Akhtar Nawab

A protégé of Tom Colicchio, Akhtar Nawab just opened up his first restaurant, Elettaria, in Manhattan.

By Jennifer Treuting

Chef Akhtar Nawab

Specialty: New American cuisine with Indian influence

Akhtar Nawab may have grown up in Louisville, KY, but thanks to his mother’s cooking, he was exposed to the traditions of Indian cuisine early on. Before enrolling at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, he studied at the University of Louisville while working in local kitchens.

After graduation, Nawab spent two years in San Francisco, spending time at kitchens like Bizou, Jardiniere, and La Folie. Loretta Keller, chef and owner of Bizou, would become an inspiration to the young Nawab, exposing him to the local and seasonal green-market movement firsthand. Nawab still credits Keller as being an important mentor during this time of his career, and those lessons are seen in his menus today, through the star role of high-quality, fresh ingredients.

If Nawab learned about quality ingredients from Keller, then he learned about kitchen management and business skills from superstar chef Tom Colicchio. Upon moving to New York City in 1998, Nawab began working at Colicchio’s Gramercy Tavern. This was the start of a six-year relationship with the chef, moving from one eatery to another within his empire of restaurants. In 2001, Nawab took a turn as sous-chef at Craft, and a year later he moved to Craftbar. It was at Craftbar that Nawab would first fly solo, thanks to a promotion to executive chef during his tenure there.

Nawab moved on in 2007, becoming executive chef at The EU, a gastropub named for the European Union. The menu was an appropriate mix of classic pub fare from Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, serving tapas alongside antipasti. If you felt like fish-and-chips or chicken pot pie, those English staples were represented as well.

In 2008, Nawab left The EU to open Elettaria, acting as both chef and co-owner of this Greenwich Village restaurant. Turning to his Indian ancestry for inspiration, the menu is a new direction for the chef, focusing on creative and innovative dishes filled with spices like cardamom, coriander, cumin, and turmeric.

Fun fact: Chef Nawab plays bass guitar.