How Chef Nehal Karkera cooks up a storm online

Born into a typical Mangalorean family, chef Nehal has been surrounded by excellent cooks from day one and credits his kin for choosing cooking as a vocation.

The 35-year-old, who worked at a Mumbai-based Italian restaurant for eight years and on the iconic Disney Cruise Line, had his first taste of content creation in 2017 after a chance encounter in a bar with someone looking for a collaborator to make recipe videos.

"They liked my work and offered me a full-time position. It was the first time I made food in a different setting, but there are always new things to learn. My job was to make the dishes look good and drool-worthy," recalls the chef.

This experience afforded chef Nehal an opportunity to learn how to operate cameras and edit videos. A year later, he quit in order to resume working in a professional kitchen. But the pandemic had other things in store for him.

The chef says, "Prior to COVID, I was consulting for various restaurants. All this ended when the pandemic struck, so I was at home doing nothing when one day my wife, Gia, said, 'Do something, but don't eat my head'."

This prompted chef Nehal to pick up his phone and record himself cooking tasty treats from every corner of the globe. "I would shoot and upload videos every day. I started getting good at it and started gaining some popularity and I'm still going strong," says chef Nehal, whose Instagram followers have grown from 18,000 in 2020 to 1,76,000.

Speaking about what sets him apart from the competition, chef Nehal - whose forte is Italian cuisine - says he avoids cooking commonplace dishes. "You will never see me make a butter chicken or a palak paneer. I liked to try comfort food from different parts of the world that I believe will please an Indian palate."

However, the chef refuses to cater to the audience's tastes. "I make things I want to try. I was confident that if I did this long enough, people would end up watching and I was proven right," he says.

The culinarian believes that more than the food, it is his personality that keeps viewers coming back for more. "As I got more confident in from of the camera, I truly believe people watch it for me - someone who cooks great food, is funny, makes fun of himself and is not afraid to make mistakes on camera," he says.

Chef Nehal's signature bag throw, a slapstick element that is seen in his Reels, has also blown up. "it's a hook that keeps people engaged," he says.

The chef plans to leverage his social media fame and take things to the next level. "I'm testing out some FMCG products and plan to launch them in the near future," he says.

Asked whether it is mandatory for up-and-coming cooks to have a social media presence, he says, "Nowadays, yes, but I advise budding chefs not to focus on this too much. Building a skill on the job is crucial; long hours for years will help develop that skill, till they are ready for the next step."