From Kodai Hills to London Kitchens

Kodai International School was never just a school for Pratap Chahal. It was the place where a way of thinking — about people, work, and the wider world — quietly took shape.

The decision to attend KIS came through a long family connection. A close family friend, Dr Paul Love, who had taught Pratap’s parents during their university years in Punjab and later served on the KIS Board of Management, introduced the school to his family. Pratap himself was already drawn to the idea of boarding school. A visit to Kodai in 1986 — the hills, the air, the pace of life — settled the matter.

What followed were eight years that remain some of the happiest of his childhood.

KIS left its mark less through singular moments than through daily life. Teachers encouraged curiosity and independence. Living closely with people from different cultures, faiths, and backgrounds made respect a practice rather than a principle. Sports, theatre, music, and service were not extras; they were part of how students learned to engage with the world. Those habits have stayed with him.

Food sits at the centre of Pratap’s memories.

Meals were shared, anticipated, and discussed. Sunday lunches were a weekly anchor — roast or tandoori chicken, ice cream, gulab jamuns — familiar and celebratory. Dorm treats, Field Day lunches on Bendy, and small rituals around eating gave structure to time. Food was never just fuel; it was social glue.

Certain places beyond campus became just as important. Fay’s café — and in particular Fay’s rhubarb crumble — left a lasting impression. The balance, depth, and care in something so simple stayed with him. Baba’s French Fries was another constant: hot, spiced fries eaten in the cold mist, usually in groups, turning a snack into an event. What mattered was not only the taste, but the context — the place, the weather, and the people.

Dorm life revolved around food as a way of connecting. Pratap learned about kimchi and gochujang from his Korean roommate, Lee — flavours that quietly lodged themselves in memory. Dorm kitchens became spaces of experimentation, stocked with instant noodles from around the world. By his junior year, he was already known for baking and flavour combinations, though he gave little thought to what that might lead to.

KIS’s international environment made food an everyday education. Friends shared dishes from Korean, German, Japanese, Sri Lankan, Tibetan, Nepalese, Southeast Asian, Bangladeshi, North American, and many Indian traditions. Long before he entered a professional kitchen, Pratap had absorbed the idea that cuisine carries history, geography, and identity — and that it is best understood through people rather than recipes.

Becoming a chef was not an early ambition. After completing his BA (Hons) in English at St Stephen’s College, Pratap found himself uncertain about what came next. It was his father who posed the question — almost casually — Did you want to be a chef? Until then, it had not felt like a viable option. Once asked, it became difficult to ignore.

Professional kitchens were a sharp departure from Kodai. Training at Claridge’s under Gordon Ramsay and working in Michelin-starred restaurants meant long hours — often exceeding 100 hours a week — and unrelenting pressure. What sustained him was not status, but commitment. Looking back, he recognises something familiar in that endurance: the resilience learned at KIS, where patience, routine, and shared responsibility were part of daily life.

Today, Pratap’s cooking reflects that layered background, classical French training, Indian heritage, and years spent cooking in London. Memories of Kodai surface unexpectedly, not as replicas but as references: a flavour, a texture, a feeling. He has never tried to recreate the food of KIS directly. Memory, he believes, is bound to time and context. Some things are best left intact.

Distance has sharpened that understanding. Like many students, he once complained about school food. Only later did he recognise the scale of what was being done — the care involved in feeding a community day after day. Nostalgia remains, but he treats it carefully. To recreate it risks disappointment; to remember it is enough.

Home, for Pratap, is not singular. London is where he is grounded. Kodai remains something else — a place that shaped his sense of belonging and gave him confidence to move through different worlds. His Class of ’98 remains close, connected by shared memory rather than proximity.

One of the most enduring lessons he carries from KIS is respect — for people, for labour, and for the unseen work that makes things function. In kitchens, that translates into a belief that environments should be safe, fair, and humane. How people are treated matters as much as what is produced.

For Pratap, success has never been about scale or recognition. It is about memory — the meals people remember, the conversations that linger, and the care that stays with them after the table is cleared. Over the past 12 years, his immersive supper clubs, hosted at home, have welcomed more than 10,000 guests. Each evening was built around story and flavour — from Shakespeare and the Great Mughals to perfume, place, and time.

This year, that chapter comes to an end. Not as a conclusion, but as a conscious pause — a chance to reflect, distil, and carry forward what mattered most.

After 25 years of working in professional kitchens and running his own business, Pratap measures success differently. Not by accolades, but by endurance, integrity, and the people who stood beside him along the way. The path has been demanding, often uncomfortable, and occasionally unforgiving — but it has been honest. And if asked whether he would choose it again, the answer is simple: yes.