Chef

Nisha Katona

Discipline: Chef
Based in: Liverpool, United Kingdom
Venue: Mowgli Water Street · Restaurant

i. Biography

British and born in 1971, Nisha Katona sits between two food cultures by habit rather than theory: she has said, “I was born in this country, but spent every holiday in India.” That double exposure shows up in the way her work moves between law, public service, and restaurants, with food treated as something structured, social, and rooted in memory.

The Path

Training at Scarisbrick Hall School sits at the start of a career that later moved through legal practice, civic appointment, and hospitality. As barrister at Chavasse Court Chambers in Liverpool and child protection barrister at Northern Circuit, Katona worked in roles that require procedure, judgement, and attention to what needs protecting. The public-facing remit widened when she became trustee at National Museums Liverpool from 2008, and ambassador for diversity in Public Appointments at Cabinet Office from 2009, placing her inside institutions where representation and culture are managed in practical terms. By 2021, becoming member at Hospitality Council marked how fully food had entered the centre of her professional life. In 2014, she founded Mowgli Street Food restaurants, bringing a defined culinary idea into public view and building a restaurant format around it. Today, Katona is also chair of Mowgli Trust, and since 2022 she has served as chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, keeping her work tied to Liverpool through civic as well as commercial institutions.

The Work Today

At the Water Street restaurant in Liverpool, the role of chef/owner keeps Katona close to the room, not just the brand. Across the wider restaurant group, she is CEO, executive chef, and development chef, a set of titles that places menu-making, business direction, and growth under the same hand. The founder remains part of the operating structure, rather than separate from it.

Career - founder — Mowgli Street Food restaurants, United Kingdom (2014–present) - chair — Mowgli Trust - chancellor — Liverpool John Moores University (2022–present) - barrister — Chavasse Court Chambers, Liverpool - child protection barrister — Northern Circuit - trustee — National Museums Liverpool (from 2008) - Ambassador for Diversity in Public Appointments — Cabinet Office (from 2009) - member — Hospitality Council (from 2021) Education: Scarisbrick Hall School

Signature

Nisha's signature dishes include chat bombs, The Spice Tree, The Mowgli Cook Book, Pimp My Rice, and Meat Free Mowgli. Together they map a style that can move from playful to practical, from printed form to plant-forward food, without losing a clear point of view.

In Their Words “At Mowgli, my chain of restaurants, we stand on the shoulders of the curry-house culture.” The line places the work within a known restaurant lineage. It frames Mowgli not as a break from precedent, but as something built with that culture in view. “If any friends ever came home, I’d beg my mother not to spice the lamb chops.” The memory is domestic, precise, and sensory. It points to a household where seasoning was already a subject of negotiation, and where taste was part of everyday life long before it became a professional language.