Floyd Cardoz, the chef behind the New York restaurant Tabla, has taken home the top prize in the third season of Top Chef Masters.
Cardoz divided the judges with his inclusion of the simple Upma in his meal, but 'in the end, (he) impressed because of the spice and passion that infused his final meal of the season,' said The Wall Street Journal.
'The three-course feast also featured a rice-crusted snapper in a fennel-laced broth and a reinterpreted version of a Malaysian beef stew. Our guess is that Cardoz won by doing exactly what he does at Tabla -- that is, honouring his Indian gastronomic roots and finding a way to reinvent his native cuisine at the same time.'
The Mumbai-born chef pledged his $100,000 (about Rs 45 lakh) prize money to the Young Scientist Cancer Research Fund at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Image: Chef Floyd Cardoz
