Kunal Kapoor

Kunal Kapoor is a famous chef in India who has been working as Senior Sous Chef for The Leela Kempinski, Gurgaon. He shot to fame as the resident chef and judge for Masterchef India. He is a talented chef who has been appreciated for his North Indian cuisine, and especially for the kebabs, by great chefs like Jiggs Kalra.

 

 

Chef Kunal’s Professional Life

 

Kunal Kapoor has been in the culinary profession for last 14 years. He trained as a professional chef at the Institute of Hotel Management, Chandigarh, India. He initially joined the Taj group of hotels and worked with many of its hotels in various cities across India. These included Taj Palace and Taj Mahal hotel in Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Goa. After a long career at the Taj group of hotels he joined the Leela group of hotels, where he works as a Senior chef for their Delhi hotel – Leela Kempinski, Gurgaon.

Chef Kunal also graduated to run his own restaurant simultaneously. He opened a restaurant named – Made in India – at Noida, which was much appreciated and applauded for its delicious and mouth watering cuisine. The restaurant went on to bag an award for the Best Restaurant.

 

Noteworthy Contributions

 

Some of the achievements of Chef Kunal Kapoor have been enumerated below :

  • The first restaurant opened by Chef Kunal in Noida, called ‘ Made in India ’ received the Best Restaurant Award.
  • India Today has praised Chef Kunal as one of the best chefs of the country and even called him – a culinary maestro.
  • He is also one of the main chefs incharge at a restaurant named “ Diya ”, at Leela Kempinski, Gurgaon which has won many accolades and awards. The restaurant has also been rated as one of the top five restaurants in Delhi.

 

Popular TV Shows

 

Chef Kunal Kapoor has been a part of few television shows, both nationally and internationally. Chef Kunal rose to popularity with the launch of MasterChef India, in the year 2010. Chef Kunal has been both a resident chef and a judge in MasterChef India – for both seasons 1 and 2. Chef Kunal Kapoor was also invited as a guest judge on one of the episodes of MasterChef USA – season 2. This particular episode had guest judges from the international versions of MasterChef, and Chef Kunal was the celebrity guest judge from MasterChef India. He has also featured in one of the episodes of Chef Pankaj Ka Zayka, on Star Plus Television, India. He was the guest chef on the show, hosted by the winner of MasterChef season 1.

 

Trivia

 

  • Chef Kunal Kapoor is fond of music and photography, which he pursues as a hobby on weekends and holidays.
  • Chef Kunal Kapoor has rated celebrity Akshay Kumar’s cooking with a 6 or 7 out of 10.
  • Chef Kunal is a self confessed film buff, with a fascination for both Hollywood and Bollywood films which he watches every week.