Earlier this month, on March 5, culinary czars across the world, including Chef Floyd Cardoz grieved over the passing of Gray Kunz, the Singaporean-born Swiss restaurateur who rewrote the rules of fusion cooking. Little wonder that Cardoz in his tweet wrote: You were the greatest chef I know. Thank you for giving me the gift of finding myself in my cooking. You taught me how to cook and helped me be the chef I am today.

In a tug-at-the-heartstrings connect between mentor and mentee, Cardoz, also passed away in the same month (March 25), in a New York hospital. The 59-year-old celebrated chef and restaurateur had tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this month on his return from India. He was the co-owner of two restaurants in Mumbai – The Bombay Canteen and O Pedro, and had returned to the US after March 8, post the launch of his third venture, the Bombay Sweet Shop. Cardoz had admitted himself to a hospital in New York, where he lived, with a fever around March 18. He had posted that he could have possibly contracted the infection in transit in Frankfurt.