The Indian chef that took Tamil is a global fare and won the “Oscar Food” award

In the village of West in Manhattan, where cooking trends can change with the seasons, Chef Vijay Kumar forms a quiet revolution.

His victory in the James Bird Award for the year 2025 for Best Chef: New York State this month is more than just a personal recognition – it represents a cultural turning point.

“In the footsteps of his colleagues from Tamil’s recipient like Raghavan Air and Padma LakshmiVijay Kumar’s recognition reflects the growing momentum of southern India’s voices in the global cooking stage. ”

“Tamil Kitchen – along with Sri Lankan Tamil and other regional traditions in southern India – are increasingly adopted by the global Denzers as an amplifier, rich, and deep root in culture.”

He was born in the small Arasamatati agricultural village, Madorai in South Tamil Nadu, 44-year-old Kumar, always cooking from memory-forests and fodder, firewood stoves and Jeddah and grandmother that served meals made of zero for the family.

When he took the theater at the JB Awards, he said, “The food that I grew up, carefully made food, with the fire, with Soul now takes the main stage.” It was a moment of deep emotion and the cultural pride of Kumar.

“There is nothing like a poor person’s food, or a rich person’s food. It’s food. It is strong. The real luxury is to be able to communicate with each other around the dinner table.”

For Kumar, winning is a personal teacher but also a strong work of vision.

“When I started cooking, I never thought that a dark boy from Tamil Nadu could reach a room like this.” So it was important for him to wear Veshti, traditional tampi clothes for men, for James Black Black party as a reference to his roots.

Recently, Kumar has been hunting by a pair of influencers in New York. Soon he was rising to his defense was Badma Lakshmi, the author of the book of cooking and the cooking ambassador, who described the influencers as a cultural allergy.

Speaking to the BBC, Lakshmi said: “Vigay’s story is important not only for southern Indian foods, but also as a story of a person who grew up with modest means and cooked with limited resources.”

“This trick not only paid his work ethics, but also strengthened his sense of flavor, components and a feeling of the world. It is a beacon of hope for young people all over the world, if you trust and develop your senses and skills, you can go far in a creative profession.”

Kumar’s trip was not smooth to start.

Unable to withstand the costs of the engineering school in the big city, he chose the cooking school instead – he started his journey at the Taj Konimara Hotel in Chennai, cooking his way through cruise and kitchens ships, and in the end he found his promised land in America, and works in Dosa in San Francisco.

His real penetration came when a partnership with Ronnie Mazmard and Chinan Bandia was made of unrecognized foods, a restaurant group in New York, to open Semma – a colloquial word Tamil for “Wonderful” in 2021.

The trio found “a common feeling of the desire to honor our heritage, to tell the world who we are really through our kitchen.”

“At that moment, it was not only about food, it was a matter of identity,” Mazumard told the BBC. “For a very long time, Indian food lived in the United States under the northwest manufactured lens veil.

Kumar jumped in an opportunity to share the kitchen with the world. “His eyes lit up when we started talking about the food that we grew up in eating, and this type of food rarely makes it for restaurant menus.”

Kumar’s strength lies in serving the authentic village food that is seasonal, excessive local, and a fully building of scratch. He says that his approach from the farm to the table is to cook the method “My mother and my grandmother.” He adds that Semma is a celebration of that simplicity.

Simplicity resonates.

The SEMA menu challenges the clichies that define Indian foods abroad. There is no butter or nan chicken here and the Dhatta Day came in Kumar with an unlikely meeting: Escargot French.

When he was a child, in the days when the rice was rare, he was hung with his family for snails in the rice fields, which would be cooked in the delicious Indian dates sauce. Kumar admitted that he was ashamed of him as a boy because he “felt like a food born of poverty – until I saw the pride that serves the French Eskargot.”

Today, the dish sits, Nathai Pirattal, proudly in the SEMA menu, has not been imagined as a memory of scarcity, but as a symbol of flexibility and cultural pride.

The SEMA – Pepper Rasam, Crab, Banana Flower Vadai menu and Dosa everywhere – offer an emotional connection to many Denzers Diaspora, and revealed the first time.

The intention of Kumar is to bring tamilers like the village and its width in sophisticated places and in the area of ​​the cut New York restaurant, which has long won the fans.

There is depth, the region and a strong emotional connection in this food.

Cocktail is a reference to Tamil film stars such as rajnikanth, Silk Smitha, and Chennai’s warmth. Even the kitchen is an intended space – the chefs are required to prepare food with “gratitude and mind”.

“I invited him to organize a black dinner party for 650 guests at the Gold Party in Los Angeles, and we all proud. A year later, people are still talking about the incredible food.”

Prizes and awards feel like a natural progress on his journey. Semma is the first restaurant in New York to present the Indian Cubled Cuel only wins the Michelin star and topped the New York Times menu for the best 100 restaurants. And now JBA for Romar.

In many ways, Kumar does not only serve food – it offers memory, pride and quiet revolution.

His victory James Bird is a recognition of his talent, but he is also an affirmation that the Indian regional cuisine, with his bold taboos and his emotional simplicity, belongs to the center of the global schedule.

Lakshmi says that Kumar’s victory raised “the curiosity of young people from all over the Indian diaspora and was more proud of our food.” “This will be his greatest legacy.”

“This victory is an indication that the region is important, and that our stories and roots have value on the world stage,” Mazumdar added.