cooking with monisha
Hounslow
Chef Monisha Bharadwaj is an award winning author, food historian and a food
writer based in London, UK. Monisha is a qualified chef from the Institute of
Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition, Mumbai. She started
Cooking With Monisha, situated in West London, in 2004. Today it is a successful
school that attracts not only the home cook but also chefs who wish to learn
Chef Monisha’s brand of simple authentic Indian cooking. Monisha has also
created and taught her popular courses at the Ashburton Cookery School in Devon,
The Bertinet Kitchen in Bath, Seasoned Cookery School, south Derbyshire and at
Divertimenti in Knightsbridge. She is often invited to judge food events and has
been a judge at the Guild of Fine Food’s ‘Great Taste Awards’ for the past
several years. Monisha also holds a BA in Indian History and in 2013, she was
invited to be Guest Lecturer at SOAS, University of London, to give a series of
talks on ‘The History of India through its Food’. In 2017, she worked with Kew
Gardens giving talks on healing Indian ingredients, and with the British Council
on ‘How The British Fell in Love With Curry – a historical perspective from
1200-2017’. In 2018, Monisha was invited by the Wellcome Collection, London, to
talk about Ayurvedic nutrition as part of their exhibition, ‘Ayurveda Man’ and
opened the South Asian Spice Box residency at Borough Market, London, with a
cookery demonstration of south Indian food. In 2019, she was invited to be a
Guest Speaker on Indian food on a Cookery Legends cruise around the British
Isles. She was awarded ‘Cookery Writer of the Year’ in 2003 by the Guild of Food
Writers and her many books have been shortlisted for and won several prestigious
international awards. In 2020, her book ‘Indian in 7- recipes using 7
ingredients or fewer’ won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award 2020 for the Best
Indian Cookbook in the World. Growing up in India, Monisha was brought up on an
Ayurvedic inspired diet, where food brought happiness and physical well being.
Today, she brings her experience of and passion for ancient Ayurvedic wisdom to
all the classes she teaches.
