From rural Tamil Nadu to Wall Street: Chef Vijay Kumar on ringing the Nasdaq closing bell
I rang the closing bell at Nasdaq, an American Stock Exchange in New York on May 1. This was as part of an event by
I rang the closing bell at Nasdaq, an American Stock Exchange in New York on May 1. This was as part of an event by Gold House, an organisation in the US that selects the Gold100: a group of 100 leaders responsible for shaping global culture over the past year. It was one of those moments when you look back and think, “How did I get here?” I’ve been having a lot of those moments lately. The James Beard Awards, Michelin, North America’s 50 Best Restaurants — each recognition has been incredibly meaningful, but has also given me an opportunity to pause and reflect on my journey. I did not have a ‘grand plan’ when I started cooking. If you had told me as a child growing up in Tamil Nadu that one day I would be standing in Times Square, recognised as a representative of South Indian food, I would never have believed you. From Samudirapatti to Wall Street I grew up in Samudirapatti near Natham, in Tamil Nadu’s Dindigul district, a 45-minute drive from Madurai city, where food was simply part of everyday life. Nobody talked about regional cuisine or culinary heritage. It was just what we ate — the fish curries my grandmother made, tamarind forward meen kuzhambu, vegetables like drumstick, brinjal, snake gourd, cluster beans, ridge gourd and more. Aviyal, poriyal, kootu, vatha kuzhambu were made with vegetables that came from our farm, and signature dishes like mulaikattiya thaniyam, curd rice kanji often eaten with thuvaiyal appeared during festivals, weddings, and family gatherings.
Back then, I never imagined that those foods would become the foundation of my career, or that they would help reshape how people think about Indian food in America. For years, I worked in kitchens where I was proud to cook Indian food, but I rarely saw the dishes I grew up eating represented on menus. Tamil cuisine is incredibly diverse, yet outside of South India, many people had never encountered it. Why Semma had to exist I remember conversations before we opened Semma when people questioned whether dishes like nathai pirattal, our snail dish, belonged on a restaurant menu in New York. To me, that dish represented exactly why Semma needed to exist. Snails were part of the food culture where I grew up, they were not exotic or provocative, they were simply food. The same could be said for many of the dishes on our menu and I believed that if we cooked these dishes honestly, people would connect with them. Thankfully, they did. When you’re in the restaurant every day, it can be difficult to step back and recognise the impact of the work you’re doing. You focus on the next service, the next prep list, and the next challenge. Moments like ringing the closing bell force you to look up for a second and realise that people are paying attention, they are connected. Tamil food has reached places I never imagined it would.
The BriefWire