Floyd Cardoz (October 2, 1960 – March 25, 2020) was an Indian-born American chef. He was born in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

. He owned the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

eatery Paowalla and was executive chef at Tabla, as well as victor on ''

Top Chef Masters ''Top Chef Masters'' is an American reality competition series that aired on the cable television network Bravo, and premiered June 10, 2009. It is a spinoff of Bravo's hit show ''Top Chef''. In the series, chefs A chef is a trained profes ...

'' Season 3 in 2011. His New York restaurants were known for food melding Indian flavours and spices with western cuisine.

Education and career

After attending culinary school in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Floyd Cardoz went to

Les Roches International School of Hotel Management Les Roches is a private hospitality school owned by Eurazeo and located in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. History Les Roches is a hospitality school founded in 1979. Approximately 1118 students from 68 different countries attend every semest ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. He moved to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

in 1988. He started working under Chef

Gray Kunz Gray Kunz (February 24, 1955 – March 5, 2020) was a Singaporean-born Swiss restaurateur, chef, and cookbook writer based in New York. Kunz spent his early childhood in Singapore, which influenced his fusion style of cooking later in his lif ...

at Lespinasse in 1992. He worked in various roles from

chef de partie A chef de partie, station chef, or line cook is a chef in charge of a particular area of production in a restaurant. In large kitchens, each chef de partie might have several cooks or assistants. In most kitchens, however, the chef de partie is ...

to executive

sous chef A sous-chef is a chef who is second in command in a kitchen; the person ranking next after the head chef, usually the more hands on manager with regards to training staff and organising the kitchen. Duties and functions The sous-chef has many re ...

. In 1997, he started working with

Union Square Hospitality Group Daniel Meyer (born March 14, 1958) is a New York City restaurateur and the Founder & Executive Chairman of the Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG). Background and early career Meyer was born and raised in a reform Jewish family in St. Louis, ...

where he collaborated with restaurateur

Danny Meyer Daniel Meyer (born March 14, 1958) is a New York City restaurateur and the Founder & Executive Chairman of the Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG). Background and early career Meyer was born and raised in a reform Jewish family in St. Louis, M ...

to open Tabla. He also opened El Verano Taqueria and North End Grill. In 2008 he launched a line of entrees with the online grocery home delivery company

FreshDirect FreshDirect is an American online grocery company and among the first enterprises to sell and deliver perishable foods to consumers without maintaining a retail operation. Established in New York City, the company serves the New York metropolita ...

. Cardoz served as a culinary consultant to the 2014 feature film '' The Hundred Foot Journey'', in whose storyline French and Indian cuisines fuse. In 2015 he opened The Bombay Canteen. In the summer 2016, he opened Paowalla in New York's Soho. In 2018 he closed Paowalla and redesigned it to open as Bombay Bread Bar.

Awards and honors

Cardoz was a four-time

James Beard Award The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists in the United States. They are scheduled around James Beard's May 5 birthday. The media award ...

nominee and the author of two cookbooks. He is winner of season 3 of

. He donated the prize money to the ''Young Scientist Cancer Research Fund'' at

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS or Mount Sinai), formerly the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is a private medical school in New York City. It is the academic teaching arm of the Mount Sinai Health System, which manages eight ...

. He was named among the "Top 50 Most Influential Global Indians" by

GQ Magazine ''GQ'' (formerly ''Gentlemen's Quarterly'' and ''Apparel Arts'') is an American international monthly men's magazine based in New York City and founded in 1931. The publication focuses on fashion, style, and culture for men, though articles on ...

in 2011

Personal life and death

Cardoz and his wife and business partner, Barkha, had two sons, Justin and Peter. Cardoz died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

on March 25, 2020, at

Mountainside Hospital Hackensack Meridian Health Mountainside, also known as Mountainside Hospital, is an acute-care hospital located in Montclair, New Jersey, United States. The hospital has 396 beds and serves Northeastern Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County. A pa ...

Montclair, New Jersey Montclair () is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated on the cliffs of the Watchung Mountains, Montclair is a wealthy and diverse commuter town and suburb of New York City within the New York metropolitan area. As ...

, at the age of 59. He had been hospitalized for a week after travelling from Mumbai to New York through

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

on March 8, falling sick and testing positive for the virus.

Legacy

Cardoz has been called the "godfather of modern Indian cuisine." He was the first chef born and raised in India to lead the kitchen at a prominent New York City restaurant. New York-based food writer Priya Krishna wrote, "That Indian restaurants get to be high-end and personal and regional and cross-cultural and succeed on a large scale—we can, in large part, thank Floyd Cardoz." Nearly a year after Cardoz's death, Andrew Rea of the BCU released an episode with Cardoz that was filmed in 2019 on cooking curry for the ''Basics with Babish'' series, which was released as its 100th episode.

Books

* Floyd Cardoz: Flavorwalla: Big Flavor. Bold Spices. A New Way to Cook the Foods You Love * One Spice, Two Spice: American Food, Indian Flavors

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cardoz, Floyd 1960 births 2020 deaths American chefs American male chefs Asian American chefs Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in New Jersey Businesspeople from Mumbai Businesspeople from New York City Cookbook writers Reality cooking competition winners Participants in American reality television series 21st-century American businesspeople American restaurateurs American people of Goan descent Indian emigrants to the United States