Meet Asma Khan, Indian-Born London Hotel Owner In TIME’s Influential List

Asma Khan has garnered widespread recognition for her delicious food

Time Magazine’s 2024 list of the world’s 100 most influential people has been revealed and it includes Indians and people of Indian origin. Among them is the renowned Indian-born British chef Asma Khan, known for her restaurant Darjeeling Express in London’s Soho district.

Specialising in Bengali and Indian Rajput cuisine, Ms Khan has garnered widespread recognition for her delicious food and innovative approach to cooking.

Who is Asma Khan?

1. Asma Khan belongs to the royal family. The chef’s father is a Muslim Rajput, who was descended from a warrior tribe, and her mother is a Muslim Bengali.
2. In 2017, she talked about her upbringing in a short documentary produced with the BBC. “A first-born girl is sad—a second girl is a disaster. I don’t think there was a lot of joy at my birth, because I was a second daughter,” she said.  While her royal siblings and cousins were being groomed for arranged marriages, Ms Khan was breaking norms by playing cricket on the streets of Kolkata and organising pickup games with children from the slums. 
3. Ms Khan got married and moved to London in 1991. She did not know how to cook and could not even boil an egg. She later learned to cook in the UK and honed her cooking skills in her family’s kitchen during her trips to India.  
4. She was the first woman in her family to attend college. She earned a law degree and later completed a doctorate in British Constitutional Law at King’s College, London. 
5. Asma Khan’s restaurant, Darjeeling Express, is an all-women kitchen. She made history as the first British chef to be featured on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, using her platform to advocate for racial equality and female representation in kitchens. She was also a guest on Top Chef.