Asma moved to Cambridge from Calcutta in 1991 to join her academic husband. She is Rajput on her father’s side and Bengali on her mother’s. After studying law, Asma went on to do a PhD in Law at King’s College London. Cooking was her passion and she began her food career in 2012 as a supper club in her home. In 2015, she opened a pop-up in a Soho pub, and the restaurant Darjeeling Express opened its doors in June 2017. A year later, her cookbook “Asma’s Indian Kitchen” was published by Pavilion in October 2018. The book was the winner in the U.K. category for food publishing in Indian cuisine in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Asma’s Indian Kitchen was also shortlisted for best debut cookbook in the Fortnum & Mason 2019 awards. Asma is the first British chef to feature in Netflix’s Chef’s Table. The series’ sixth season, which includes Asma’s episode, was nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Documentary section. The Evening Standard listed Asma in The Progress 1000 as one of London’s most influential people in 2019. Asma has been included in the eighth edition of the GG2 Power List –profiling Britain’s 101 most influential Asians. Asma is married and has two boys.

Photo credit: Eddie Nooner