-COOKING WITH MONISHA- WINNER ‘SME ENTERPRISE AWARD 2025’
MONISHA BHARADWAJ- WINNER ‘RECOGNISED CULINARY EDUCATOR AWARD 2025’

-LUXLIFE FOOD AND DRINK AWARDS 2025- BEST INDIAN COOKERY SCHOOL, LONDON AND SOUTH EAST ENGLAND

-TRIPADVISOR TRAVELLERS’ CHOICE AWARD 2025- VOTED AS THE TOP 10% EXPERIENCES WORLDWIDE

Chef Monisha Bharadwaj is an award winning author, food historian and a food writer based in London, UK.

Monisha is a qualified chef from the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition, Mumbai. She started Cooking With Monisha, situated in West London, in 2004. Today it is a successful school that attracts not only the home cook but also professional chefs who wish to learn Chef Monisha’s brand of simple authentic Indian cooking.

Monisha has also created and taught her popular courses at the Ashburton Cookery School in Devon, The Bertinet Kitchen in Bath, the Cambridge Cookery School and at Divertimenti in Knightsbridge.

She is regularly invited to judge food events and has been a judge at the Guild of Fine Food’s ‘Great Taste Awards’ for the past several years.

Monisha also holds a BA in Indian History and in 2013, she was invited to be Guest Lecturer at SOAS, University of London, to give a series of talks on ‘The History of India through its Food’. She presents this talk reguarly for visiting American Universities to the UK.

In 2017, she worked with Kew Gardens giving talks on healing Indian ingredients, and with the British Council on ‘How The British Fell in Love With Curry – a historical perspective from 1200-2017’.

In 2018, Monisha was invited by the Wellcome Collection, London, to talk about Ayurvedic nutrition as part of their exhibition, ‘Ayurveda Man’ and opened the South Asian Spice Box residency at Borough Market, London, with a cookery demonstration of south Indian food.

In 2019, she was invited to be a Guest Speaker on Indian food on a Cookery Legends cruise around the British Isles.

In 2024, Monisha was invited to host a supper club at Fortnum & Mason, London on the theme of ‘Fasting and Feasting in India’. In January 2025, she taught an Indian Masterclass in Intuitive Cooking at Fortnums.

She was awarded ‘Cookery Writer of the Year’ in 2003 by the Guild of Food Writers and her many books have been shortlisted for and won several prestigious international awards.

In 2020, her book ‘Indian in 7- recipes using 7 ingredients or fewer’ won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award 2020 for the Best Indian Cookbook in the World.

In 2023, her book The Indian Cooking Course was selected in a reader survey conducted by the popular food platform Taste Atlas as one of the Top 150 Most Iconic Books in the World , the ones that influenced and shaped the course of culinary history. In January 2024, it was featured as one of the 20 Best Cookbooks of 2024 for Any Home Cooked Meal by Better Homes and Gardens.

Monisha also teaches her simple yet engaging cooking courses each year in the south of France and in Scotland.

Growing up in India, Monisha was brought up on an Ayurvedic inspired diet, where food brought happiness and physical well being. Today, she brings her experience of and passion for ancient Ayurvedic wisdom to all the classes she teaches. In August 2024 and 2025, she was invited to do a cookery demonstration on ‘Ayurvedic Cooking’ and also gave a talk on ‘The Six Tastes of Ayurveda’ at the World Yoga Festival in Henley-on-Thames.

Cooking With Monisha won the Small and Medium Enterprise UK Award in 2025 with Monisha Bharadwaj being awarded ‘Recognised Culinary Educator of the Year 2025’

Monisha has trained for 30 years in the Indian classical dance style of Bharata Natyam and has had an international dance career which included performing at the opening of the Nehru Gallery at the V&A Museum, London in the presence of HM The Queen. She now sits on the Board of Srishti, one of the UK’s top Indian dance companies.

She also sits on the Executive Committee of the Friends of MAA (Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge).