New Delhi, Apr 16 (PTI) “Curry boy” Vikas Khanna is part of the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world and the celebrity chef can’t be happier that the term, once a pejorative, is now a badge of honour.
“This is a very big moment for India,” Khanna told PTI in an exclusive interview from New York where he run the popular restaurant Bungalow that dishes up Indian food with a twist.
Khanna makes it to the annual Time list along with actor Ranbir Kapoor, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, YouTube chief Neal Mohan and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The other prominent names in the list are Pope Leo XIV, Zoe Saldana, Kate Hudson, Wagner Moura, US President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping among others.
The list was made public on Wednesday but Khanna found out about it on March 23, the birthday of his late sister, Radhika Khanna.
“I felt that my sister is still fighting for me from up there. For them to pick up what they call us here, a curry boy and put it in the highest respected list in the world, this is a big deal,” said Khanna, one of the best known Indian chefs in the world.
Curry has often been used to deride South Asians and their cuisine in the West but this could well be in the past.
“They use the word curry in derogatory terms, but I use it with pride. I feel that it’s something which our grandmothers fed us and our body and brain functions on that. And today, most of the Indians are running the entire world,” the 54-year-old said.
“I have so many relatives here. All the kids would make fun of them or say this is smelling of curry. And now a curry boy gets to be on the stage where just a few selected people on the planet have walked,” the Amritsar born chef said.
Before Bungalow, Khanna ran Junoon in New York.
In his profile for Time, chef Eric Ripert describes Khanna, who features in the Innovators category, as a man of “extraordinary heart whose generosity extends far beyond the kitchen, reaching communities across the world with compassion, dignity, and a deep sense of responsibility”.
“He carries his culture with immense pride, sharing the richness of Indian traditions while making them accessible and meaningful to a global audience. With Bungalow, he has created more than a restaurant-it is a living expression of storytelling. Each dish reflects memory, heritage, and the collective voice of his team, giving space to narratives that deserve to be heard,” Ripert writes.
Khanna, who has authored several cook books and also made a Hindi film “The Last Colour” with Neena Gupta, said furthering Indian cuisine is a responsibility he has always taken seriously.
“You know, years ago I was talking to one of the biggest chefs of the world and asked him why Indian food is not moving forward? I received the Michelin star eight times, been on every list, but I didn’t feel the cuisine was moving forward.
“And he said that because most of the celebrity chefs from a country who have the power to change the cuisine, are seen everywhere, but not in their restaurants. That really stuck with me.” Khanna said he decided to do just the opposite and dedicated most of his waking hours to run his restaurant.
“It’s easy to make all those statements, but to stay there and to be able to represent that every day. Running a restaurant is not running a YouTube channel. It’s very innovative. Everybody’s a critic nowadays. Everybody’s tasting your food. I feel that a lot of the world has changed, but the essence of the cooking remains the same. The guest is going to decide how much integrity a dish has,” he said.
Bungalow serves up dishes like Spice Roasted Pineapple, Yogurt Kebab, Kiss of Kashmir, Chicken Amritsari and Rose Kulfi Feluda among others.
Khanna, who grew up in Amritsar and completed his schooling there, is also happy with the new crop of chefs coming from India.
“When we were growing up, it was only ‘you have to be in the kitchen and make money’. But now there’s so many different sources of income. It’s also helping to evolve Indian food and spread Indian food. I feel that this has been such an important moment for Indian cuisine. When you’re getting the volume back from India.” Khanna hopes to be back in India on Diwali with his mother.
“When I get such big honours, I get very scared. So I think it’s important for my mom to be with me. You know, it took almost four generations to get me on this stage. So many people were involved in our family, outside our family to put me on this platform and recognition, which is going to be one of the tremendous forces for Indian cuisines going forward,” he said.
In an Instagram post, Khanna said being named among Time’s Most Influential People of 2026, was a moment for “Indian cuisine, for our culture, for every story that began in a humble kitchen”.
“Who would have imagined that a boy from the narrow lanes of Amritsar—who struggled to run with other kids, who knew that rolling breads at Golden Temple would lead to the biggest platform in the World, who chose cooking as an act of rebellion, who once sold chole bhature as a small dream—would one day find his name among the world’s most influential voices.
“This is not just my journey of 41 years of consistency. This belongs to every mother, every teacher, every sister, every hand that believed, and every plate that carried a story forward,” the chef, who moved to New York at the age of 29 and rose to culinary stardom, said.
Up next for Khanna is another film “Imaginary Rain”, about a New York chef, starring Shabana Azmi and Prateik Smita Patil with music by A R Rahman.
“I just want no hyphenation in my creativity. This movie is about Indian cooking in New York City. I have known Shabana ji since 2005. And she used to come to my small restaurant in New York and she will eat all the meals there. I’ve had a very long journey with Shabana Azmi. We still have pictures where she looks the same and I’m looking so young. She learned how to cook for the movie.” PTI BK MIN BK BK BK
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