Meet Head chef and patron of Rangoli Nest, RajeshKannan

It is his intention and pleasure to recreate for you some of the flavours and memories of his childhood village upbringing in Tamil Nadu. It is an area rich in local festivals and traditions, a mixture of forest inhabited by small temples and wild peacocks, and fields cultivated with rice, peanuts, lentils, sugar cane, sesame seeds, cashews, tamarind and corn.

 

Rajesh grew up in this farming country south of Thanjavur, and his family were farmers. Before and after school, he worked in the fields and helped boost the family income by selling banana leaves and curry leaves in the local market.

 

This work also helped finance his studies later, a Hotel Management and Catering Science degree, chosen because his mother felt it would help him travel, and make his way in the wider world, and because he also had a budding interest in cooking.

The art of South Indian Cuisine

About Rangoli Nest

Rangoli is a personal artistic gesture, an ephemeral pattern made by drawing a pattern of rice flour with your hand on the ground outside the home. Rice flour was traditionally used as it could be a source of food for insects and birds. Today coloured powders and chalks are used as well as rice flour.

 

Rangolis are a welcome sign for visitors, and also an offering to the gods. One of the first tasks of the day is to clean the area in front of the house and make a fresh rangoli. They can be very simple, like a doodle, or very elaborate for special occasions.

 

Later Rajesh came to the UK working in the hospitality field. He married Priya. During Covid, he and his wife sought to create some entertainment for people out on their daily walks. They made some tableaux of Tamil village life with rangolis in the restaurant window where he was working (the restaurant was closed in lock down at that time).

 

By making these tableaux, they felt they were honouring their traditions but also realised how much pleasure these designs gave to the community. It was here that the spark for Rangoli Nest was born.