�I loved food. I loved to eat. I was forever cooking at home, making Souffle Omelettes, cutting the pork for the Sorpatel, cleaning the prawns. So I got into catering college. My family was against this. �What will you become, a bloody cook!� they asked. �

FLOYD Cardoz, at 42, is a dark, good-looking Goan who has made a big impact on the American food scene. He runs the popular Indian restaurant Tabla on Madison Avenue, New York. Tabla is located on landmark space, in the Metlife Building, and it is two storeys. There is a downstairs and an upstairs, and a patio during the summer. Downstairs seats 77. �I serve homestyle food here. It is quite like a dhaba,� Floyd says. Upstairs is formal, 128 covers, plated service and French-Indian food. �French dishes with Indian touches, Crab Cakes with masala instead of mayonnaise, a Poha crust on Fish.�

Both, the upstairs and downstairs of Tabla are happening places. The restaurant draws the discerning gourmet, a lot of affluent Indians, and the cream of New York. �Harrison Ford is quite a regular,� says Floyd. �Tabla is New York�s most popular and successful Indian restaurant.� The food is 50-50 Indian. Yes, by American standards. No, by Indian. �I would say it is nouveau Indian food. Americans used to be afraid of Indian food. Our spices, our ingredients, our water were suspect. They feared they would get indigestion the next day.� Floyd is careful not to let that happen at Tabla. �I read the guest comment cards, call them and find out what they didn�t like. I want to make everybody a fan of Indian food in the US.�

This is the same man who started off by trying to be a Bio-Chemist at the St. Xavier�s College in Bombay in the 1980s. �I didn�t finish college. I was not happy. I loved food. I loved to eat. I was forever cooking at home, making Souffle Omelettes, cutting the pork for the Sorpatel, cleaning the prawns. So I got into catering college. My family was against this. �What will you become, a bloody cook!� they asked. But in 1984, I joined the Taj. One year and eight months later, I was frustrated. I wanted to do fusion food. But I was discouraged. �Don�t fuse two great cuisines,� I was told. So I went to Europe. To the Ecole Les Roches, a hotel school in Switzerland,� says Floyd.

There is a reason why he went. �It was for a year, and Switzerland offered me the option to get out. I could have gone to the Gulf and made more money, but there would be no training there. Whereas I worked in Swiss restaurants, I discovered different styles of running a kitchen, I found a respect for cooking and for ingredients. It was fun. There was money to be made, plus benefits, great ingredients to cook with, clean air! But I had no visa to stay on and had to come back to India.� He returned and joined the Oberoi for a year, working as a sous chef in the Mughal Room and the Brasserie. �It was a great experience,� remembers Floyd. �Oberoi is different from Taj, they are more professional in the kitchen, all their chefs are trained in the Oberoi School of Hotel Management, so their systems are better.�

He wanted to migrate to Australia but went to New York in 1988 on a sponsorship extended by his brother. Floyd found New York�s restaurant scene fascinating. �I loved the way chefs were treated and was amazed by what they did in their restaurants. I gave myself three months there. The day before I had to return to India, I got a job in the Indian Cafe on 108 Street, Broadway. It was like nothing I had expected. Indian food in US was the one curry method. Not very good. It was that way till 1997. There were, of course, good places like Raga and Dawaat. But the others were mediocre. They bastardised the food. A year later, I joined Raga, where the chefs were Indian and the food was great.�

Floyd talks about Grey Kuntz, a most talented chef with an incredible palate, whom he worked for at his Les Pinasse restaurant for seven years. �It was a four star Michelin restaurant and Kuntz was a master at mixing cuisines,� he says. And he talks about Danny Meyer, president of the Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns five restaurants including Tabla. �I did a tasting for him, Loin of lamb with crust, green masala, bread sauce, lime zest, baingan bharta puree, and he asked me to join him and start Tabla.� That was the start. Today, Floyd dreams of having an exclusive 15-20 seater Indian restaurant in which the menu changes everyday!

Floyd is currently engaged in writing a book on his kind of cuisine. �It will be called 1 Spice 2 Spice and be printed by Harper Collins,� he says. His kind of food is fusion Indo-French, no cream-little butter, Goan curries in French style. He comes to India once in a while with his wife from Bhopal, Barkha, and their children Peter and Justin. The family loves to have Floyd cook for them at home. �Their favourite food is a combination of Japanese and Goan,� he says surprisingly. And when he goes back to New York from here, he takes the red par-boiled Goan rice, rock salt, sausages, Feni, palm vinegar. �In India I have to visit Bombay, Goa, Bhopal, all in three weeks. I am more tired when I return to New York from my vacation!�

Tabla
11 Madison Avenue at 25th St.
New York 10010. Tel: 212.889.0667.