Padma Lakshmi
Padma Lakshmi is an Emmy Award-nominated television host, producer, food expert and New York Times best-selling author.
Lakshmi serves as host and executive producer of Bravo’s Emmy-winning series “Top Chef,” which has been nominated for 42 Emmys, including her three-time nomination for Outstanding Host for a Reality-Competition Program. Season 20 will debut in Spring 2023.
She’s also the creator, host and executive producer of the critically acclaimed Hulu series “Taste the Nation,” winner of the 2021 Critics Choice Award and 2022 James Beard Award.
Last year she was honored at the James Beard Foundation’s Gala for Good. In addition, she was awarded Best Show Host for “Top Chef” and “Taste the Nation” for the 2022 Critics Choice Real TV Awards.Read More
Padma Lakshmi is an Emmy Award-nominated television host, producer, food expert and New York Times best-selling author.
Lakshmi serves as host and executive producer of Bravo’s Emmy-winning series “Top Chef,” which has been nominated for 42 Emmys, including her three-time nomination for Outstanding Host for a Reality-Competition Program. Season 20 will debut in Spring 2023.
She’s also the creator, host and executive producer of the critically acclaimed Hulu series “Taste the Nation,” winner of the 2021 Critics Choice Award and 2022 James Beard Award.
Last year she was honored at the James Beard Foundation’s Gala for Good. In addition, she was awarded Best Show Host for “Top Chef” and “Taste the Nation” for the 2022 Critics Choice Real TV Awards.
Lakshmi is co-founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America (EFA) and an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Artist Ambassador for immigrants’ rights and women’s rights. Lakshmi was also appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Born in India, she grew up in the United States and graduated from Clark University with a bachelor’s degree in theatre arts and American literature. Known as India’s first supermodel, she began her career as a fashion model and actress working in Europe and the United States.
Lakshmi established herself as a food expert early in her career hosting “Padma’s Passport,” where she cooked diverse cuisine from around the world and “Planet Food,” a documentary series, both on the Food Network domestically and worldwide on the Discovery Channel. She also co-hosted Rai Television’s “Domenica In,” Italy’s highest-rated variety show.
She’s a prolific author, writing the best-selling “Easy Exotic,” which won the Best First Book Award at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Lakshmi followed this with the publication of her second cookbook, “Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet,” and her memoir, The New York Times best-selling “Love, Loss and What We Ate.” She later published the Encyclopedia of Spices & Herbs. In 2021 she published her first children’s book, The bestselling “Tomatoes for Neela.” Lakshmi also guest edited the Best American Travel Writing 2021.
In addition to her food writing, Lakshmi has also contributed to Vogue, Gourmet, both British and American Harper’s Bazaar, as well as penning a syndicated column on fashion and food for The New York Times.
Lakshmi created a fine jewelry line the Padma Collection, which sold at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. She also designed a home décor line under the same name, featuring tabletop dishware, stemware and hand-blown glass décor pieces, which was sold nationwide in Bloomingdale’s. In addition, Lakshmi created Padma’s Easy Exotic, a collection of culinary products ranging from frozen organic foods, fine teas, natural spice blends and home goods. In 2018, Lakshmi collaborated with MAC Cosmetics for a worldwide capsule collection called MAC Padma that quickly sold out in both India and the United States.
After unknowingly suffering from endometriosis for decades, in 2009 she co-founded the Endometriosis Foundation of America (EFA) alongside advanced gynecological surgeon Dr. Tamer Seckin. The EFA launched the first interdisciplinary research facility in the country for Gynepathology, as a joint project between Harvard Medical School and MIT and Lakshmi gave the keynote address at the center’s opening in 2009.
Her efforts were recognized on the floor of the New York State Senate, where she succeeded in passing a bill related to teen health initiatives. The organization’s ENPOWR program has currently educated over 32,000 students about endometriosis in high schools across the state of New York.
Lakshmi is a visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has received the 2018 Karma Award from Variety, as well as the 2016 NECO Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
She lives in New York with her daughter.
