One of India's most creative chefs who put nawabi Lucknow's Dum Pukht cuisine on the world map, and also became the first practising member of his fraternity to ever get a Padma Shri in 2016, Imitiaz Qureshi, passed away on Friday at the age of 93.
An unlettered cook who started working at the age of nine, Imitiaz, who was known for his trademark handlebar moustache and the chaste Urdu in which he would narrate his stories from the kitchen, was famous for inventing dishes whose ideas he would pick up from conversations with his patrons and fellow professionals.
His influences and inspirations extended from the empress of ghazals, Begum Akhtar, for whom he invented a dessert named Lab-e-Mahshoukh, or pista kulfi drizzled with a sour cherry sauce, to Roger Moncourt, the French chef who ruled the Continental kitchens of Delhi, from whom he picked up the secrets of the sauces that give French cuisine its distinctive personality.
Several celebrity chefs posted heartfelt messages in his memory. Ranveer Brar posted a throwback picture of him and wrote, “As a Lucknow boy with dreams of becoming a chef, the folklore of Imitiaz Qureshi is something I grew up with. It was around 1998-1999 when I was working as a trainee chef at the Taj Palace in Delhi. I remember once taking the Rs. 612/- I had earned to ITC Maurya next door and having only the Galouti Kebab at Dum Pukht.”
“The fact that I was eating @LegendOfImtiaz Qureshi’s food in an ITC hotel was life-changing for me. Not only had he pulled the dum pukht technique out of Lucknow, he had given it a personality, an unmistakable refinement. RIP chef, your legacy lives on forever,” he added.
Similarly, singer Adnan Sami mourned his demise, writing, “Sad to learn that PadmaShri Master Chef Imitiaz Qureshi has passed away. He was a culinary genius and a man full of zeal for life!! He was also the modern day father of Awadhi Cuisine & his Biryani was legendary amongst everything else he fed the world.”
The chef started out training to be a pehelwan but ended up as an apprentice to his ustads, Haji Ishtiyaq and Ghulam Rasool, and started working with a Lucknow-based catering company that was serving the Indian Army during the Chinese War in 1962.
It was then that he got to serve Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who was being hosted by the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, CB Gupta. To make the occasion special, and out of respect for CB Gupta's vegetarian sensibilities, Imitiaz, who's best known for mutton and fish dishes, invented the Turush-e-Paneer, escalopes of cottage cheese stuffed with dried plum and oranges, quilted in a tomato plum sauce.
As the fame of his culinary prowess spread, he moved up the professional totem pole, being hired by Lucknow's then go-to hotel, Clarks Avadh, and then being head-hunted by Ajit Haksar, the founder of ITC Hotels, for the group's new address in New Delhi — Maurya Sheraton. From there, he travelled the world, winning accolades wherever he went.
With the passing of Imitiaz Qureshi, India has lost a chef who not only gave Indian fine dining a new lease of life and a personality of its own but also, despite being unlettered, became its finest and most colourful spokesperson around the world.