i. Biography
Mayank Istwal works as Executive Chef at Musaafer in Houston, United States, with a practice built across hotel kitchens, a cruise-line galley, private production catering, and food-history research. The throughline is spice handled as structure rather than garnish: a tool for balance, sequence, memory, and cultural meaning. “I am from Dehradun,India and coming from the Caterer’s family i always had that energy and cooking, interacting with ingredients and adapting the versatile cooking techniques.” Mayank has said.
The Ascent
Kitchen discipline formed early at Devigarh Hotel in Udaipur, India, where Mayank Istwal worked first as Kitchen Management Trainee. That kind of post teaches the base mechanics of the trade: timing, repetition, heat control, station order, and respect for hierarchy. The later move to Kitchen Executive at Devigarh Hotel in Udaipur, India, kept the work close to fundamentals while extending his contact with the regional textures and traditions that continue to inform his cooking. Service under movement carries its own standards. As chef working with Luke Mangan at Salt Grill aboard the P&O cruise line, Istwal worked in a galley where consistency has to hold despite changing conditions and distance from land. The later Junior Sous Chef role at The LaLit in Udaipur, India, returned him to hotel cooking, where refinement depends less on display than on repeatable execution. Private production cooking requires a different register of hospitality. At The LaLit in Udaipur, India, Istwal became exclusive chef to the cast of The Exotic Marigold Hotel while filming on the property, a role built around discretion, precision, adaptability, and the ability to serve outside the normal cadence of restaurant service. Regional hotel kitchens added further range. The Sous Chef post at The Taj Fort Aguada in Goa, India, placed Istwal in another hospitality context, followed by Executive Sous Chef at LaLit Ashok in Bangalore, India. Across these posts, the work accumulated through large-kitchen discipline, hotel consistency, and the ongoing problem of carrying heritage into a contemporary plate. Today, Mayank is Executive Chef of Musaafer.
The Practice Today
The kitchen at Musaafer in Houston, United States, is led by Istwal as Executive Chef, with technique, research, and sensory judgment brought into the same workflow. His specialties include inventing Ayurvedic spice blends and working as a food historian, two practices that meet naturally in mise en place: spice as material, history as method. Ayurvedic spice blending asks for layered thinking. Aroma, warmth, balance, rhythm, and change under heat all matter, as does the movement from raw to toasted, whole to ground, background support to central structure. Food-history work asks a parallel set of questions: what a dish carries from geography, ritual, migration, memory, and repeated use in domestic and professional kitchens. At Musaafer, that research is kept in the service of cooking. The work is rooted rather than academic, using food history and spice practice as working tools. Istwal’s path has moved through Udaipur, Goa, Bangalore, a P&O cruise line kitchen, and now Houston, United States; the cooking reflects that range through ingredient choice, historical attention, and spice used as both technical instrument and cultural language.
Signature
Food history is the stated craft focus in Istwal’s work as a chef and food historian. The value of that focus is practical: it asks why a preparation tastes the way it does, where its logic comes from, and how tradition can remain legible inside a contemporary kitchen. The cooking is grounded in inquiry, but it still has to answer to appetite, spice, familiarity, and nuance carried through older forms.
Accolades
Recognition for Istwal includes NCHMCT New Delhi chef competition and Goan Chef Challenge.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Mayank
What does Mayank Istwal currently do?
Mayank Istwal is Executive Chef.
Where did Mayank Istwal work before?
Earlier in their career, Mayank Istwal worked at Devigarh Hotel, Devigarh Hotel, and Salt Grill aboard the P&O cruise line.
What recognition has Mayank Istwal received?
NCHMCT New Delhi chef competition.
