Chef Manu Chandra

Manu Chandra is the Chef Partner of Toast & Tonic (Bangalore, Mumbai), Monkey Bar (Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai, Kolkata), The Fatty Bao (Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Mumbai), and Executive Chef Olive Beach, Bangalore.

His passion for food surfaced at a young age, wielding the ladle since the age of 12, thanks largely to a foodie family. Food, the cooking of it, the discussions and arguments around it, and most importantly the celebration of it, were so integral to his family’s normal functioning that it was hardly a surprise when he opted for it professionally.

School taught him to develop a completely original perspective on everything, by rewarding innovation and fresh thinking. Later at St. Stephen’s College, he wrote, designed and helped photograph a book on fusion cuisine. Manu then enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) Hyde Park, New York, where he apprenticed with some of the City’s most celebrated kitchens, including Restaurant Daniel, Le Bernardin, Gramercy Tavern, Café Centro, Jean Georges and Town and also opened the now legendary Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Manhattan. Armed with top honours from CIA and a prestigious Sea Food Masters Award for the National Recipe Competition 2002, he travelled to Norway to work with the Michelin starred Chef Eyvind Hellstrom at Bagatelle, well before Nordic cuisine was even acknowledged globally.

A lover of slow cooking, Manu leans towards painstakingly controlled and cooked things, a process that enables one to extract flavours and textures. On the flip side, he’s fond of incredibly fast cooking, which keeps the integrity of ingredients and freshness intact. A minimalist, he believes that removing an ingredient rather than adding one usually improves the flavour of a dish.

Featured on India Today’s list of Young Achievers. One of the top 10 Best Young Chefs in the Country by Taste and Travel Magazine. Rated One of India’s 10 Best Chefs at the Business Times and Food and Nightlife Awards. Winner of the Golden Star Award for the Most Admired Chef in India 2011. Manu received accolades and appreciation from around the world as one of the most promising and talented young chefs in India, namely in the New York Times and Time Magazine. He’s also featured on the Elle Magazine Hot List; and was selected by GQ India magazine as one of the 50 Most Influential Young Indians for 2015 and again in 2016. He been selected by Fortune India magazine’s ‘40 under 40, Class of 2016’, an exclusive list of India’s finest young business leaders. More recently, Manu was awarded Chef of the Year at the Times Food and Nightlife Awards, Bangalore for 2017. Manu has also written extensively on food and food trends for a cross section of publications including Forbes, Mint Lounge, BBC Good Food, The Week, India Today, Yahoo.com and The Times of India.