A conversation with Chef Sahar

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Chef Sahar Siddiqi has spent her career moving between Pakistani home kitchens and American restaurants, Karachi flavors and Georgia produce. As executive chef of Chai Pani in Decatur, she helps make South Asian food feel fresh and welcoming.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

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Was there a specific time in your life when food became the center? When did you realize food was what you wanted to do?

I can’t actually remember a time when food wasn’t the center of my life.

I’m Pakistani, and growing up, every summer and winter felt like there were cousins getting married. Weddings always became big family reunions. My earliest memories are of being six or seven at my khala’s house, making breakfast for everyone. We probably had 60 cousins, and I’d make French toast and hot chocolate.

Food was always so important. Obviously, South Asians are connected to food, but for me, it was also my way to participate and give back. I’m the youngest in a big family, and I didn’t really know my place. Very easily, food became the thing that I did. It gave me purpose.

Who was most influential in how you picked up food and flavor?

Definitely my mom. She is a wonderful, wonderful cook - and not only with Pakistani food.

Often, you have parents who cook the food they grew up eating really well. But my mom was always experimental. She was the only auntie who would make meatloaf, a proper Thanksgiving meal, pineapple upside-down cake - these very American recipes she was excited about.

I remember in the early ’90s, she had a bread maker and would make fresh cinnamon raisin bread. Seeing how experimental she could be broadened my palate. I wasn’t just eating Pakistani food every night - which is a lovely way to live - but it was nice to realize there was other food out there.

I don’t remember cooking with her much when I was little, but the kitchen was the focal point. Ammi was always in there, and I was always in there with her. We did our homework in the kitchen. I was always observing.

When did you start cooking on your own?

As a teenager, I think what I was drawn to most was cooking for my friends.

I would host little dinner parties in my mom’s dining room. My parents would be out, and I’d have friends over. I’d set the table and make whatever excited me. I grew up in Westchester County, New York, and I was the only brown person in my school. I don’t think I made Pakistani food for them. I’d make things like mac and cheese and grilled steak.

But really, it was the community aspect - the bringing people together - that made me want to do it. It still is.

How did that turn into a career?

My dad wanted me to be a doctor. Classic.

I went to Hunter College in New York, and in my first year, I was premed. Very quickly, I realized: I’m not going to do this. I had always loved literature and writing, so I moved into communications and journalism.

But I was always deeply involved with food. I cooked for friends, spent my paychecks at new restaurants, and fell in love with food media. After college, I realized food journalism was hard to break into. So I went to culinary school and did my externship at Saveur magazine, in their test kitchen.

How did working at Saveur shape how you cook now?

I didn’t expect the test kitchen to change me the way it did. I really fell in love with actual cooking there.

The process of testing recipes, breaking them down, and testing them again really grabbed me. We once tested something like 300 different doughnut recipes. It was mind-boggling, but I loved the methodical process: changing one ingredient or one step, seeing the differences, comparing, analyzing - all to get the perfect product.

Saveur also deep-dived into flavors from around the world. It made me feel like I was traveling and opened my mind to what cooking could be beyond repetition and efficiency.

How did you end up at Chai Pani?

I don’t think any of this was part of the plan, to be honest. Goals change. At some point, my goal became: I want to cook the food that is closest to me, and I want people to have a different perception of it.

I don’t want Pakistani food, Indian food, South Asian food to be represented in America as what it was for a long time. That is changing now, which is wonderful. But I knew I had to work my way up. I loved working in restaurants and being a line cook through my 20s.

When I moved to Atlanta, I was a regular at Chai Pani. I was working in fine dining, and my husband said, “You should work here. Everything Meherwan Irani is doing is what you want to do.” So I cold-called him. I was 29 and confident: “You need to hire me. I’m the best thing that’s going to happen to your restaurant.” I had the experience, and I knew these flavors. I grew up with them.

He hired me to open Botiwalla in Alpharetta as a kitchen manager. Eventually, I moved to Chai Pani and then became executive chef.

What does Chai Pani change about the perception of Indian food?

The perception of Indian food in America, especially in the ’90s and early 2000s, was that it was greasy, cheap, fast - delicious, but not elevated.

Meherwan’s restaurants are the opposite. They’re fun and vibrant. The design, environment, and service are inviting. If you can’t pronounce a dish, you’re not afraid to order it. You don’t feel like you’re in an “other” environment. You just feel like you’re in a restaurant.

And the food is fresh and vibrant. It isn’t geared toward an American palate. It stays true to the flavors, but it’s approachable. Okra fries are a great example, especially in the American South. Okra grows here, and bhindi is such an iconic dish. It makes complete sense. People try it, then they’re ready to try other things.

You’ve championed local produce at Chai Pani. How has that shaped the food?

That’s been my whole thing. What I want to cook is seasonal, local Pakistani food - seasonal, local South Asian food, but really seasonal, local Pakistani food.

At Chai Pani, my version of the restaurant is different because I’ve partnered with farmers. We now get about 60% of our produce locally. Some farmers grow ingredients specifically for us, and we’ll buy all of it.

It’s symbiotic. They have someone they can grow for, and we get better produce while supporting our community. During the Georgia okra season, two farmers grow a specific breed of okra for us. We go through 200 pounds a week, so we can say, “Grow it, bring it, we’ll buy it all.”

How do you balance Southern ingredients with Pakistani cooking techniques?

Sahar: I always start with the food I grew up eating and ask: how can I use what’s best in season?

For example, we run mutton do pyaza in spring because of spring onions. I know traditionally it’s not made with spring onions, but why wouldn’t you use the best of the season? We use green onion tops as garnish, roasted spring onions to finish, and charred spring onions melted into the gravy. It’s traditional, but the ingredient is really shining.

It’s the same with carrots. When farmers have carrots, I think, “Gajar gosht. That’s what you make with carrots.” These carrots were pulled from the ground yesterday. They’re sweet and delicious.

When you think about how people cook in India or Pakistan, that’s how they’re cooking: seasonally and locally. These dishes exist because that’s what grew on their land. We’re essentially doing the same thing here. The South grows very similar things. The applications are just different.

When you think of Pakistani flavors and techniques, what distinctly comes to mind?

There is a lot more meat. Pakistanis cook a lot more mutton. There’s also a heavy use of coriander powder, especially roasted coriander powder. That punchy, vibrant lemoniness is very Pakistani to me. I would watch my mom add so much dhania, and she’d say, “This is just how we cook.”

When I started at Chai Pani, I learned about a cuisine I thought I already knew. Learning about Maharashtrian food and South Indian food was mind-blowing. There is so much freshness - coconut, green chili, curry leaves, tadkas. Pakistani food, to me, is active cooking. You’re cooking things down and watching it the whole time. There’s a lot of masala development.

Regionally, there are so many differences. Hyderabadi cooking uses a lot of tamarind for that khatta, sour aspect. In Karachi, we use amchur. In other parts of Pakistan, people use anardana. They’re all for the same purpose, but everyone uses what is regionally available.

Why do you think pulao is superior to biryani?

I love biryani, but sometimes biryani can be overly spicy and overly heavy. Not all biryani - Lucknow biryani is really good - but I can’t eat it every day.

Pulao is really clean. It lets the ingredients shine. When I make yakhni pulao, I make a broth out of cartilaginous, fatty meats and bones. The broth itself sticks to your mouth. Then you cook the rice in that with the meat. With biryani, I feel like the masala shines. With pulao, the broth and the meat shine.

I’m team pulao all the way.

You've mentioned you’re very attached to your mortar and pestle. What comes up for you when you think about it?

Specifically, we would make lassan ki chutney in it to eat with pulao. It’s essentially garlic that’s simmered or turned into a confit, with a lot of red chilies.

My family is a pulao family - a yakhni pulao family. On every special occasion, there was pulao. For the lassan ki chutney, my mom would put everything in the mortar, and that was part of my job. She never used a blender for it. She would say, “You have to do it this way. This is the only way.”

Now I use a mortar and pestle constantly. I’m adamant about grinding whole spices myself. There’s a freshness to it. Not everything has to be finely ground. Coarse black pepper, coriander, cumin seeds - texture is important. The freshness is more vibrant.

Is there a spice you love and return to?

My favorite spice has always been kalonji - nigella seeds. I also love amchur, probably because it’s embedded in me. I don’t think I realized how much I loved it until I started using it myself.

Kalonji is so unique. One of the first dishes I put on the menu at State Bird Provisions was a cucumber salad with kalonji dressing and hung yogurt underneath. It was lemony, oniony, almost like an achaar flavor without the heat.

I don’t think people use kalonji enough. It’s such a wonder. I don’t think it’s had its heyday yet - but it’s coming.

When you think of condiments in the kitchen you grew up in, or the kitchen you have now, what comes to mind?

In the kitchen I grew up in, achaar forever - specifically green chili achaar and lemon achaar. And Maggi Hot & Sweet ketchup. We didn’t use regular ketchup. I would dip my grilled cheese in it. Keema sandwiches and Maggi ketchup - that’s what I was raised on.

And yogurt. Straight yogurt. Yogurt is a condiment. There’s always yogurt on the side.

Now we have an entire shelf of hot sauce. Achaar is still a big part. And honestly, I’m not just saying this because it’s you, but your PODIs are my go-to. I have all of them, and I kind of gatekeep them because I don’t want my husband to use them all. I just had cottage cheese toast with turkey bacon and sprinkled Spicy Coconut PODI on it. I put it on everything.

You have the Zesty Coriander PODI, right? When you were talking about coriander, I was wondering what you thought of it.

I love it. I’ve made salad dressings out of it. It has that pungent, vibrant flavor, and the coriander really shines.

Five or ten years ahead, what do you hope people will think of South Asian food?

I want it to be part of people’s dinner rotations, the way tacos have become part of dinner rotations in America. I want South Asian food to stop being an “other.”

It doesn’t need to be the most authentic version, but I want people to be comfortable with it, because the more they become comfortable with the cuisine, the more they become comfortable with the people of the cuisine. That really breaks a barrier.

This food is not one thing. It’s many regions, many techniques, many histories, and many people. It can belong at the everyday table.