Nestled in the heart of London‘s Soho is a bustling Indian restaurant which aims to transport punters to the streets of Calcutta by serving up generations-old traditional dishes cooked by amateur cooks-turned-professional chefs – and they all have one thing in common.
Asma Khan’s Darjeeling Express is famed for its all-female kitchen, made up of women she befriended before she entered the culinary world.
Since the Calcutta-born chef opened the site in Carnaby Street’s Kingly Court, it has been a hot destination for food lovers who are seeking authentic, rich and traditional Indian dishes that one could expect to be served at a relative’s dinner table – and indeed, they once were.
Khan, now in her fifties, began serving food to guests at Supper Clubs from her own London home long before she ever considered opening a restaurant – and as her audience grew bigger, she enlisted mothers and nannies she’d met on the school run to help her in the kitchen.
As word of mouth spread and Khan’s ambitions grew, she set up the restaurant in the centre of London’s West End in 2017 – and brought her team of amateur female chefs with her.
Eight years on, Darjeeling Express is still as popular as ever, and its kitchen staff remains an all-female team. But while she’s made headlines for her hiring decisions since the restaurant’s inception, Khan has revealed to the Daily Mail that she has never consciously decided to only hire women.
‘It was absolutely not a conscious decision. Because why would I do that if I wanted to run a business?’ she said.
‘When I was opening Darjeeling Express everyone told me I would fail. But these women loved being in my kitchen. How could I leave them behind?’
Renowned celebrity chef Asma Khan has revealed why she only has female chefs in her kitchen at Soho restaurant Darjeeling Express (pictured on ITV’s This Morning)
The renowned chef added: ‘There’s no recruitment policy. I think they recruited me!’
Khan, who learned to cook in her 30s when she moved to Cambridge and lived with her aunt, explained that she has needed to hire more kitchen staff as her business has grown – however there was never any need to advertise a position.
‘We have expanded, but with families [of our chefs],’ she said.
In many cases, the restaurateur revealed, daughters and daughters-in-law of the original team (whom she calls ‘the Spice Girls’) now work in the kitchen, after developing an interest in the culinary world from watching their elder generations cooking Khan’s recipes.
It’s a concept Khan holds dear in her cooking; learning from women of an older generation, without sticking to a fixed recipe.
‘It’s this unspoken conversation that happens when two people are cooking. Your mothers are really bad at giving instructions,’ she joked.
This year Khan will help to select the Women in Food Award winner at the Uber Eats Restaurant of the Year Awards (trophy pictured)
‘You’re deeply immersed in that experience. When you cook together and you’re learning it’s an unspoken deep bond. They are passing on to you, in this unspoken way, something that was passed on to them.’
She explained that, in many cultures, traditional dishes aren’t taught by precise measurements and methods. Instead, it’s about senses.
‘It’s what you see, what you smell, it’s the taste,’ she said.
Although she doesn’t have a specific policy to hire women, Khan has championed the recruitment and training of female chefs across the industry – previously declaring ‘women have always been cooks, but never chefs’.
This year she has teamed up with the Uber Eats Restaurant of the Year Awards 2025 to select a winner for the Women in Food Award – which champions women in the hospitality industry.
In a challenging landscape, Khan believes women face more obstacles than most in hospitality which she says has a ‘poor reputation’ in its treatment of women – one of the reasons why she’s keen to highlight exciting new female chefs on the scene.
‘It’s very difficult for us,’ she said. ‘Women, more than men, are asked to stay in their lane.’
She added it becomes even more difficult for a woman to thrive in hospitality if she enters the industry in the ‘autumn’ of her life (she opened Darjeeling Express when she was 48 years old).
Among the obstacles to a woman’s success in a professional kitchen, according to Khan, are her own friends and family, and ‘powerful men’ in the industry.
Recent years have seen several professional kitchens thrust into the spotlight over ‘bullying’ allegations and suggestions of ‘toxic’ workplaces – including that of Michelin-starred chef Tom Kitchin’s restaurants in Edinburgh.
A senior chef on the team (not Kitchin himself) was accused of burning the arm of a junior female colleague with a hot tray and repeatedly punching another staff member. The restaurant launched an independent investigation and suspended two staff members after the accusations came to light.
‘Tt’s endemic of this entire industry,’ she said. ‘We need more powerful women; more women who are compassionate.’
Another hurdle female restaurateurs must leap over is funding, Khan argues, suggesting that professional women who tend to secure more investment are in STEM.
She hopes the Women in Food Award will help female entrepreneurs overcome some of these hurdles – and help to level the playing field.
‘I’m so thrilled I get to assess the women in this category for Uber Eats. It’s so important these stories are told,’ she said.
In addition to her involvement with delivery platform, Khan offers her kitchen out to up-and-coming women in the industry to host supper clubs – which is exactly how her business started out.
She said all established chefs in the UK ‘have a duty’ to help out women starting out in the industry, in order to increase diversity in professional kitchens.
There’s a mountain to climb to level the playing field in hospitality – but there’s hope on the horizon, according to Khan.
‘I’m optimistic about the future,’ she said.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .