Nikitha shares the jury panel on Masterchef India Telugu (Season 2), along with chefs Chalapathi Rao and Sanjay Thumma, slated to stream later this month.
Naomi has two outlets, the second one being in Banjara Hills and the third one to open soon in Khajaguda.(Supplied)
Chocolatier Nikitha Umesh, recalls journaling, as a young teen, just out of school in Bengaluru, about her dreams of being a chef one day. Recently, the pastry chef, (who along with her uber gifted chef husband Akash Stanley, co-founded the very loved Naomi Patisserie in Hyderabad), shared a note written to herself exactly a decade ago, when she was eighteen, on Instagram.
The note reads, “I am gonna be pursuing hotel management in the future and hopefully that’s the best decision I have had to make in my life…the love for food and passion for cooking began when I was in the ninth grade and one of my inspirations has most certainly been MasterChef Australia! I’m just an amateur and hope this book turns out better than what I have in my mind”, signs off Nikitha.
Today, in a triumphant validation of her dreams, Nikitha shares the jury panel on Masterchef India Telugu (Season 2), along with chefs Chalapathi Rao and Sanjay Thumma, slated to stream later this month.
Nikitha joins a handful of women who have graced Masterchef jury panels, beginning with Garima Arora on Masterchef India Season 7 in 2022, and Pooja Dhingra for Masterchef India Season 8 in 2023. At 28 years, she is the youngest jury member on Masterchef India.
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“I just got a call out of the blue from the Endemol team in Mumbai which handles Masterchef India, in early October. They were looking for a woman chef on the jury for Masterchef Telugu. My profile matched with what they were looking for,” shares Umesh.
She is upbeat about her journey ahead as Masterchef judge and shooting 30-odd episodes of the food reality show until end-January of next year.
“I am absolutely elated to be on the jury of this show. It is undoubtedly a huge milestone in my career. I am looking forward to witnessing what the home cooks bring to the table. I want to see the ways in which they can redefine Indian cuisine, especially south Indian cuisine, as it is still so understated. The parameters that we would be looking forward to are taste, innovation and presentation. These have always been the pillars of Masterchef,” says Umesh.
Her journey as a chef was, however, not easy. Her parents didn’t see eye to eye with her on her choice of profession.
At 28 years, Nikitha Umesh is the youngest jury member on Masterchef India. (Supplied)
“In my family, studying to be a chef or “bawarchi” as many still refer derisively to it as, was not even considered a career option. You could either be in the corporate or software sector or maybe work as a CA. My parents were also conscious of the fact that the culinary profession was hugely male-dominated. Moreover, there wasn’t anyone in their circle who could guide me,” she narrates.
But, Umesh behaved like the proverbial black sheep and asserted that the onus would be on them if she had to follow a path chosen by them.
Eventually, her parents relented. Soon, Umesh applied to IIHM Bengaluru and got admitted as their student.
During her time at IIHM, she apprenticed with a chef as an assistant at the Bocuse D’or (named after legendary chef Paul Bocuse) gastronomic competition in Singapore. It was a culinary odyssey; Umesh was floored.
“That one experience was a complete eye-opener into the world of chefs, about what they can do with food in so many diverse ways. This motivated me to be on a centre stage, competing with the best gourmand talents from the world over,” she shares.
Umesh was handpicked by ITC Hotels as part of a small group of six hotel management students pan India. Here, she was recruited directly as a management trainee for two years with ITC to receive intense training , which enables one to skip the kitchen hierarchy, and fast forward to senior managerial roles.
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ITC Kohenur hired her as part of the pre-opening team. Here, she worked with Fabelle Chocolates as their pastry chef.
“It was a great learning experience, training with international chocolatiers and getting ample opportunity to express one’s creativity,” she says.
It was here that she met her future husband Akash Stanley, also a chef. She refers to him as her absolute cheerleader.
“Well, both Akash and I had been wanting to do something on our own for a very long time. Covid played a catalyst in many ways. But before that, we had tied the knot in a Covid wedding on our home terrace with 50 guests in all. We told our parents that we preferred to save the wedding money. We wanted to use it later as an investment in our food venture,” she elaborates while insisting that I try out her newest dessert, Mamra.
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The dessert named after the almond as its ingredient is mamra almonds, dark chocolate and fresh cream. As I break a spoonful of it, layers of goodness land on my plate. I understand why Naomi is the successful brand it is today.
On 31 December, 2020, she quit her job at ITC Kohenur. In March 2021, they had a cloud kitchen in Jubilee Hills, where the duo indulged in their shared passion for baking and crafting chocolates.
Nikitha Umesh started Naomi with her chef-husband Akash. (Supplied)
Encouraged by the response to their customised desserts and cakes, they floated their brand Naomi Patisserie and Bakehouse in March 2022. For this, they had a full-fledged standalone cafe-patisserie in Jubilee Hills for Christmas 2022.
Today, Naomi has two outlets. The second one is in Banjara Hills and the third one to open soon in Khajaguda.
“It has been a long haul. Sometimes business is so good. Like the recent Diwali order that we did, and sometimes business is down. But that is how it is, and one has to evolve,” she says.
Life is looking up for the young chef couple, who are happy for now with their first-born, that is the Naomi brand. Umesh chips in, “This is our second baby,” pointing to Zorro, their Golden Retriever.
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