Sanjay Dwivedi

When you were a child, have you ever played with a globe, rotating it and then pointing at a random place, to see in which country it would end up? Sanjay Dwivedi’s life went exactly like this. The British chef originally from India, before cooking Peruvian food worked in Italian, French and Indian restaurants around London, impressing people thanks to the flexibility with which not only he learnt new techniques but also managed to absorb them and include them with intelligence in the incredible melting pot characterising London’s culinary scene. Was his career to have a title, as in a book, it would go like this: “Around the world in 80 cuisines”.

Finding out how he first began to cook Peruvian cooking is even more incredible. Given his skills and the success he had in every restaurant where he worked and having received a Michelin star with Indian restaurant Zaika in Knightsbridge, in 2012 his friend and entrepreneur Arjun Waney, who already owned successful establishments in London such as Roka and Zuma, offered him to become the chef behind his new restaurant Coya.

One thing perhaps was not clear during that call: Coya was a Peruvian restaurant. So a few days later Sanjay flew to Lima, where two weeks of hard work at Astrid y Gaston awaited him, during which he’d learn as much as possible of the complex Peruvian cuisine. During these two incredible weeks Dwivedi prepared even 2 lunches and 2 suppers per day, each time trying out new dishes from all of Peru.

It may seem impossible to say but in fact the skills of Sanjay are proven in the success that Coya has not only among the palates of Londoners, who are fond of modernised and refined ethnic cuisine, but also among Peruvians themselves: in him they found a surprising alley in the promotion of a cuisine that mixes Pacific Ocean, Andes and the Amazon Forest.