Chef Satish Arora

Born into a Delhi Punjabi family in 1947. Civil servant father OM Prakash, sister Kusum and brother Chander. Education : After less than outstanding education achievements he applied to the New Delhi Catering Institute in 1963 and became the first student to gain a distinction for his Diploma. Career : Joined Mumbai's Taj Mahal Hotel as a trainee and after 10 months was sent to Germany for further training. On his return he was appointed sous chef under Executive Chef Mascarenhas who retured four years later leaving Satish as Executive Chef at the age of 26 - the youngest exec chef of a 5 star hotel in the world. He then established the in-house training systems for the expanding hotel group and in 1983 was in charge of cuisine for a summit meeting of 48 Commonwealth Heads of Government and received the thanks of both Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi. In 1985 he was appointed Chef Culinaire Taj Group and in 1990 promoted to Taj Director of Food Production. Son Puneet Arora has worked for Noon in LOndon and now works as Executive Chef and Production Manager for Bombay Halwa and daughter Kanika is a Mumbai fashion designer. A very modest man yet one who has had great influence on Indian cuisine in India and around the world.