Sal Dhalla
Sal Dhalla is a chef and founder of The Food Witch. She has almost ten years of experience working with food. She describes her cooking as intuitive, creating meals for joy and self care, particularly seasonally led vegan and vegetarian food for retreats and events. Since the pandemic, she’s also been teaching cookery classes online.
Sal speaks to QFAB about going from the corporate world to the food world, and the challenges of both. Finding her own way of working with food, away from the industry’s limitations, and finding a truer connection to herself and her passions. And she discusses the intersections of colonialism and food culture, and finding your identity as a chef beyond people’s expectations from what you look like and where your family are from.
Introduce yourself…
I'm Sal, and otherwise known as The Food Witch. I call myself an intuitive chef, I dedicate my work to helping and sharing with other people, what it means to cook and eat for pleasure and joy, with intuition and using food as a tool for wider wellbeing, as well as a form of practical spirituality in our day to day lives.
I think our relationship with food is really powerful. I have been a chef since 2012, so I've done a lot of things since then, most of which has been running my own business. I started out in restaurants and in catering, then for about five years I ran a bakery with my brother in law. And then pre COVID, I spent a couple of years building a retreat business. So I moved from the bakery world into the wellness space.
Working as a retreat chef for a few years, building that up, I felt like I'd got my stuff together and things were going well. I had a whole year of work booked into 2020 and I was like “great, this is it, this is what I'm doing.” Then that all came crashing down (with COVID), so I've been doing all sorts of things for the past year. It's been interesting, I've learned a lot. I now split my time between bespoke orders, online teaching and filming. Which is not anything like what I was doing this time last year.
How do you identify and what are your pronouns?
I feel like I'm too old to have changed my pronouns. I'm 35, I've grown up in the she/her world and so I'm very used to those pronouns. I just don't like being called male pronouns. Other than that, I'm cool with she or they, but I get misgendered a lot, even now.
Where in the world are you? Where else have you lived and worked?
I live in Fulham and I've lived in West London my whole life, apart from in my previous life as a management consultant I lived in Edinburgh for like four or five months. As a chef I've mainly worked in London, and as a retreat chef all over the UK, and I am lucky enough to have done a few retreats in Spain and Italy as well.
What is your job vocation/ job role/ title?
I call myself a retreat and freelance chef and teacher. I've built certain other aspects of my business up this past year, I've built online offerings that have taken a lot of work, and there are some aspects of it that I really, really enjoy. I can teach far more people online than I can in my kitchen in Fulham. I’m definitely also now teaching and creating content just as much as traditional cheffing, so I think it'll end up being a bit of a balance between the two.
“People in this industry are starting to share our needs and our pain a little bit more, rather than just being very siloed and stoic about it. I think this new way of working smarter and happier with less suffering is really, really important.”
How did you get to where you are? What was your earliest experience in this industry? Did you expect to stay in this industry when you started out?
I left uni, where I did an economics and history degree, and went straight into corporate work. I always wanted to work in food, but I come from this super high achieving family of doctors and corporate bigwigs so I felt like it was what I should do. I spent four years working as a management consultant in financial services, so a completely different world and life. Just hours of travel and Excel spreadsheets and meetings.
It was there that realised that my relationship with food was something that I couldn't just sideline. I would spend all my spare time cooking, going to classes, whatever I could do. I didn't really enjoy what I was doing. I was good at it and did well but I wasn't doing something that I was passionate about. I'm quite an idealistic person in that sense, I want meaning in my life, and I just couldn't suppress it anymore.
So I decided to train as a chef and just see where it took me. I went to Leiths (cookery school) and that was my first real experience of learning about cooking properly, doing work experience in bakeries and Michelin star restaurants. And interestingly enough, for my first professional job as a chef after I graduated I catered at the Olympics and I fed Boris Johnson of all people!
I'd spent a long time working in a toxic environment…maybe that's a little bit harsh, but it was an environment that wasn't conducive to self care or my mental health, and was very stressful and pressurised and full of anxiety. Then I just found restaurants quite similar in a lot of regards.
When I started out, I was the only female in the dingy 45 degree kitchen getting shouted out all day. Having spent the last four years feeling like I was never good enough and that I was constantly under pressure, I was just like, “wow, I have just spent the last four years hating my job, I don't want to hate food as well”. So I went about getting the experience that I felt I needed to open a business or set out on my own.
I worked in a production kitchen for a couple of years, started my bakery business selling in markets, and all of that went pretty well. But you know, it just wasn’t the thing that brings me joy about food. That isn't making the same products every week for people to sell, it's not making someone else's food for somebody else to eat. It's like, there's something in me - I talk about spirituality, and intuition, and a kind of soul level connection to food - you can't logically explain where it comes from, the inspiration is all just in your being. And I just wasn't finding an avenue to find fulfilment in what I perceived to be more likely paths to success.
In retrospect, having done a lot of work on myself and conditioning in the way that I think, I now see that I was treading a path that somebody else had done before because I didn't feel confident enough to do my own thing. You know, you get “othered” very easily in this industry for the colour of your skin, or gender, or anything, so I almost suppressed the things that made me who I am and that inspired me! So I didn't follow my true vocation, which is what I'm doing now; working in a space where it's all about joy, it's all about intuition and pleasure, and it involves doing lots of different things.
It's very easy to start comparing yourself to others, to feel really competitive, to feel not good enough, to feel inexperienced, to feel like an imposter. And whether it's the industry or whether it's my gender, my skin colour, my sexual preference, I don't know. Yes, there are a lot of elements at play so you really question your validity and your worth, especially in an industry that's so dominated by cisgendered white people. Then as soon as I was just like, ‘you know what, I'm gonna do what makes me happy’, it all became a lot easier. Working on retreats and cooking for events, teaching people how to cook, and creating recipes, sharing them with people, that brings me joy. I now have an opportunity to impact people's lives in my own unique way, which I think was missing before.
What has your experience been of being queer in this industry?
I don't feel like I really had a queer experience in the food industry up until in the last six months of starting to connect with people. Weirdly, being unable to meet people in real life has made it a little bit easier to connect in a more specific way with people that I resonate with.
In food you feel the need to be everything, to be inventive, inspirational, trendy, competitive. I guess you worry a lot about what other people think, right? It's very personal. You put a lot of yourself into something that other people consume in whatever way, and so you become hyper self conscious. I think I lost the confidence to do what I wanted, and be myself and go down those paths. So in a restaurant kitchen, with all men, you just become one of the boys. We want to be good chefs, we want the food to speak for itself, not our gender politics or sexual preference, or skin colour. It's only in the last year that I've really connected to queer organisations and people in food.
My experience of being queer in this industry is that it's not been something that's been a major part of my work or a defining factor in what I do. And certainly, nor has my ethnicity. I have been so deliberate for that not to be the case that I think I did myself a disservice and I wasn't myself. I trod that path because I thought I needed to. And now I just care a bit less about what everyone thinks, and I just do my own thing, and I'm much happier.
My queerness, my heritage, and my experience of being a first generation born in Britain, are all the things that make me who I am. If people can't get their heads around it then I'm not here to minimise myself so that it's easier for them. Eventually, they'll come around, or they won’t. Regardless, there are lots of people that are supportive and buy into what I do. I'm trying to find a niche now, I think, and find a space where I don't feel like I'm judging myself constantly through the lens of the industry. I think part of that is also work you have to do on yourself and being a little bit more self confident and proud of just being who you are.
“ I’ve really struggled because people always wanted me to define myself. Where is your food from? Where is this from? Where are you from? And I would stand there and I would just struggle to say something. Because it’s like, I don’t know, where is it from? Why does it matter? Why do I have to define it?”
What are the worst things about this industry?
The elitism and competitiveness, at the expense of bringing people along, is something that I've really struggled with. I feel like it should be the responsibility of the next generation. But I think, particularly in male dominated kitchens, the attitude is completely different. It’s “I went through this, so you have to do it too”. I'm a firm believer of “I went through this so you don't have to, because I figured out a nicer way to go about life.” Now with things you (QFAB) and Countertalk (a platform and community for chefs and hospitality workers which highlights healthy work environments) are doing, I think there's a real movement. People in this industry are starting to share our needs and our pain a little bit more, rather than just being very siloed and stoic about it. I think this new way of working smarter and happier with less suffering is really, really important. I certainly don't want to work in a stressful environment and everyone enjoys everything more with a smile on their face. Cooking is about joy, and whether I am cooking for 20 or just cooking for myself, it's still the same principle of something I love doing! If I'm not dancing around my kitchen, you know, we've got issues!
The biggest thing that's opened my eyes in terms of problems with the industry in the last year or so has been the conversation around the colonisation of food and cooking had by orgs like Black Book and Be Inclusive Hospitality. I grew up in a house where any given family meal would have brown people born in East Africa and the UK around the table, the occasional American, Brit or Italian born half Iranian.... So we have all sorts of stuff going on, tied up in my family culture and especially our food culture. And I've really struggled because people always wanted me to define myself. Where is your food from? Where is this from? Where are you from? And I would stand there and I would just struggle to say something. Because it's like, I don't know, where is it from? Why does it matter? Why do I have to define it? Will you like it more if I say it's from Africa or India or if I say it's from Britain?
That was one of the reasons that I struggled with that kind of space of becoming the chef I wanted to be. I think it was easier for people if I was an ‘ethnic chef of any description they could get comfortable with’. But I am not that chef. And actually, I do a disservice to all of those cuisines by claiming that I am the expert in them. You know, that's why I use this label ‘intuitive’, because my experience of food isn't just the food culture that my blood relatives brought with them, and I struggle to find the language to comfort others in their understanding of it.
So it's been this whole thing of trying to unpick where I've been conditioned to minimise aspects of myself in order to conform. And where I've been complicit in it as well, because I'm in this position where I'm a first generation immigrant and have such a privileged life. And my family is of Indian ethnicity, lived in Tanzania and moved to the UK, and so much of that is tied up in colonisation. It's just been really illuminating to understand that a little bit more, and to reflect on how I navigate the world and define myself, and through what lens.
“As people who love food we all just want to share that with others, whether it’s feeding them, teaching them, running a restaurant, running a catering company, it all comes down to that. That joy, transfer and movement. We can deliver something from our hearts that makes somebody feel great. ”
What are the best things about this industry?
The thing that I love about this industry, and that is the thing that I never had in what I did before, is that this is a place where everyone can inspire you. There is so much to learn from others. From what's out there on social media, and amazing books, and having conversations with people, it's a constant source of learning and inspiration. There are so many awesome people that are so generous with their knowledge and their experience. It’s the most levelling space as well as a super competitive and elitist one depending on what you do / expose yourself to.
As people who love food we all just want to share that with others, whether it's feeding them, teaching them, running a restaurant, running a catering company, it all comes down to that. That joy, transfer and movement. We can deliver something from our hearts that makes somebody feel great. Meeting people who, because food is such a passion, the competition, elitism and pulling up the ladder behind you stuff doesn't go on. They're people that are just so supportive and champion people, and the people who are trying to make the industry a better place. It's just a really inspiring kind of world to be in if you curate it! And indeed, many of the worst things I’ve described are being dismantled in more progressive and diverse food & beverage spaces (you know here I mean non-white, non-cis, non-het....).
It’s exciting and inspiring to me that some of the best things about the industry now are those movements/people that are working to combat all the ‘worst’ things I just described. Changing work environments, attitudes, access, and educating inside and out about some of the community level political and systemic issues facing food and farming at every level. I always joke about my mission being to use food/cooking to dismantle the patriarchy, but actually, it is proving to be a really powerful tool to challenge patriarchal and capitalist systems. And I LOVE that.
“Cooking is about joy, and whether I am cooking for 20 or just cooking for myself, it’s still the same principle of something I love doing! If I’m not dancing around my kitchen, you know, we’ve got issues!”
What's the best meal you have ever had, where was it, what was it, who was it with?
This is probably the best meal I've ever had, because it's everything, it's the environment, the whole atmosphere. I'm so lucky to have a best friend who's Neapolitan and he now lives in Naples which, I miss him terribly, but it's a great excuse to go there. On a trip with him and my other best friend, my sister and her husband, we went to this little osteria in the suburbs of Naples on this empty street. You go in and there's pictures and bottles all over the walls and candle wax everywhere. You don't even go in and ask for a menu, because you've got a Neapolitan sitting with you.
They made ricotta and mortadella in house, they brought out ricotta that they made fresh that morning, with honey that they got out of the hive next door, and mortadella that they then put on the barbecue. And you'd have all these antipasti and pasta, and then they come out with these steaks and are like “pick one! I’m going to cook it for you now”. Then we spent four hours digesting our meal, drinking aged rum. It was probably about 10 years ago that meal and we still talk about it. No meal at that place ever lived up to that experience because we were just so happy and we were together and it was one of those moments we were in Naples loving life, drinking, hanging out with your best buds, then you have this like, biblically delicious meal. I think one of my friends almost cried at the end of the meal, it was so delicious and utterly magical.
What is your trashy food pleasure?
My current one, which I'm trying not to eat because they have probably got loads of palm oil in them, is the Malteser Biscuit. It's a new thing, which is like a Malteser inspired biscuit. I'm all for guilty pleasures. I think they bring us so much joy that we should reclaim them and refrain from assigning relative moral virtue to food!
Give us your top three places to eat and drink?
Jolene & Big Jo - I’ve never had anything from Jolene/Big Jo that I didn’t like. Having worked as a pastry chef for some time, and being obsessed with baked goods, they’re my go to outside bakery. Please come further west, I did send you a vacant shop you could occupy that’s just round the corner from me...
Bellillo - my local Neapolitan pizzeria which does some of the best pizza I’ve had outside of Naples.
Mr. Falafel (the Palestinian falafel place) in Shepherd’s Bush market: freshly fried Palestinian falafel, wrapped with outstanding condiments and vegetables and don’t go alone so you can twos the fries with tahini and pomegranate molasses, because you need to have a large wrap… for the sake of the ratios.
Favourite banger to play in the kitchen/working?
I deliberately put on like really cheesy music and also a lot of funk, soul, Motown and reggae. That's my wheelhouse, it's feel good music. The one that I'm listening to at the minute is ‘Rubberband man’ by The Spinners. I like to have my favourites to dance around the kitchen to. And then either the old or the NWA version of ‘Express Yourself’ is a great tune to cook to. It’s a great question because part of my online cookery school / virtual kitchen is a section of playlists, as soundtrack is key!
“ Queer people... offer a really great space for creativity, inspiration, tolerance and openness that you don’t often get in other spaces. So I think we need to just be more queer and offer more queerness to people, because it’s a source of real positivity in society, we have different ways of thinking, we have different perspectives on life.”
What advice would you give to your younger baby queer self?
I think I would always give the advice to myself of just... care a little bit less about what other people think. That’s the thing that's held me back most in life. And weirdly the food and beverage industry has been the place that I felt most exposed for these “other” things that I have associated with me. Whereas in the corporate world it's over compensated for, if you feel any discrimination because of the colour of your skin, or your gender or whatever, and it’s quite a big deal. So whether the day to day experience you have is true of that is different, but the policy and the intention is that everyone is equal and ‘we don't tolerate that’. You know, the reality is the discrimination and the male domination is rife in both industries, but I don't think I was ever required to identify and justify my work based on who I was, the things that I didn't feel defined me. So I became a bit wary of being more invested in my culture and my queerness and who I am as a chef, which I think, you know, held me back a little bit. It's so hard to have the confidence to go a different way, to forge your own path when nobody else has done it, but I think my advice would be: don't feel that way and just do it.
Do you feel it is important for the LGBTQI+ community within the food and beverage industry to have a network and if so why?
100%! Queer people are great and they offer a really great space for creativity, inspiration, tolerance and openness that you don't often get in other spaces. So I think we need to just be more queer and offer more queerness to people, because it’s a source of real positivity in society, we have different ways of thinking, we have different perspectives on life. For people like me, without that queer space you don't see as much of other people doing things in different ways, so you can feel isolated. I'm connecting more to queer people on Instagram, whose philosophy and outlook and the way that they run their business resonates far more with me than those of other people that I've connected with in other spaces. It's not rational, it's not logical, but I don't care about that stuff. It's great, you know, the artistry and inspiration and fun, and safety that queer people provide, there should be more of it.
What are your top queer (food and beverage related) accounts you follow?
Melissa Thompson (@fowlmouthsfood)
Zoe Adjonyoh (@zoesghanakitchen) and (@blackbooks_2020)
Both have been really inspiring. Because you don't realise until you're faced with it that I had really been not connected to other queer people of colour. And then suddenly… it's not like they weren't there, it’s just our paths hadn't crossed or algorithms hadn't crossed. Then you find them and it completely changes the way you look at the industry and yourself.
Has the COVID pandemic affected your work life, if so how?
So much! Aside from the obvious and massive financial hit, I feel like I have reinvented myself and my business again over the last 18 months having just gotten into a groove and built up a business where I could earn good money doing what I love. But that’s life, and actually, I’ve connected to a part of the food world and community I was previously isolated from and have finally been able to team up with my cousin on food and drag events which we were always itching to do.
What is next for you, have you got any new projects you want to plug or accounts?
My virtual kitchen and my online subscription site, it's really cool! Lots of intuitive cooking, lots of recipes and tutorials, and part of my online teaching work that I’m really proud of putting together during the pandemic. And then, because it's queer, and because we hope to really make something of it in 2021, at the end of last year, I started working with my cousin, whose this incredible drag artist and so talented. So we started this doorstep drag and food delivery service, called the Amused Bouche (@theamused.bouche). For three months at the end of last year every weekend we were going around doing doorstep drag shows and delivering food. It was a lot of fun. Before the second lockdown, when the rule of six was in place, our intention was to do really cool, curated drag and dine events, which would be really intimate with food, and entertainment and cabaret combined in our own unique way. We had so much fun doing it and we are relaunching with bigger and more bespoke events this summer, plus the return hopefully to more regular cheffing work - retreats are starting up again and I am definitely available to hire for events this summer too ;)
Is there anything you would like to share with our community?
The thing that I'm really excited about is networking a little bit more. It's something that I shied away from doing but this year I've just really felt more confident and comfortable about who I am and what I want to do, so reaching out to people and connecting is much more automatic. I'm just super keen to do that. So if people want to get in touch to have a chat, that’s what I’d like to share.
I'm ready to immerse myself into this community now, because it's just been so amazing to do that recently. Even small things like the zoom webinars I've done or stuff like this interview, connecting to people, that has got me through this year. That inspiration, that hope for the future has kept the monotony at bay. Let's do more of that. And we should raise each other up and share a little bit more. So I'm more than happy to do that if people want to say hi whether for advice, social connection, the joy of being surrounded by queer people...AND I’m waiting for the QFAB inaugural cook out…
