My TikTok “For You” page is overrun by food influencers and mukbangs. That is by my own design, of course. But when I invited all of these hungry millennials to the party on my phone, I also opened the door to the VIP List (Audrey Jongens and Maeghan Radice)—arguably New York City’s loudest, most unbothered, and perhaps rudest TikTok restaurant review duo. “Go cry about it” has become their catchphrase; they would probably tell you that shade is the only man they will ever need.
I’ll be honest. I found their content entertaining for a while. It can be funny watching rich people try to satirize being rich and end up just being unintentionally self-deprecating and out-of-touch. Their over-the-top, dramatic tone makes sense when evaluating Carbone, Nobu, or 4 Charles; these restaurants have, to an extent, built their empires around name recognition, proximity to wealth, and perceived prestige. An ironic, satirizing review that pokes fun in part at these establishments’ clientele is funny and innocent.
“The company works to share a taste of the luxury metropolitan lifestyle through refined reviews,” the duo writes on their website (I know). “We provide an insider perspective on ‘the best of the best’ throughout all niches of society.”
Period, buzzwords.
When the duo headed to New York City’s only Michelin-starred Indian restaurant, Semma, last month, though, things did not go quite so well; their review opened with the nonchalant “THIS is why I lost faith in the Michelin system.” They go on to say that they could name 15 better Indian restaurants in the city, that every sauce tasted the same, that there was no chicken “tiki masala” on the menu, and that the biryani cart (mispronounced bree-yani) across the street from their apartment makes better food.
Many people, including notable cookbook author and food personality Padma Lakshmi, have responded to the microaggression-laden video. Internet consensus is, unsurprisingly, that Jongens and Radice let a lot of their racial prejudice slip when they filmed this video. I agree, but that is not my point. Notable to me is the belief that, because Semma, the singular Michelin-starred Indian restaurant in New York, is not as good as 15 other Indian restaurants in the city (a city that, according to TripAdvisor, boasts at least 199 Indian restaurants), the Michelin system is ruined, rather than that those 15 other restaurants should perhaps receive a star as well.
Under the direction of Chef Vijay Kumar, Semma showcases distinctive regional cuisine from southern India, highlighting dishes that are almost never seen on restaurant menus, especially outside India. Semma brings to the fore Indian cuisine that few outside of the South Asian community have ever had a chance to try. At Semma, you can try paniyaram, little balls of fried lentil dough almost like takoyaki, practically impossible to find in the States but ubiquitous on the streets of Chennai and in roadside hotels in Tamil Nadu. Instead of naan, you can order kal dosa (“stone dosa”), a thicker variant of the famous rice and lentil pancake that my grandmother would make for me for every birthday growing up. The menu’s heavy reliance on meat and seafood emphasizes its celebration of the lower-caste kitchen; Tamil Brahmins, historically the dominant ruling caste, adopted a vegetarian diet in part to differentiate themselves from the “lower” castes in the hierarchy.
All of this is to say, Semma is not just a Michelin-starred Indian restaurant, but a restaurant actively working to highlight cuisine that is marginalized both in America due to North Indian cultural dominance and in India due to Brahmin caste dominance. Naturally, this is reflected in the food landscape of America; much of the South Indian cuisine that does exist for widespread consumption in the States represents the Brahmin, vegetarian cuisine of the dominant and privileged caste, not the recipes of the entire region. Thus, Semma is an important intervention, and I think Jongens and Radice’s review speaks volumes about this.
Semma challenges us because it presents working-class regional Indian food at an elevated price point, in a dimly lit and beautifully decorated space, and with the backing of a Michelin star, one of the most elite honors a restaurant can receive. This is, in fact, the point. Semma challenges us to not only reframe what Indian cuisine is, but also how we value it, what we value, and how we conceptualize price and worth. Semma asks us why the “bree-yani cart” across the street doesn’t have white tablecloths and a Michelin star too; while structural barriers obviously prevent certain cuisines from reaching global acclaim, Kumar asks us to consider why these barriers exist by serving podi (“gunpowder”) dosa, my mom’s favorite Saturday dinner, at the highest level of the American culinary pyramid.
I am so drawn to Kumar’s project because I resonate with it so much in my own artistic work. My choreography borrows from across cultural boundaries, blending the aesthetics of India, America, and beyond; my eclectic dance training throughout my life has made this inevitable. But part of my reason for fusion, and part of my motivation to keep coming back to my aesthetic, is because of my deep interest in the dissonance between expectations and reality. The reason I draw from Indian folk, hip hop, vogue, and heels aesthetics in my concert work is to force audience members expecting a serious, contemporary dance performance to confront their own value-based hierarchies: to see my language, experiences, and training as equally valuable. Why do you hate seeing hip hop here? Is it because you think of it as “cheap” compared to other movement aesthetics? Why? Is there anything inherently “cheap” about it? Is there anything inherently inferior about it? Is there anything about certain movements that make them inherently unfit for concert dance use, as long as they are done correctly and with the proper knowledge?
And that goes for Semma, too. Yes, you can get goat biryani for much less at the truck outside your apartment, and perhaps in an ideal world, all that exists is food for the price of a meal from that biryani cart. But in today’s world and restaurant industry, Semma is an important intervention in our consumption of Indian food and food more broadly, speaking to class, caste, prejudice, and value. Indian food is already racialized and assumed to be low-class, the takeout food of immigrants—not the stuff of fine dining establishments. Within that, presenting food that Desis themselves view as low-brow, impure, non-vegetarian, and unknown means Kumar is choosing to highlight the “cheapest of the cheap” in some ways, at the highest of price points and prestige levels. And he got a Michelin star for it.
The VIP List’s controversial review spoke to all of this; Jongens and Radice’s comments illustrate exactly the reason why Semma exists, and exemplify all of the prejudices that I see Semma as working to combat. The existence and success of Semma challenged the logic of the VIP list and started conversations that I hope will highlight all of Kumar’s important cultural interventions made through his culinary work.
So maybe instead of crying about it this time, go think about it?
Akhil Joondeph is a member of the class of 2026 and can be reached at ajoondeph@wesleyan.edu.
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