India, Aug. 4 -- Before Tarannum Sehgal even wore chef whites, she was building her life around food. A holiday would be reverse-engineered to witness a butcher-turned-chef in action or gorge on something Anthony Bourdain once ate on television. This was years before Espressos AnyDay or Top Banana existed, and eating well was simply what she and her husband Kanishka did with their free time.

That instinct manifested as a job switch at the ripe age of 30, taking Sehgal to a culinary course in Provence, through a pandemic that stranded her in Europe for months, and back to Delhi-where she now runs two kitchens shaped by everything she picked up along the way. In this conversation with Rishika Singh, the chef reflects on how her cooking ser...