Birthday: 06 May 1971
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Vivek was born in a Bengal coal-mining town in India and studied at a Christian Brothers school. With an engineer father it was expected than he would follow in the family footsteps and adopt a similar career, but the charismatic cook had other ideas. Having professed his desire to study cookery he undertook a three-year catering course at The Institute of Hotel Management in New Delhi. Once he worked his way up in the industry, doing his time at various kitchens across India, Vivek met infamous PR professional Iqbal Wahhab at a wedding. During this fateful meeting the pair discussed the possibility of creating a menu that focused on Indian flavours while using French techniques, and the idea for his first restaurant was born.
In 2001 the business partners realised the culmination of this first conversations and opened The Cinnamon Club in Westminster, which is housed in a former library and serves modern fusion food. Following the success of this first site the chef then went on to open Cinnamon Kitchen & Anaise in 2008, Cinnamon Soho in 2021, a more casual dining outpost – Cinnamon Bazaar – in 2016 and his first out-of-London kitchen in 2017, Cinnamon Kitchen Oxford.
Vivek is no stranger to the limelight, having made regular TV appearances since opening his first restaurant. He has been a regular guest on Saturday Kitchen and has made cameos on My Kitchen Rules UK and Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Nation among other popular shows. Vivek also has a reem of cookbooks under his belt and even holds a record for creating the world’s hottest curry which he created to celebrate Virgin Media’s Bollywood movies channel launch.
The celebrity chef now lives in South London with his wife Archana and their two children, Eshaan (born in 2001) and Maya (born in 2006).