Padma Lakshmi wears Dress Donna Karan. Love Unlimited Rings and Bracelet in 18k Yellow Gold Cartier. Shoes Alevi Milano.
Padma Lakshmi is pure aura. You can feel it from across the room. It radiates through you TV set, oozes from her TikToks, and pulses through her book. In person, it’s as bright as the sun. On a Friday afternoon, still glammed up from her photo shoot, we sat down and drank champagne in Indochine, one of her favorite restaurants in the city she’s called home for most of her life. We ate baby back ribs and spring rolls with our hands. We talked about the future–her latest cookbook, Padma’s All American, and the next chapter in her television career, America’s Culinary Cup. We talked about the past, we talked hot dogs, we talked shit. No French food, no rare steaks. She is booked, busy, and thriving. She likes her food hot. No sharing. She’s a boss, and she eats in bed–only Italian linens, no crumbs, no stains. She knows exactly who she is.
———
FRIDAY 5:30 PM AUG. 29, 2025 NYC
J LEE: Cheers. Let’s do this.
PADMA LAKSHMI: Cheers.
LEE: I’m very excited.
LAKSHMI: The shoot was really beautiful.
LEE: It’s so hilarious and intense to meet you dressed in a crazy white angel gown.
LAKSHMI: I know. Kicking around Lafayette with my makeup like this.
LEE: I would love for you to order.
LAKSHMI: We should get the ribs, the spring rolls, the vegetable stew, the sea bass. What do you want? Just kidding.
LEE: [Laughs] That sounds great.
SPEAKER 3: Any allergies?
LAKSHMI: None. Just to boring people. Thank you.
LEE: I always prefer for one person to order. I hate the discussion. I want the order to have a point of view, even if I don’t agree with all of it.
LAKSHMI: It’s funny you say that, because I feel the same way, and most of the time when I go out, people make me order.
LEE: I’m deferring to you this time, but usually I’m the orderer. Do you eat out a lot in New York?
Coat Valentino. Sweater Hermés. Pants Brunello Cucinelli. Headscarf Gucci. Sunglasses Fabulous Fanny’s. Earrings, Bracelet, and Rings Patricia Von Musulin. Tights Wolford. Shoes Jimmy Choo.
LAKSHMI: Not as much as people think, because I’m a creature of habit. I grew up on the Upper East Side but I’ve been a downtown girl since the ’90s, and I don’t like going above 14th Street. Once in a while I will, if there’s a new restaurant and somebody said it was great, but I have a Bermuda Triangle of preferences—places I know I’m going to get good food and where the atmosphere is great. And contrary to a lot of food people, I do go to places for the ambiance as well as the food, because if the ambiance isn’t good, then there’s no point in making a night of it. The truth is I just want to be comfortable. I just can’t with these places that have stumps for chairs.
LEE: They’re the worst
LAKSHMI: I love to go out and discover things, but that’s a different part of my brain. Sometimes I want to go out to eat just to turn my brain off. This is a place that I love. I had my 40th birthday here. We had a marching band and can-can girls, and we did it up like a 1920s Parisian opium den. My birthday’s always right at the end of summer—it’s on Monday.
LEE: This coming Monday?
LAKSHMI: Yeah.
LEE: Happy birthday!
LAKSHMI: Thank you. I love this place. I also love La Mercerie.
LEE: I went there the other day. I don’t eat at that kind of restaurant normally, but I enjoyed it.
LAKSHMI: I hate to say this, but I’m not a huge fan of French food.
LEE: Honestly, me neither.
LAKSHMI: There are four places I would eat French food in the city.
LEE: Will you name them?
LAKSHMI: La Mercerie, Daniel, Jean-Georges, and Eric Ripert [Le Bernardin].
LEE: You mentioned you’re a big bed person. You love to read in bed, you love to eat in bed.
LAKSHMI: Yeah. I’ll do Zoom after Zoom in bed. I don’t care.
LEE: Bed is a great place.
LAKSHMI: Yeah. I don’t give a shit. Now that I’m a boss, no one can say anything to me. I love to eat in bed. I’m very organized. I lay out a towel so I don’t spill, because turmeric does not come out of a Frette sheet—or pomegranate.
Dress and Belt Silvia Tcherassi. Earrings Bisjoux. Cuff, Bangle, and Rings Patricia Von Musulin. Bracelet Misho.
LEE: Wow.
LAKSHMI: I like to eat at home, and for the longest time, I was testing all these recipes from immigrant communities, so I didn’t have the bandwidth to then eat on top of it. I feel bad because sometimes I want to eat really light, because I’ve spent the day testing recipes, so I’m really just going out to socialize. Then the kitchen will send more things than I’ve ordered, and I can’t possibly eat them. I hate wasting food.
LEE: It must happen to you all the time.
LAKSHMI: It’s like your mom forcing you to eat your vegetables.
LEE: It’s torture.
LAKSHMI: It’s a privilege, but I’m not a heavy eater. So, the food that I eat on my own time is very simple. There’s a lot of rice and vegetables, chicken and fish, lots of spicy food, noodles. I haven’t ordered a steak in 30 years. I’ll eat one for work, but just to judge it.
LEE: There’s nothing radical that a steak is going to teach you.
LAKSHMI: It’s the quality of the meat, first and foremost, and then the quiescent. If somebody hasn’t let it rest, they haven’t cooked it properly. And I’m sorry, but I’m Asian. I like my meat cooked a little more.
LEE: I get a lot of flack for being a medium guy, but I just want it to be cooked.
LAKSHMI: For me, it comes from being a vegetarian.
LEE: How long were you a vegetarian?
LAKSHMI: Until I was 16, for religious reasons. Brahmin-Hindu family, so we didn’t eat any meat. In fact, when the doctor finally told my family that my aunt had to have some protein, they bought new plates for the eggs.
LEE: Oh, wow. Do you remember the first time you had meat?
LAKSHMI: It was literally pepperoni on a pizza.
LEE: That’s a classic breaking-veg meal. It’s always, like, a hot dog.
LAKSHMI: Exactly. And when I was little, my mom and I used to get hot dogs and say we wanted them with everything, except the meat.
LEE: It’s basically the most abstract form of meat.
LAKSHMI: My daughter will not eat a hot dog anymore. I was eating New York hot dogs when I was pregnant, so I don’t know why. I remember really craving mustard and being huge at Bergdorf ’s doing a trunk show or something, and literally walking across the park, all this jewelry on, dressed in all black and boots. I got two hot dogs, took my sweater off, put it on the grass, and just sat down. I ate those hot dogs so fast. I just wanted peace and hot dogs, and I had it in Central Park. But I’m a New York kid. I came here from India when I was 4, so you can’t scare me with New York Street food. The best halal truck is on my corner. The guy yells at me every time I go to the gym. I’m like, “You’re the reason I’m going to the gym.”
LEE: I love the videos you do with Krishna [Lakshmi’s daughter]. I was laughing out loud at her calling you a white soccer mom.
LAKSHMI: [Laughs] I know. That was the biggest insult she could think to hurl at me.
LEE: It was a good one.
SPEAKER 3: We’re sending you some extra hot sauces.
LAKSHMI: I always ask for a lot of hot sauce. I want one for myself.
LEE: Does she love food like you?
LAKSHMI: No. She’s over it because she’s been forced to eat a lot of leftover recipe testing. She doesn’t want to eat Amazonian tamales anymore. [Laughs] Actually, that’s her favorite recipe from the book. They’re Peruvian tamales with cassava. They’re not hard to make, just laborious, because you’ve got to go get the banana leaves and the corn husks, and then do all the things. But she loves those.
LEE: I’m always nervous about my utensil etiquette.
LAKSHMI: Don’t worry, I’m not going to judge you. I’m not even that good with chopsticks.
LEE: I’m bad at being Cantonese.
LAKSHMI: Oh, you’re probably great.
LEE: No, I’m terrible. My grandparents want to disown me. Do you still like living in New York?
LAKSHMI: I love living in New York. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I’m trying not to be chased out of America by my own indignant opinion. But on the other hand, America is all of ours, which is why I put a picture of the American flag with me in front of it on the cover of my book.
LEE: Yeah. The whole show and book are obviously critical of everything that’s going on in America, but they’re also a celebration of America as a melting pot. It’s very clear that you love it. I feel the same way.
LAKSHMI: And by the way, it makes America so much more interesting. What are the best restaurants? International ones. Other than the Ralph Lauren one.
LEE: You like the Polo Bar?
Coat and Shoes Prada. Sunglasses Fabulous Fanny’s. Earrings and Rings Patricia Von Musulin. Bag Padma’s Own. Scarf (worn on bag) Hermés. Tights Wolford.
LAKSHMI: I’ve been once on my own, and then I went once for the premiere of The Studio. It was better that time, because it was filled with people I was interested in. The popovers are amazing. The restaurant is good in winter, because it’s really cozy, and there are no windows.
LEE: I was googling you right before I came, and the first thing that comes up is, “How does Padma stay so skinny?” It’s crazy.
LAKSHMI: I know. It’s so annoying. It’s hard. I mean, I go to the gym.
LEE: It’s crazy that you have to eat for a living.
LAKSHMI: That’s not the crazy part. The crazy part is I have to eat for a living and still look a certain way. Women that are on television or in fashion and media have different standards that they’re judged by compared to men.
LEE: Of course, it’s awful. Look at all the male celebrity chefs. No one is like, “How does Mario Batali stay so skinny?” But I was wondering, how sick are you of talking about Top Chef?
LAKSHMI: Not at all. My kid grew up on the set of that show.
LEE: How long were you on it?
LAKSHMI: Seventeen years. I miss some of the people I worked with, even the ones who made it really hard for me. I thank them. They made me better at my job.
LEE: When you first started, it must’ve been so hard. One, as an outsider, not a chef. Two, as a brown woman, to just come in and be an authority on food. I’m trying to be some kind of authority on food, as a non-white person, and it’s hard to trust our palates in a field that’s still dominated by white guys making Thai food.
LAKSHMI: Even if they make it well. [Laughs] It was also really hard because I wasn’t a chef, and I would get these eye rolls at Judges’ Table from white male chefs.
LEE: You shouldn’t have to be a chef. Food is for everyone.
LAKSHMI: Also, I’m not trying to be a chef. You know what my opinion is? My opinion is of the guy who’s paying the check. Okay? I’m the consumer. I’m the person that you’re supposed to be catering to.
LEE: Exactly. To listen to music, you don’t have to be a jazz pianist.
LAKSHMI: You know when it’s good, you know when it’s bad. What I bring to my job, hopefully, is a curiosity and an articulacy about what the experience of eating any given dish is. That’s what is required of me in my job, as well as soliciting other expert opinions. And sometimes in order to do your job well, you have to sublimate your personality as well. A lot of that happened on Top Chef.
LEE: Do you feel like it was hard to just be yourself after having to sublimate your personality in that way professionally?
LAKSHMI: In private?
LEE: Yeah.
LAKSHMI: It was harder earlier in my career. Now, I don’t care that much. I was very, very mindful of being responsible for all those 150 people that worked on Top Chef. And I wanted the show to succeed, to do everything I could to help make it what it is. And then when I finally got the power at the ripe old age of 50 to create my own show, now I can show who I really am. I don’t watch any reality TV.
LEE: I was going to ask.
LAKSHMI: I’m very boring. There’s two settings: the Padma who’s in bed reading, or the Padma who is out till 4 a.m.
LEE: I want to see this Padma that’s out till 4 a.m.
LAKSHMI: There’s no middle setting. Last night my girlfriend Punkie came over and we were supposed to go to dinner. I had literally fittings from 4 p.m. till 1 a.m., so she came for the tail end of the fitting, and then we just ordered Thai food. I finished at 12:30, and she’s like, “Let’s go to the strip club.” I’m like, “I really want to, because I haven’t been to a strip club in years, and it’d be fun to go with Punkie Johnson to the strip club.” But I knew I had the shoot today.
LEE: Oh, sorry.
LAKSHMI: I’m not as young as I used to be, and I wanted to look fresh for you guys, and for me. So, I didn’t go. But 20 years ago, I probably would’ve.
LEE: It’s hard when you’re so busy.
LAKSHMI: I am very busy. But listen, when you finally get the success you want, nobody tells you that you don’t have any time to enjoy it.
LEE: What’s your schedule like?
LAKSHMI: I’m resting and reading, going to the gym, having a facial and all that kind of stuff this weekend. On Monday’s it’s my birthday, so I have my cousins coming over. Next week I have interviews and meetings, because I created this show for CBS.
LEE: Wait, you have a new show on CBS?
LAKSHMI: Yeah.
LEE: I kept thinking you were saying CVS.
LAKSHMI: No, dude.
LEE: CBS.
LAKSHMI: I’ve been building this show since the spring, and I have conversations about everything from the height of the pepper mills on set, to how high the windows are, to the gold piping on the chef coats. If you go to my office right now, on my desk, there’s a page with four different gold piping samples.
LEE: And you like making all of these decisions?
LAKSHMI: Yes, because I’m an OCD bitch.
LEE: [Laughs]
LAKSHMI: Inside me is an Indian female Stanley Kubrick, dying to get out. I don’t finish filming until mid-October, then I rest for 10 days and spend time with my kid even though she doesn’t want to spend time with me. Then on the 26th, I start the press for the book. I’m doing 14 different events in 12 different cities all of November, and then for Thanksgiving, I’ve been invited to lecture at Oxford University.
LEE: Wow.
LAKSHMI: And the only time I can do it is over Thanksgiving. My daughter is like, “What?” But she gets to go to the Harry Potter dining hall. She’s also a drama student, so I’m going to take her to Stratford-upon-Avon. Then I come back in December and I do a second wave of book push. And then in January, I have another project that I’m doing that I won’t talk about because I don’t want to jinx it.
LEE: Wait, so what is this new show?
LAKSHMI: Oh, my god. It’s this giant show I’m doing. There are like 350 people working on it.
LEE: That’s crazy.
LAKSHMI: It’s called America’s Culinary Cup. We’re giving away a million dollars. It’s like the Bocuse d’Or of America.
Dress Chloé. Bra and Underwear Fleur Du Mal. Earrings, Bracelets, and Rings Patricia Von Musulin. Cuffs Juju Vera. Green Ring Selim Mouzannar. Shoes Valentino.
LEE: Amazing.
LAKSHMI: A million dollars gets a lot of chefs out of the woodwork.
LEE: Is it all American chefs? Are they doing all kinds of cuisine?
LAKSHMI: They’re doing all types of cuisines, but it’s a lot different from Top Chef. It’s not formatted.
LEE: What does that mean?
LAKSHMI: That means there’s no fucking format. [Laughs]
LEE: Would you ever be on a food competition show?
LAKSHMI: I’m hyper-competitive, but no. I mean, it’s not my bag. I don’t cook to impress.
LEE: Yeah, you cook to eat and feed.
LAKSHMI: I cook to make people happy and comforted. My job is to tell you how to make something when I’m not standing in the room with you. I never wanted to be a chef. I don’t sell food for a living. What I sell is knowledge on how to cook for your family and eat interesting food.
J LEE: Would you describe yourself as a critic?
LAKSHMI: I’m a writer. I was just lucky to get on TV. I studied theater.
LEE: Really?
LAKSHMI: Uh-huh. I mean, I was an actor before I wrote cookbooks. Nobody was hiring brown women to be lead in the ’90s. Food was a path I fell into, but because I fell into it, I was always a little insecure because I didn’t go to culinary school. I’ve never worked a line in the back of the restaurant. But I worked as a waitress since I was 15.
LEE: Here in New York?
LAKSHMI: No, in L.A. My mom moved to L.A. when I was a teenager, so my teen years were in L.A.
LEE: What kind of restaurant were you working at when you were 15?
LAKSHMI: An Italian pizzeria run by Greek people. It had this neon volcano exploding over the door. It’s still there.
LEE: I feel like being a chef makes you think about food in a different way. You’re thinking about the mechanics of it. I’m thinking about how it tastes.
LAKSHMI: It would take the joy out of it. I have great respect for chefs like Eric Ripert or Wylie Dufresne. They’re my friends, I want to hang out with them. But I do not envy them.
LEE: Something you did that always meant so much to me was the way you validated a non-European palate.
LAKSHMI: Thank you.
LEE: It means the world to non-white kids, to show them that their taste is valid too. That food can be spiced or salty, and boisterous.
LAKSHMI: I mean, the truth is more people eat like us than eat like them. And they not like us.
Dress, Earrings and Belt Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello.
———
Hair: Jeanie Syfu using Oribe at Muse Creatives NYC.
Makeup: William Scott using Mac Cosmetics at The Wall Group.
Nails: Leanne Woodley using Dior Vernis and She Nails Hydration at See Management.
Prop Stylist: Ruby Hartman.
Photography Assistant: Bijan Small.
Fashion Assistant: Felicia Disalvo and Lalo Ambris.
Post-Production: Blythe Cross.
Location: Indochine.
Special Thanks: Nicole Martinez and Leo Cando.
