Masala Executive Chef Ashley Popat
Recently awarded “Top Indian Chef in San Diego” by the local Indian community, Chef Ashley Popat has come a long way since beginning her restaurant career in the early 1990s. Born in Uganda and raised in London, Ashley started her venture into the restaurant business after moving to San Diego 18 years ago. Of course, her interest and training in the culinary world began much earlier. She says she absorbed her cooking skills from her mother, with whom she spent a lot of time in the kitchen during her childhood. Ashley remembers affectionately, “Mom always dragged us into the kitchen…we weren’t allowed to play.”
Her mother’s Indian home cooking was focused on the Gujarat state, the western most state in India, from which her family originates. The cuisine there is largely vegetarian, and is more simple, using basic spices and less dairy. While her culinary repertoire has developed over the years to include meat and more complex spices, she still summons many of these fundamental concepts when preparing the menus for her restaurants.
She moved here shortly after college to join her brother, Rakesh, and soon they opened their first business, Cool Corner, a frozen yogurt and juice bar. After this jumping point, Ashley and Rakesh opened Monsoon, a fully vegetarian restaurant, downtown. “I learned everything [about running a restaurant] there,” Ashley claims, “It was just me and my brother, sometimes just me in the kitchen for 15 hours a day.” This hard work, dedication, and pure passion for the restaurant industry have led to great success for the two of them.
The Popat siblings have been providing San Diego with delicious, traditional Indian cuisine and new, exciting restaurants for almost two decades now. They continue their family-run tradition in each new endeavor. Rakesh is always “the brains behind the business” and Ashley is the creative force. After Monsoon, they decided to expand their industry to meet the Indian epicurean interests of San Diego’s diners. They opened Bombay: Fine Cuisine of India, a more elegant restaurant, in Monsoon’s place. Seven years later, after redeveloping the concept for Monsoon, they reopened the establishment on Fourth Avenue. Finally, in 2006, they opened Masala, the most refined of their Indian restaurants to date.
With Masala, Ashley has redefined the Indian dining experience in San Diego. “Many Indian restaurants don’t put much [effort] into the ambiance, or the service,” she explains, but that is obviously not the case with this restaurant, as one can surmise with just a cursory glance at the festive, grand décor and the smiling servers. The menu offers a broad range of the tastes India has to offer, including Northern, Southern and Western regional cuisine. Ashley has expanded the concept beyond just traditional cuisine, however. Masala is authentic, but has an air of fusion in its presentation that is most apparent in the gourmet plating and posh décor. Her biggest house secret is that she grinds the special Gharam Masala mixture of spices for the restaurant herself, which is a combination of 30 different whole spices.
Ashley makes sure to appear frequently at each of her restaurants. She checks each restaurant to make sure the sauces and other such details meet her approval. “In my opinion, consistency is very important at a restaurant,” Ashley explains, “You don’t want to have a great meal one night and an unsatisfactory one the next.” She makes sure to make the rounds with her patrons as well, often touring the dining room for feedback. “I love feedback from customers,” she affirms, explaining that it’s the most rewarding part of the job.
Keep a look out for Ashley and Rakesh’s newest venture, Banana Leaf, which will be a more traditional, South-Indian restaurant in Hillcrest. With this brother and sister team’s already-proven green thumb for the restaurant business, Banana Leaf promises to be a big success. Still, opening Banana Leaf is just the beginning of Ashley’s big goals for the future. She would love to begin offering cooking classes at her restaurants as a way to share her knowledge of Indian cuisine, and ultimately she wants to have her own show on the Food Network. “There’s no Indian chef on right now,” she observes, “and I want to do a kitchen show where I also go to Indian markets and speak about the different spices.” If the established success of her restaurants is any example for the future (“We have been really fortunate,” Ashley humbly acknowledges), then rest assured that Chef Ashley Popat’s greatest accomplishments are yet to come.
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http://www.sandiegorestaurants.com/chef.cfm/restaurant/867/Masala
Chicken Biriyani, an excellent entree, includes many of Chef Ashley's favorite and most signature herbs and spices, including saffron, cilantro, and garam masala.