Michelin-Starred Chef Overcame Loss and Hardships to Achieve Stardom

Chef Vikas Khanna's life communicative is simply a profound travel of resilience, humility and purpose.

Born pinch a congenital ft defect successful India and facing favoritism and hardship, he defied expectations to go 1 of the astir celebrated Indian chefs successful the world.

Khanna's grandmother inspired him by school him the beauty of Indian cuisine and life's cyclical nature. Despite facing countless setbacks, including homelessness and individual losses, Khanna has go a sound for the underserved and a champion of Indian heritage. He is committed to doing meaningful, impactful activity transcending the culinary world.

His early experiences laid the instauration for his culinary passion, culminating successful becoming a Michelin-starred chef, big of MasterChef India, writer of much than 35 books and documentary filmmaker. These projects bespeak his committedness to representing Indian civilization connected the world stage.

Related: How This Beverage Industry CEO Used His Passion for Hip-Hop to Build Partnerships With Jay-Z, Rick Ross and More

Chef astatine a Crossroads

During a challenging play that forced him to adjacent his restaurant, Khanna recovered himself astatine a crossroads, searching for guidance and inspiration. A chance gathering pinch His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, provided him pinch the affirmation he needed: "When everything closes, it's bully because it sets you free. It's clip to restart," he recalls the Dalai Lama saying.

Fueled by these words, Khanna embarked connected a transformative travel done Bhutan, Tibet, Nepal, Northern India, Myanmar, Western China and Pakistan, signaling his reflections and immersing himself successful divers cultures.

This acquisition led to the creation of a James Beard Award-nominated journal. For Khanna, nonaccomplishment was not an extremity but a powerful catalyst to research caller paths, igniting his travel of self-discovery and growth.

Related: These Husband-and-Wife Co-Founders Started a Food Brand to Share Chinese Culture — Then a Smart Rebrand Took Their Company to the Next Level

At his New York restaurant, Bungalow, which opened successful 2024, Khanna's dishes seizure individual stories, for illustration a lotus guidelines crockery honoring the female who sheltered him during the Mumbai riots, underscoring his blend of culinary creation and life experience.

Bungalow honors his precocious sister's dream of creating the world's finest Indian restaurant, marking the culmination of an bonzer profession earlier he afloat dedicates himself to his ngo to combat hunger successful India.

Bungalow embodies Khanna's belief that restaurants must make innovative changes to reenergize the industry. "Restaurants request to reinvent," he tells Shawn Walchef of Cali BBQ Media. "New power is coming into the business, and astir of the guests are going to look for thing new. Restaurants person to beryllium very experiential. They person to motivate group to time off the comforts of location and travel to a caller abstraction and find this imaginative power of a community."

Khanna's activity extends beyond the kitchen; his Feed India inaugural has served millions of meals. Driven by a heavy empathy for marginalized groups, Khanna besides brought the struggles of Indian widows to ray pinch The Last Color, a caller and movie inspired by witnessing the isolation of widows during Holi, the show of colors.

This moving portrayal reached complete 100 movie festivals and earned Khanna the domiciled of world ambassador for the Global Fund for Widows. His ngo to shed ray connected the plight of 350 cardinal disenfranchised widows worldwide has led to profound societal changes and empowered women to reclaim their voices.

"[People said], 'stick to cooking.' I said no, instrumentality to the heart," Khanna says. "It is truthful astonishing really a movie could move truthful galore people, and I'm very proud of creating that."

Matching his emotion for Indian cuisine and uplifting the disenfranchised, Khanna is besides a fierce advocator for taste ceremony and societal change. His 1,200-page book, Utsav: A Culinary Epic of Indian Festivals, captures the tone of India's festivals and traditions.

Khanna personally delivered copies of the book to world icons for illustration Queen Elizabeth, President Barack Obama and Pope Francis.

"It started pinch a mini idea, but past I sewage truthful obsessed pinch rediscovering India," Khanna says of the inspiration down the book. "This is awesome for maine because I person that knowledge and accusation astir the recipes and celebrations, truthful I tin create thing for illustration this."

Despite countless setbacks, Khanna has go a sound for the underserved and a champion of Indian heritage. His activity encompasses his committedness to meaningful, impactful activity transcending the culinary world.

Related: This Food Network Mainstay Feeds His Passion for Fast-Paced Restaurant Life successful Just 3 Days a Month

About Restaurant Influencers

Restaurant Influencers is brought to you by Toast, the powerful edifice point-of-sale and guidance strategy that helps restaurants amended operations, summation income and create a amended impermanent experience.

Toast — Powering Successful Restaurants. Learn much astir Toast.