54 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {food coloring} Srijith “Sri” Gopinathan, the chef behind upscale CalIndian restaurant Eylan, didn’t always plan to pursue a career in the food industry. But growing up in his family’s communal home in the southernmost part of India, complete with a farm, rice paddy and coconut orchard, meant every meal was farm-to-table. Young Srijith watched his family make palm sugar by boiling sap from trees, scoop the meat from coconuts like Nobu. “Those days, it was like going to temple,” he reminisces. After working as a chef at Taj Exotica Resort in the Maldives (and surviving a tsunami), Srijith became the executive chef at San Francisco’s Taj Campton Place Hotel. His trailblazing menu gained the hotel not one but two Michelin stars—the first Indian concept to do so in the U.S. Most recently, he’s opened a string of elevated and artful Cal-Indian restaurants with design-savvy restauranteur Ayesha Thapar. Their most recent, Eylan, serves wood-fired dishes like black cod and lamb kebabs in a room aswirl in bold colors, textures and patterns. Srijith’s down-to-earth demeanor and gleeful chuckle seem unaltered by success and accolades. And he gives everyone their dues, pointing out that a and dry it, and pick peppercorns from the vines winding up their house’s walls. “I grew in the midst of all these things … This was secretly simmering in my mind without me knowing it,” Srijith observes. Then, committing to the food metaphors, he adds with a grin, “I don’t think I planned to be a chef … It was definitely not force-fed. It has been a very cagefree, organic life!” This inadvertent education paid off. Initially planning to pursue engineering, Srijith ended up attending the Culinary Institute of America in New York. “New York City was the center of the universe when it came to food at that point,” he reflects, adding that he blew the little money he had dining at high-end restaurants PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHANNA HARLOW
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