Cardoz, in 2018. Photo: Mark Abramson

The great chef Floyd Cardoz passed away, after testing positive for COVID-19. The cause of death was coronavirus, and the Indian news website Scroll reports that his family confirms the news, which first started circulating in the Indian media, after the author Rajdeep Sardesai tweeted about it. Cardoz was 59.

Cardoz had admitted himself to a hospital in New York after developing a fever, according to an Instagram post he put up on March 18. (That post was deleted and replaced by another.) The chef had been in Mumbai, where he ran the acclaimed restaurants Bombay Canteen and O Pedro, and had returned to New York on March 8. The Indian restaurant group Hunger, Inc., with which he ran his Mumbai restaurants, had put out a statement confirming that Cardoz had tested positive for the coronavirus.

The chef first came to New York from his native Mumbai in 1988, and in 1992 found himself working for the late Gray Kunz at the influential Lespinasse. After several years at that restaurant, he went on to open Tabla with Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group in 1998. Tabla was immediately welcomed by critics and diners, and in 2016, New York Times critic Pete Wells explained its larger influence, writing that Cardoz’s cooking “helped end the era in which the fine-dining wing of the restaurant business operated as a club to which cuisines of non-European descent need not apply.”

After Tabla, Cardoz would go on to open other restaurants serving European cuisine, first North End Grill with USHG and then White Street, before returning to Indian food during the middle of the last decade. In 2015, he opened the Bombay Canteen in Mumbai, a restaurant that has been a “blockbuster success” since it opened, followed by the opening of Paowalla in New York in 2016. (O Pedro opened in Mumbai in 2017.) That restaurant, unfortunately, was short-lived. It was retooled as the Bombay Bread Bar in 2018, which Cardoz then closed last summer.

Cardoz’s passing is a sad and significant loss for New York, Mumbai, and the world of Indian cuisine: He changed the way New Yorkers, broadly, thought about Indian food with his restaurant Tabla, and paved the way for South Asian chefs that came after him.

As the many remembrances going around echo, Cardoz was a gregarious man who had a lot of love and passion both for his culture and people. Along with his restaurants, he published cookbooks, including, most recently, Flavorwalla in 2016, and became more widely known through his appearances on Top Chef Masters. He made an appearance in the second season of Dave Chang’s Ugly Delicious, which was released late last month.

If you got a chance to talk to Cardoz about food, you’d hear the passion spooling out whenever he started rhapsodizing about Indian fruit or chili chicken or one of his other favorite things to eat. But you’d also find out that he was a father who cared deeply about his family. His wife, Barkha, and sons, Peter and Justin, survive him. Grub Street will continue to update this post with any new information about Cardoz’s passing.

Rude food : For everyone asking about last Sunday’s column on the great @floydcardoz here it is.

Still can’t believe the news.

https://t.co/SfqznYj9kj — vir sanghvi (@virsanghvi) March 25, 2020

Deeply upset to hear this news. It was an honor to know Floyd. He was a kind, ground breaking chef who paved the way for so many South Asians. I remember saving up money to eat at Tabla in college. I will miss his fierce passion and determination. https://t.co/ToBCLceFiW — Khushbu Shah (@KhushAndOJ) March 25, 2020

Floyd Cardoz was an exceptional talent, a chef equally at home with undiluted Indian flavors as he was with the delicious union of French, Indian and American food, a personal idiom that he invented. https://t.co/7NcTes1D01 — Pete Wells (@pete_wells) March 25, 2020

Floyd did so much to advance the cause of Indian food and Indian people in America. He was generous, funny, and warm, and I've always wished I could turn back time and eat at Tabla. Sending love to his family. https://t.co/nLMm9ALwmW — Priya Krishna (@PKgourmet) March 25, 2020

Tragic news. Floyd Cardoz the world renowned chef - with his own Restaurants in New York - Chez Floyd, then lately Bombay Canteen, O Pedro and restaurants in Bombay and Goa has succumbed to the Corona virus in New Jersey RIP — Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) March 25, 2020

Love you so much @floydcardoz — Danny Meyer (@dhmeyer) March 25, 2020

I don’t want to believe this



Coronavirus: Chef Floyd Cardoz, co-owner of Bombay Canteen, dies of Covid-19 in New York City https://t.co/4wqWaYcA0a — Dave Chang (@davidchang) March 25, 2020

Floyd Cardoz is an Indian-American institution. His Tabla was nothing short of a revolution -- not just our food but our people. It launched the year I graduated college. There are no coincidences. Floyd was among desis redefining the food, media, biz, arts, culture of NYC... ctd pic.twitter.com/bUmcEQLBW6 — S. Mitra Kalita (@mitrakalita) March 25, 2020

Terrible news. Floyd Cardoz - brilliant chef and wonderful man - has fallen to the Corona virus. A huge, huge loss. — ruthreichl (@ruthreichl) March 25, 2020

Utterly stunned and heartbroken by the loss of Floyd Cardoz. A brilliant chef, generous mentor, and loving man. Rest in peace, chef. — Francis Lam (@Francis_Lam) March 25, 2020

Oh, God. He was a visionary chef, incredibly smart and talented and a lot of fun to hang out with. Rest in peace, Floyd Cardoz. https://t.co/r9QsranClo — Chandra Ram (@ChandrasPlate) March 25, 2020

Say it isn't so. Surely one of the most talented, kind, generous,and totally sympatico human beings that I have ever known. Will always be missed. — Mimi Sheraton (@mimisheraton) March 25, 2020

The joy that #FloydCardoz brought us in those huge rooms at Tabla, experienced through a blur or Kachumber cocktails... can’t believe that he is gone. Condolences to his family, his work family, and @dhmeyer. — David Kamp (@MrKamp) March 25, 2020

This is devastatingly sad and hard to accept, Chef Floyd Cardoz inspired me and many others through his cooking. The first time we met on a trip, we talked and quickly realized that we both grew up in the same neighborhood in Bombay. https://t.co/elTTULvWBo — Nik Sharma (@abrowntable) March 25, 2020

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