Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Submit Guest Post

Tributes pour in for top chef Floyd Cardoz, who died of COVID-19

Eastern Eye Staff
By Eastern Eye StaffMar 26, 2020
Eastern Eye Staff
See Full Bio

TRIBUTES have been paid to Indian chef Floyd Cardoz who died after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, family sources said on Wednesday (25).

Cardoz, 59, died of Covid-19 infection in a hospital in New York, the sources said.

He was the co-owner of two popular restaurants in Mumbai, Bombay Canteen and O Pedro, and had recently launched his third venture, the Bombay Sweet Shop.

Cardoz was in Mumbai, where he was born, till March 8. Ten days later he said on social media that he had admitted himself to hospital in New York, where he lived, as he felt feverish.

He had trained as a biochemist before he discovered his real passion - in a restaurant kitchen and had moved to New York after attending culinary school in Switzerland.

“Floyd Cardoz was an exceptional talent, a chef equally at home with undiluted Indian flavors as he was with the delicious union of French, Indian and American food, a personal idiom that he invented,” said The New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells.

Top chef Padma Lakshmi said on Twitter: “Floyd Cardoz presenter made us all so proud.

“Nobody who lived in NY in the early aughts could forget how delicious and packed Tabla always was. He had an impish smile, an innate need to make those around him happy, and a delicious touch. This is a huge loss...”

TV host Andrew Zimmern said: “Floyd Cardoz passed away from C19. I adored him. A great chef, groundbreaking in so many ways, a generous human, resilient of spirit and loved his family, his garden and our restaurant world so much. I’m stunned.”

American restaurateur Dave Chang tweeted the news, with a note: “I don’t want to believe this...”

Popular food critic Richard Vines tweeted: “I realize @floydcarloz wasn't so well known in the U.K. but his contribution to restaurants in New York and Mumbai was huge. It is one of the saddest single things I have heard since this nightmare began.”

Canadian celebrity chef Hugh Acheson wrote: “Floyd. You were a gem. You were an amazing human and chef. You were a father and husband full of love and grace. I am so sorry. I love you. Rest in Peace my friend.”

floyd cardozchefcoronavirus
Add EasternEye As Your Trusted Source
preferred source on google news

Related News

Oklahoma, not Las Vegas, holds the title of America’s casino capital
Lifestyle

Oklahoma, not Las Vegas, holds the title of America’s casino capital

Focus on ultimate goal
Lifestyle

Focus on ultimate goal

Sadhguru
Helpful healing wisdom
Lifestyle

Helpful healing wisdom

Mita Mistry

More For You

Kim Kardashian's SKIMS opens on Regent Street, in the same country her love life won't stop making headlines

Kim Kardashian attends the 2026 Met Gala celebrating "Costume Art" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 04, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

Getty Images

Kim Kardashian's SKIMS opens on Regent Street, in the same country her love life won't stop making headlines

Key Highlights:

  • SKIMS has opened its first European flagship store, a 12,000 square foot site on London's Regent Street, its biggest single move into the UK market to date.
  • The store was designed by Rafael de Cárdenas, the same architect behind SKIMS' New York flagship, and features a nude sculpture by longtime collaborator Vanessa Beecroft.
  • The opening lands in the same summer Kardashian's relationship with Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton has been playing out publicly across Britain, from the Cotswolds to a shared trip through Tokyo.
There are a handful of people on earth whose store openings and whose love lives both make global news in the same breath. Kim Kardashian is one of them, and this summer, both have happened in the same country at the same time.
SKIMS, the shapewear brand she built into a multi-billion-dollar label, has just opened its first flagship store outside America, taking over a 12,000 square foot corner site on Regent Street. It's a genuine landmark for the brand. It's also, almost incidentally, happening in the exact country where her relationship with Lewis Hamilton has been playing out in public for months.

What does the store actually feel like inside?

Walk in, and the first thing you see is a towering nude sculpture by artist Vanessa Beecroft, lit from above by an oversized ceiling disc, framed by curved walls in the same fleshy, neutral tones SKIMS uses on its packaging. It's the kind of entrance built for a photo, and it's clearly meant to be one. The rest of the two-level store follows the same language throughout: soft curves, cream and beige everywhere, cabinets rounded enough to double as seats. It was designed by Rafael de Cárdenas, the same studio behind SKIMS' Fifth Avenue flagship in New York, so the London store deliberately echoes that one rather than starting from scratch.
Kardashian called London "one of the most inspiring fashion cities" in a statement marking the opening, and the choice to make it SKIMS' first flagship outside America wasn't accidental. Inside, shoppers get access to the brand's full UK range in one place for the first time, shapewear, loungewear, menswear, and the NikeSKIMS collaboration line, rather than piecing it together online.

Why has she been so visible in Britain this year?

Because the store isn't the only reason. Kardashian's relationship with Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton became public in February, and since then the pair have been photographed together at a private members' club in the Cotswolds, walking arm in arm through Tokyo, and browsing a Vivienne Westwood store on the same trip. It's the kind of relationship that seems to generate a new set of paparazzi photos every few weeks, in a different country each time.
Not everyone is convinced it's as simple as it looks. Some entertainment outlets have reported anonymous claims that the relationship functions partly as a "showmance," a strategically timed pairing rather than a purely private one. Neither Kardashian nor Hamilton has addressed that characterisation directly, and the two have a longer history than the recent headlines suggest, having first been photographed together at a London awards show back in 2014, years before either was linked to the other romantically.
SKIMS Regent Street, at a glance
Location245-247 Regent Street, London
Size12,000 sq ft, two levels
DesignerRafael de Cárdenas
Notable featureNude sculpture by Vanessa Beecroft
SignificanceSKIMS' first flagship store outside the US
Product rangeShapewear, loungewear, menswear, NikeSKIMS

Is any of this actually connected?

Not officially. There's no suggestion the store opening and the relationship were planned to overlap, and SKIMS has been building toward a European flagship since at least 2021, when a smaller Paris pop-up tested the same visual identity on a much smaller scale. But the coincidence is hard to ignore: for a few months this year, the two most-photographed parts of Kim Kardashian's life, the brand she built and the relationship everyone's trying to decode, have both been unfolding on the same small island, a few hundred miles apart from each other at most.

For a woman whose entire career has run on being watched, Britain's had an unusually good seat this year.