Other
Cheetie Kumar
James Beard Award winner
- Discipline
- Other
i. Biography
In Raleigh, North Carolina, Cheetie Kumar has built a cooking style that feels at once expansive and grounded: a cuisine shaped by South Asian spices, the foodways and cultures of the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and beyond, and by ingredients informed by local agriculture. Raised in India and the Bronx, Kumar brings together overlapping geographies that do not sit neatly apart on the plate. Instead, they meet in a menu language that is bright, layered, and deeply attentive to place. The result is the work of a Southerner whose cooking blends the flavors of South Asia and the surrounding regions with the rhythms of local agriculture, turning familiarity and distance into a single, vivid conversation.
The Climb
Cheetie Kumar was self-taught, a beginning that suggests resourcefulness, instinct, and the kind of learning that happens through repetition, taste, and the steady accumulation of experience. That trajectory led to Garland in Raleigh, North Carolina, where Kumar worked as chef-owner and remained until 2022. At Garland, the culinary voice that would come to define Kumar’s work could be felt taking shape: a blend of spice, structure, and a wide cultural imagination, always tethered to the city and region that held the restaurant. Today, Cheetie is chef and owner of Ajja, carrying that same sensibility forward into a new setting while keeping the through-lines clear.
Today
Today, Kumar is chef and owner of Ajja in Raleigh, North Carolina. The work there carries forward the same wide culinary vocabulary, but with a sharper sense of authorship and place, as if the threads that have long run through Kumar’s cooking have been gathered with even greater precision. India- and Bronx-raised, they bring those overlapping geographies into a room where South Asian flavor, Southern sensibility, and the pull of other regional traditions meet in the same kitchen conversation. Nothing feels ornamental; the cooking reads as personal, layered, and deliberate, with each dish part of a larger story about identity, memory, and the possibilities of regional cooking.
Signature
Cheetie’s signature dishes include Lamb Biryani, Spiced Carrots with Whipped Feta, summer squash casserole, and spiced carrot and Whipped Feta dip. Taken together, they hint at the range of Kumar’s kitchen: the warming complexity of biryani, the brightness and creaminess of Spiced Carrots with Whipped Feta, and the comfort of summer squash casserole, all of it shaped by a sensibility that is generous without being heavy-handed. Even in a short list, the contours of the cooking are clear—spice used with confidence, vegetables treated with respect, and familiar forms reimagined through Kumar’s particular lens.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Cheetie
What recognition has Cheetie Kumar received?
James Beard Foundation Award nominations, Best Chef: Southeast.
