You can almost smell the biryani, taste the phuchka, and hear the crackle of the luchis being fried, when you watch Asma Khan’s — chef and owner of the London-based Darjeeling Express — journey on the Netflix show Chef’s Table. But what also stays with you, is the chirpy camaraderie the Kolkata-born chef shares with her all-women team — mostly South Asian migrants — as they hum ’90s Bollywood songs and cater to the Biryani Supper Club. It’s like any desi kitchen, always bustling with aunts, mothers and grandmothers, chopping, cooking, chit-chatting, and currying lives with flavour. 

Since 2012, Darjeeling Express has grown from serving an intimate, home-based supper club to occupying the heart of London at Soho, and more recently, to a new address at Covent Garden. However, Khan reveals that despite her success, she struggled to move to a bigger site, thanks to sexism. Edited excerpts from an email interview: