Turbaned trailblazer

Anandita Gupta

As a kid, the only thing that brought immense joy to this shy, little sardar boy was watching his neighbourhood pav bhaji wala rustling up sizzling bhaji on a giant tawa with his girdle. Every night, this chubby boy would get sandwiched between his dad and sister on his rickety bike and go to Mumbai’s roadside eateries. This seven-year-old foodie would watch street-food vendors for hours without blinking, wanting to recreate their magic at his home. When other kids were buying toys, he pestered his parents to buy him knifes, tawas and karahis used by street-food vendors.

Don’t kill ‘stupid’ ideas

Among the only three boys who took home science in his entire class, Sanjyot was ridiculed immensely, “Bawarchi banega kya?” laughed his schoolmates. When he later decided to make food content on Facebook, even people from the culinary community snubbed him, “Don’t mind, but this will not work. It’s a really stupid idea,” told him his mentor. “I was shattered into a million pieces. But then something in me told me to carry on. How could I, after all, leave the only thing I was so good at? As I walked out of that room, I told myself that I had to prove myself! So, I never killed my stupid idea. If I had killed my stupid idea, I would not have been here,” smiles Sanjyot.

At 12, he cooked his first pav bhaji, and the brilliant taste got his entire family smiling happily. It was at this moment that this little boy discovered his super-power. He knew the only thing that would make him stand out and shine was his cooking!

Fast forward to 2024, and this shy kid is now shining as the brightest star on the Indian culinary scene. A super-fit, new-age celebrity chef (with 15 million plus followers on social media); Sanjyot Keer is the only Indian (after Chef Vikas Khanna) to have walked the red carpet at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, 2024. “With my unique way of visual storytelling, my food videos feel like cinema. Hence, for me, being at Cannes was celebrating the Indian culinary art on an international stage. Moreover, as this festival is a melting pot of different cultures, representing my Punjabi roots as a turbaned Sikh here brought me immense pride,” smiles the celebrity chef.

The young chef was featured in Forbes India’s Tycoons of Tomorrow in 2018 and declared GQ’s Most Influential Young Indian 2024. He was recently seen cooking misal pav with the global music sensation Ed Sheeran.

Riding the tide

Immediately after completing his graduation in International Hospitality and Tourism Management, Keer joined the production team of MasterChef India, Season 4. After this, he wanted to study culinary science at London’s Le Cordon Blue Culinary School. But just then, his family faced a financial crisis. So, he joined his dad’s electrical business, giving up cooking, “Staying away from food with machinery all around me was a nightmare. After two years of working in my dad’s factory, I told him that I was very unhappy not cooking,” reveals the chef, who decided to take short weekend breaks from the factory and cook. For the next six months, Sanjyot took weekends off from his dad’s factory and started creating content, “I registered YFL (his immensely popular platform called Your Food Lab) and started making food content,” reveals the chef, who began by making videos on the dining table of his living room, using jugaadu DIY house ceiling lights, rented cameras and lens.

Going viral

Sanjyot was so scared of going unnoticed on social media that he shot 100-odd videos before uploading a single one! He released the first video on April 25, 2016, and his third video also went viral. “When I uploaded my first video, I tagged over 50 people, praying they won’t get annoyed and block me instead. But I woke up to 10K views on my very first video the next day a million views on my third video,” recalls the star chef.

Master collaborator

Producing short and visually stunning Indian food videos, Sanjyot’s YFL became the Mecca for aspiring chefs and homemakers, “Back in 2016, food videos were 30 minutes long and according to how food content was seen on TV. I brought this revolution, where food content could be watched on mobile phones,” reveals Sanjyot, who was the first Indian chef-content creator to produce stunningly shot, one-minute recipe videos. With the attention spans of people really decreasing, this format really worked. There has been no looking back since then.

Sanjyot recently produced an award-winning short film Before We Die, which brings to light the dire water crisis in the interiors of Maharashtra. The visionary chef is now making a brand-new YouTube web series, writing his first book and launching a D2C cookware brand, besides gearing up for his OTT debut!