Delzad Avari, 30, wanted to cook since the time he couldn't reach the stove. "I was brought up in a typical Parsi family, which loves their food and alcohol," he says. So much so, that it was the family business 60 years ago. Between 1937 and 1963, Aden (in today's Yemen) was a British colony and a trading powerhouse, and functioned like the Dubai airport: it earned its coin through duty-free shopping. Avari's grandfather ran a food-hall there, selling everything from alcohol to biscuits to cold cuts. Even today, two showcases in Avari's house are filled with memorabilia from that time: dozens of bottle openers, a horse from Courvoisier brandy, Johnnie Walker statues and Tiger beer glasses.

"In that atmosphere, there was no doubt that I would become a chef." After Avari did his grand diplôme from Le Cordon Bleu in culinary arts in London, a string of high-profile workstations followed, including at Gili Lankanfushi Maldives, where he was chef de partie, and he learnt "the core of cooking good sauces, with stocks boiling for 16 hours." And later, in Trinidad and Tobago, first at Hilton and then at Krave, a fine-dining restaurant, where he was "exposed to cooking large cuts of meat: whole striploins, rib-eyes, pork loins, smoked briskets. We would smoke the brisket for 12 to 14 hours." After relocating to Mumbai in 2017, and cooking for pleasure, Avari started his own catering service, Del'z Kitchen, two months ago. The heart of his menu is the shoulder of a pig.