BENGALURU: Earlier this month, the Consul-General of Japan in Bengaluru, Takayuki Kitagawa, made the first-of-a-kind move by formally appointing an Indian chef at his residence on Sankey Road. Sunita Khatri from Sonada, Darjeeling, who has been in the city for almost a year, is the second Indian national to be a chef for any consul-general of Japan in the world.
According to Kitagawa, out of the 223 chefs for Consul-Generals across the world, only 13 are women. Sunita is now the 14th woman chef appointed by the foreign minister. Kitagawa recalls going over for a dinner party to the Deputy Consul General’s house in Chennai over three years ago, and was pleasantly surprised to come across an Indian cooking ‘outstanding’ Japanese food.
“Going by the food, I assumed that a Japanese chef was preparing it. When I found out that an Indian was, it took me by surprise. And he had been with the Japanese household for the last 30 years,” he says referring to the trigger of the idea.
Sunita got her first job at the residence of the Deputy-Consul of Japan, Yoshinori Yakabe, in Chennai in 2009. “I was referred to that job by a relative. I was encouraged to learn Japanese dishes by Yakabe’s wife when I worked for their family. It was because of her that I gained a lot of interest in cooking Japanese food and dreamed of being a chef someday,” says Sunita, who has been trained by professional Japanese chefs, Chef Okano of Matsuri (at Hotel Chancery) and Chef Shimomura of Yataii (at Hotel Shangri-La).
The tag comes with much responsibility for Sunita, who says that as a chef to the Consul-General, ‘the most important responsibility is to decide the menu, cook and serve food to the elite guests (including Japanese nationals) of the Consul-General.’
“I sometimes need to coordinate with chefs of Japanese restaurants to decide menus with them in case of festivals related to Japan,” she says. Sunita constantly thinks of strengthening her skills, which is why she occasionally visits the renowned Japanese chefs in Bengaluru to develop her skills. “Being an Indian chef cooking for Japanese guests makes me want to prove myself every time I cook for them. Since getting Japanese ingredients is a challenge, I look for fresh and high quality ingredients that can be bought locally for the Japanese dishes,” she says.
This is also an attempt to promote Japanese cuisine in India, about which Sunita says she would like to host Japanese cooking classes in the Consul-General’s residence, and would also like to go out and teach if she gets requests. When she’s cooking, her focus is on getting the right ingredients needed for a dish, presenting it properly, garnishing it well, and most importantly, keeping hygiene in mind. While Sunita’s signature dishes include various types of sushi and gyoza (Japanese dumpling), Kitagawa says that he relishes Indian dishes – fried rice, paneer curry, potato curry, dal, chapati – which Sunita has been preparing. “ I love the momos she prepares. Now, I’d like her to learn to make wagashi (a traditional Japanese sweet),” he says.