Chet Sharma never intended to become a chef. Although he grew up working in kitchens, including in London’s Michelin-starred Benares and Locanda Locatelli, Sharma had his sights on science. He attended Oxford, where he earned a PhD in physics, but quickly realized that his love of food would yield a better career path. He earned experience in high-end restaurants like Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, The Ledbury and acclaimed San Sebastian eatery Mugaritz before eventually opening his own spot, Bibi, in 2021.

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The restaurant, located in Mayfair, reimagines Indian cuisine, drawing on some of Sharma’s childhood favorites as well as more contemporary applications of spices and ingredients from the Indian subcontinent. It’s best experienced as the tasting menu, although à la carte options are available at lunch. Both the dishes and the room itself emphasize the small details, with a friendly sense of service that never feels too overwhelming (the restaurant also notably plays hip-hop over the speakers). It all comes back to Sharma’s upbringing in a Punjabi household, where food and hospitality was prioritized.

“A really nice thing about our culture is that we love to feed people,” he tells Observer, speaking on Bibi’s terrace. “There’s never any imposition. No one minds. Obviously things are different now, but our front door, when we were growing up, was not locked. It was normal for us to have 30 people in the house.”

Over the past two years, Bibi has earned a solid reputation in London, landing at No. 35 on England’s National Restaurant Awards list in 2024. It’s become an important addition to the Indian food scene as well, particularly as the U.K tends to have more casual curry houses than it does Indian fine dining.

“We’ve got a long history of Indian food here because we have a long history with India in the U.K.,” Sharma says. “We have a solid base. And we can only do what we do because of all those restaurants before us. I definitely see it as an evolution of the cuisine, but you can only do it when that base is there.”

Observer spoke with Sharma about shifting from science to food, honoring his late grandmothers and how he defines his success as a........

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