Floyd Cardoz, beloved chef and season three winner of Top Chef Masters, has died at the age of 59. On March 18, Cardoz was admitted to a New York hospital with a fever; he tested posted for the coronavirus shortly after. The Mumbai-raised chef, who helped reinvigorate the Indian food scene in New York with the now-shuttered restaurant Tabla, died due to complications from COVID-19. Scroll.in broke the news and confirmed Cardoz’s passing with his family. To the larger public, Cardoz was a warm presence on Top Chef and Ugly Delicious—he appears in the second season of celebrity chef David Chang’s hit Netflix series, in an episode exploring Indian cuisine. To the food community, Cardoz was a groundbreaking and influential chef whose dishes introduced many Americans to Indian cuisine, and expanded our understanding of the flavors and culture.
Chang, like many members of the food and restaurant community, took to social media to mourn the passing of Cardoz:
Cardoz was the chef and owner of two restaurant concepts in Mumbai—Bombay Canteen and O Pedro. He had recently opened a third concept, Bombay Sweet Shop. In his own remembrance, New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells hailed Cardoz as “an exceptional talent”:
Chef Cardoz was memorialized by several other fans and friends on Twitter: