The Indian chef who took Tamil fare global and won a ‘food Oscar’

In the West Village of Manhattan, where culinary trends can change with the seasons, chef Vijay Kumar shapes a quiet revolution.

Her victory for the James Beard 2025 prize for the best chief: New York State this month is more than just personal recognition – it marks a cultural inflection point.

The culinary historian based in Chennai, Rakesh Raghunathan, says: “Depending on the traces of compatriots of Tamil origin like Raghavan Iyer and Padma LakshmiThe recognition of Vijay Kumar reflects an increasing momentum for the voices of southern India on the world culinary scene “.

“Tamil cuisine – with the Sri -Lankan Tamil and other regional traditions in southern India – is increasingly adopted by world guests as something refined, rich and deeply rooted in culture.”

Born in the small agricultural village of Ansampatti, Madurai, in the south of Tamil Nadu, Kumar, 44, has always cooked from memory – forests and fire stoves and his mother and grandmother serving meals based on zero for the family.

When he went on stage during the JB award ceremony, he said “the food I grew up on, the food made with care, with fire, with the soul, it is now the main scene”. It was a moment of deep emotion and cultural pride for Kumar.

“There is nothing like the food of a poor person, or the food of a rich person. It is food. It is powerful. And the real luxury is to be able to connect between them around the dinner table.”

For Kumar, victory is a personal step but also a powerful act of visibility.

“When I started to cook, I never thought that a dark skin boy from Tamil Nadu could go to a room like this,” he said in his acceptance speech. It was therefore important for him to wear Veshti, the traditional Tamil outfit for men, for the ceremony of the black beard of James as a nod to its roots.

Recently, Kumar was dragged by a pair of influencers in New York. Padma Lakshmi, author of cooking books and culinary ambassador, called Padma Lakshmi, author of cooking books and culinary ambassador, who called influencers for their cultural insensitivity.

Addressing the BBC, Lakshmi said that “the history of Vijay is important not only for the cuisine of southern India, but also as the story of someone who grew up with humble and cooked means with limited resources.”

“This ingenuity has not only propelled its work ethics, but has improved its sense of flavor, ingredients and the sense of the world. It is a headlight of hope for young people around the world that if you trust and develop your senses and skills, you can go far in a creative career.”

Kumar’s trip was not smooth to start.

Unable to allow himself an engineering school in the big city, he rather chose a culinary school – starting his trip to the Taj Connemara hotel in Chennai, cooking through cruise ships and kitchens, and finally finding his promised land in America, working at Dosa in San Francisco.

His real breakthrough occurred when he has teamed up with Roni Mazumdar and Chinetan Pandya of un excited Foods, a group of New York restaurants, to open Semma – a tamoul slang word for “Fantastic” in 2021.

The trio has found a “shared feeling of wanting to honor our heritage, to tell the world that we really are through our cuisine”.

“At that time, it was not only food, it was an identity,” Mazumdar told the BBC. “For too long, Indian food in the United States has lived under the veil of a northwest lens manufactured and watered. With Semma, we left to remove this curtain and share something more honest.”

Kumar jumped at the opportunity to share his kitchen with the world. “His eyes were on when we started talking about the food we grew up while eating, and this kind of food rarely goes to restaurant menus,” recalls Mazumdar.

Kumar’s strength lies in the service of authentic village food which is seasonal, hyper-local and entirely built from zero. His approach from the farm at the table, he said, was to cook like “my mother and my grandmother did it”. Semma, he adds, is a celebration of this simplicity.

This simplicity resonates.

Semma’s menu challenges shots that often define Indian food abroad. There is no butter or Naan chicken here and the epiphany of Kumar came with an improbable encounter: the French snail.

As a child, the days when Rice was rare, he feeded on his family for snails in rice fields, who would be cooked in a salty tamarind sauce. Kumar admitted that he was ashamed of it as a boy because “looked like poverty -born food – until I see the pride with which the French serve snail”.

Today, the dish, Nathai Pirattal, is proudly found in the men’s menu, redesigned not as a memory of rarity, but as a symbol of resilience and cultural pride.

Semma’s menu – Pepper Rasam, Tamarind Crab, Banana Flower Vadai, the omnipresent dosa – offer an emotional link for many diaspora guests and a revelation for beginners.

Kumar’s intention to bring Tamil Village food and present it in high -end places and in the New York restoration space, has won a long line of admirers.

There is depth, regionality and a powerful emotional connection in this food.

Cocktails are a nod to the stars of Tamil cinema like Rajnikanth and Silk Smitha, and the decor channels the heat of Chennai. Even the kitchen is a space of intention – the cooks are invited to prepare food with “gratitude and mindfulness”.

“I invited him to organize a gala dinner in black tie for 650 guests at the Los Angeles Gold Gala Gala, and he made us all proud. A year later, people always talk about incredible food,” explains Lakshmi, applauding Kumar’s gift for bringing the regional Indian cuisine to the most glamorous platforms.

Prices and distinctions resemble a natural progression of his trip. Semma is the first New York restaurant serving only the kitchen in southern India to win a Michelin star and dominated the New York Times list for the best restaurants. And now the JBA for Kumar.

In many ways, Kumar is not only used for food – he serves memory, pride and a quiet revolution.

His victory for James Beard is a recognition of his talent, but also an assertion that regional Indian cuisine, with its daring spices and its moving simplicity, belongs to the center of the world table.

Kumar’s victory has piqued the “curiosity of young people from all over the Indian diaspora and has instilled greater pride in our food ways”, explains Lakshmi. “It will be his greatest heritage.”

Adds Mazumdar, “this victory is a signal that regionality is important, and that our stories and roots have value on the world scene.”