It’s 9.30 am when we meet Niyati Rao — early for us, routine for her. A morning person, she is up by 5 am most days for a walk at nearby Shivaji Park, Mumbai. It’s the weekend before Ganpati, and the neighbourhood is humming. We are in an apartment in Dadar, where Chef Rao and her husband Sagar Neve, the duo behind Ekaa, Bombay Daak, KMC* and Ringo, live. The lobby is claimed by her four cats: Cleo, Nefer, Kuro and Ponyo, with bowls, beds, litter boxes and floating shelves.

It is hard to say what came first, Ekaa or their love story. Long before either, there was a girl growing up in Madh Island whose father, music composer Rajesh Rao, took the family along on his travels. Her mother, Hetal Rao, a Gujarati, was a scientist with the Food and Drug Administration Maharashtra, who quit her job to raise two children. When Rao was five, her father took them to London, where she had her first steak and sushi, and learnt to use chopsticks.…