Chef, author and television personality Maria Goretti opens up about her unexpected path into the culinary world, and the joy of bringing people together through food.
By Amber Dias
Effervescent, charming and cheerful, Maria Goretti has lit up our screens with an infectious energy that captures an audience in the best way. Over the years, she has channelled that same enthusiasm into everything she does, adding author, poet and chef to an already impressive list of accomplishments. With intensive training from institutions such as Tante Marie Culinary Academy and Le Cordon Bleu, she has certainly earned her toque. Though a big part of that is probably the joy, curiosity, excitement and love with which she approaches food. All of which could be heard in her voice as we talked about her latest endeavour: the Experiential Cook-Alongs that she hosts at Casa Zen, her beautifully restored 150-year-old bungalow in Goa, where she invites people to spend a day cooking, learning, laughing and, of course, eating together. The Start Of Something Maria’s journey as chef, however, began at home, as a young mother trying to figure out what to feed her son. “I actually started looking at food very differently once I had kids,” she says. Before motherhood, food was something she loved but never thought deeply about. Her busy career meant she survived on a handful of dishes she could prepare herself, with little interest in cooking beyond necessity. Everything changed when her son, Zeke, began eating solid food.
“I used to keep calling my mom almost every day asking, ‘How do I make this? How do I make a khichdi? How do I make a mashy pulao?’ I realised I didn’t know the basics.” What began as a practical need soon became an unexpected passion. During a trip to London, Maria found herself wandering through the famous Borough Market. Fascinated by the produce, she returned to her apartment laden with vegetables, seafood and artichokes she had no idea how to cook. After seeking advice from the hotel chef, she improvised a meal that included baked vegetables, clams in cream and wine, and her mother’s East Indian prawn curry. “I called Warsi (her actor husband Arshad Warsi) and told him, ‘I don’t know what to do. I’ve made too much of food’. His solution was to invite the team he was filming with at the time for a meal, which turned out to be quite the success. And it was the first time she cooked for a group. “I don’t know whether they really liked it or whether they were just hungry. One of the two did the trick for me,” she laughs. “But after that, I started trying things out little by little.”
Fanning The Spark Her curiosity only deepened and led to hosting food television shows like ‘Do It Sweet’ with Chef Vicky Ratnani. “For the first time in my life, I melted chocolate, and I was so fascinated.” One show led to another. During ‘Pressure Cooker’, a cooking competition judged by chefs Vicky Ratnani and Ritu Dalmia — who would go on to become key influences in Maria’s own culinary journey — she got the final push towards formal culinary education. “I met a girl there who told me about the Gordon Ramsay College in London. I wrote to them in January and in September, I was in culinary school.” In 2011, Maria enrolled in an intensive culinary programme in the UK. “To take out three months at that time was the most difficult thing in life because my kids were small,” she says. “But now, in retrospect, it was the best time to have gone. Because they were home, they were safe and they were looked after. I just missed them terribly.” Returning home armed with professional training, she immersed herself in cooking, baking, breadmaking, recipe development and writing a food blog — which eventually led to a book deal. When she met publisher Ajay Mago in 2012, Maria had already turned down two offers. “The first, I just said no because I was frightened,” she recalls, while the second helped her realise she had a different idea of what a food book should be. When Mago approached her, she didn’t think much of it. Months later, when he called to ask about her progress, she was stunned. “I said, ‘What? I thought you were making polite conversation’!” she laughs. The hesitation stemmed from a deep sense of imposter syndrome. “I didn’t believe I could do it… that I deserved a book.” Encouraged to trust her instincts, she began work on what would become the awardwinning ‘From My Kitchen To Yours’, spending years testing, refining and documenting recipes before its release in 2016.
Yet Maria was not done learning. Drawn to the precision of pastry, she later pursued intensive studies at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and London, completing an advanced diploma in pâtisserie in 2018. The experience was demanding in every sense. Classes ran from eight in the morning until ten at night, six days a week. Simultaneously navigating menopause and the pressures of rigorous study, she often questioned whether she could continue. “I thought I was losing my mind,” she says. “I would study something and the next day open the book and it felt like I’d never seen it before. But I just pushed through because I really wanted to do this.”
Cooking With Maria Back home, opportunities continued to emerge through television projects, writing and food content. She even came close to opening her own café but ultimately, she chose differently. “I kept thinking, my kids are just about grown. I’m going to have to give this at least three years of undivided attention if I want to run it the way I want. I realised that I cannot do any more commitments.” Instead, she found inspiration in a different direction. While studying in London, Maria attended collaborative cooking experiences where guests cooked alongside chefs. The memory stayed with her for years until, one morning, she impulsively decided to create something similar herself. “I woke up one day and thought, ‘Bloody hell, let’s do this’.” That decision gave birth to her now-popular cook-alongs at Casa Zen in Goa. “Every month or so, I announce the date, make a menu, and then I cook with a whole lot of people at Casa Zen, which has a really big kitchen; it has a really wonderful space for a lot of people.”
Part cooking class, part communal dining experience, the gatherings bring together strangers connected only by their love of food. Guests arrive in the morning, receive recipe booklets, aprons and ingredients, and spend the day preparing an elaborate multi-course meal under Maria’s guidance. The menus change with every session. Participants might learn to make asparagus rolls with hollandaise, risotto, pistachio-crusted salmon and red velvet cake in one class, while another might feature roasted pumpkin soup, chicken curry and lemon meringue cake. “I try to build a complete meal in every class, teaching everything from bread and soup to mains and dessert, so participants can recreate it all at home.” But for Maria, the goal extends beyond simply teaching recipes. “I ensure that everyone understands the skill of what we are doing. Because when you read a recipe and when you actually cook it with somebody who knows how to do it, it is two different things,” she explains. Each menu is meticulously tested beforehand, timed down to the minute and mapped out like a mathematical equation. “I run this like a tight ship because that’s what we learnt at Tante Marie. Every spoon had to be in its place and every surface spotless. Even so, I was nervous when I started. There’s always a moment of trepidation before everyone arrives, but after a few minutes I tell myself, ‘Okay, Maria, you’ve got this’. Thankfully, the people who come to the cook-alongs have been incredibly kind, enthusiastic and eager to learn.” As guests chop, bake, knead and stir, friendships form organically around the kitchen island. Sometimes they continue chatting long after the food is ready. “Nobody eats till 4.30 p.m because everyone has made friends,” she says with a smile. What makes the experience especially meaningful, she adds, is witnessing complete strangers connect through a shared passion. “I look at everyone and they all look happy and satiated. I feel somewhere I’ve done something right. I’ve been able to infuse some amount of joy and happiness into a room full of strangers.” For details on upcoming cookalongs, follow @casazengoa on Instagram.
Chef’s Tip When asked if there was something she learnt from a mentor that sticks with her, one of her favourites came from Ritu Dalmia during a cooking competition show, while discussing risotto. “A risotto needs to be left to cook. You don’t need cream or anything else if you cook it right. The trick is to let it be and not keep stirring it the way we Indians tend to do.” It’s a lesson Maria still carries with her in the kitchen today.
Quick Bites A dish everyone should learn to make: A good pasta. Favourite ingredient to cook with: Butter. Favourite comfort food: Sometimes it’s dal-chawal with pickle, papad and fried fish; at other times, it’s a creamy pasta with clams and parsley thrown in. A nostalgic food: Noodles… because my mum used to make this dish she called chow, which was noodles with all the vegetables in the world in it, ham, bacon, ketchup and everything. Sweet or savoury: Sweet. Three words that describe the Experiential Cook-Along: Warm, comforting & fun.
