Graffiti’s specialty

Using unusual ingredients within the 60 minutes granted to him in each episode of "The Next Iron Chef” aired by Food Network, Jehangir Mehta of New York was able to impress the judges for eight episodes but lost in the finals on November 22, 2009 to Chica­go’s Jose Garces. "Technique trumps creativity,” reported the Los Angeles Times.

According to a report by India-West’s Lisa Tsering, "Working with ingredients that were meant to represent ‘America’s melting pot’ — ribs and racks of buffalo, pork and beef — Mehta created a pork-bacon burger with chipotle mayonnaise and fries; smothered shrimp dumpling with shredded braised buffalo rib on top; buffalo steak with chocolate sauce; and Indian style pork spare ribs with yogurt sauce. But Garces’ play-it-safe decision to prepare buffalo tartare/kobe sirloin; a German pork loin with mustard; baby back ribs with barbecue sauce; and pizza with beef ribs and horseradish swayed the judges.”

Jehangir Mehta: masterly blend

The high point of the entire "Iron Chef” experience, according to runner-up Mehta, was at Kitchen Stadium in Japan, making Yuzu Soy Clams with sesame seeds. "I think I excelled and people said the clam dish was the best dish that they’d ever eaten in the whole contest,” Mehta was quoted in India-West, November 27, 2009. His most challenging moment came when he was required to use tamarind in both sweet and savory Mexican dishes! Although he won that round, Bombay-born Mehta lost the Indian cooking round to Garces, a Mexican American. Explained Mehta, "I’m not traditionally trained as an Indian chef but I use a lot of Indian spices and herbs… Today if you tell me to make a traditional Indian dish, it won’t turn out exactly that way.”

"It’s no surprise that since Mehta’s appearance on ‘The Next Iron Chef’ it’s been nearly impossible for anyone to get a reservation at Graffiti,” stated India-West. Executive chef and owner of Graffiti restaurant that he launched in 2007, within the first two years Mehta has succeeded in winning over gourmets and gourmands. It won the Timeout: Best Pastry Chef run restaurant award in 2008. As noted on the website timeout.com, "It’s a wonder the chef can create anything in the teensy sliver of a kitchen at Graffiti…Against the odds, Mehta creates masterful, Indian-inflected dishes such as delicate pickled-ginger scallops and tender, cinnamon-spiked pork — all assembled with the detail-oriented aesthetic you’d expect from a former pastry chef. If you’re too claustrophobic to squeeze yourself into this four-table space, then stay away — there’ll be more room for us.”

"Success in this industry is like walking on quick sand, especially in New York, where there are new restaurants opening all the time and people have very short memories,” noted 38-year-old Mehta in response to Parsiana’s queries, adding, "In the restaurant you have just one opportunity to get things right. There is no second chance so if you slip up, you lose a customer for life… Success is transitional. Hence you have to work hard all the time.”

A brief write-up in Vogue February 2009 had commented, "The restaurant’s title implies haphazard self-expression, but the boldly flavored dishes are nearly all very well thought out and yummy… All the wines cost $ 25 a bottle (or $ 8 a glass)… Smaller plates cost $ 12, meatier main courses $ 15. At those prices, Mehta must be getting a federal subsidy.”

Commenting on the "sensational meal” enjoyed in a "cramped East Village room that seated 18 snugly, the chairs were hard, the music loud and the décor a jumble of crystal chandeliers, old scales and golden Buddhas,” a write-up in the New York Daily of April 25, 2008 referred to the "outstanding food: sophisticated, beautifully made with a masterly blend of flavors… Granted, you have to be brave to order the anchovy seaweed tamarind pizza. It sounds awful, but it was delicious…”

Chef Jehangir Mehta’s boldly flavored dishes

"The food at Graffiti definitely has Persian/Indian influence,” reveals Mehta who left Bombay in 1994. "I serve a braised pork bun with apricot chutney which is inspired by our Parsi jardaloo-ma-gosh (mutton cooked with apricots),” he mentions. Left with little time to socialize with community members in New York, Mehta refers to his talk at a meet organized by the World Zarathushti Chamber of Commerce. Following "The Next Iron Chef” reality show "I have a lot more Zoroastrian patrons than I did before,” he acknowledges. "A good many of them know my parents and my uncles and aunts and that is always a pleasant surprise.”

Prior to venturing out on his own, Mehta had worked for L’Absinthe, Typhoon Brewery, Mercer Kitchen, Union Pacific, Virot, Compass and Aix, learning from well established chefs like James Chew, Jean Georges Vongerichten, Rocco di Spirito, Didier Virot. Before graduating from The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, Mehta had attended the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition in Bombay after completing his schooling from St Xavier’s Academy. Son of Petras, a chartered accountant, who was financial controller and now consultant at J. M. Baxi, and Kolly Mehta, a librarian who worked at the United States Information Services and The Alexandra Girls English Institution, Jehangir is known to have evinced an interest in the goings-on of the kitchen since his boyhood. Married to Hinata Jambuserwala who holds a bachelor of technology degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology and is the vice president of Global Digital Marketing at Diageo (the largest liquor company in the world), the two are currently busy raising their 11-month-old twins Xaera and Xerxes. "We are a very close-knit family and I am in constant touch with not only my parents but also with my aunts, uncles and cousins in Bombay. Besides, I have a lot of childhood friends in Bombay whom I am still very close to,” declares Mehta, happy that "My parents brought me up to believe in Ahura Mazda and …the principles of good thoughts, words and deeds are what I truly believe in.”

The enterprising chef is the author of the 2008 HarperCollins cookbook Mantra: The Rules of Indulgence, offers at his restaurant a cooking class for children in the four to 14 age group to build interest in diverse foods, hosts exclusive in-home dinner parties and runs an event planning company, as notes his website.