Aneesa Waheed
Tara Kitchen
A dynamic chef with a gift for building complex flavors, Aneesa Waheed has been putting her own visionary stamp on Moroccan food for 12 years as Tara Kitchen’s founder and executive chef. Her modern, accessible take has converted diners across six Tara Kitchen locations—Tribeca; New York’s Capital Region; Wildwood, NJ; and her native Hyderabad, India—into... READ MORE
A dynamic chef with a gift for building complex flavors, Aneesa Waheed has been putting her own visionary stamp on Moroccan food for 12 years as Tara Kitchen’s founder and executive chef. Her modern, accessible take has converted diners across six Tara Kitchen locations—Tribeca; New York’s Capital Region; Wildwood, NJ; and her native Hyderabad, India—into aficionados of the cuisine.
Ironically, Aneesa, a former publishing professional, never dreamed of becoming a chef. Instead, her accidental career in food began with a love story: She was on vacation in Morocco when fell in love with the food, and with her husband, Muntasim Shoiab, a Pakistani-expat living there. Taking a leap of faith, the couple married, and Aneesa spent the next year flying from New York to Marrakech to visit him while waiting for approval of his U.S. visa.
It was on these visits that Aneesa honed her Moroccan cooking knowledge and skills, thanks to local friends, visits to the world-famous Jma el-Fna market, and trips throughout the country, where she learned about traditional cooking methods, ingredients, unique spice combinations, and flavor profiles. It was also there where the seeds of Tara Kitchen were sown: the dream of making this complex, ancient cuisine as widely known and beloved in the U.S. as others (such as Indian)—by packing flavor into every dish while simplifying processes and using widely available ingredients alongside traditional ones.
Aneesa and Muntasim eventually settled in Schenectady, opening what became a massively popular Moroccan food stall in the city’s greenmarket in 2008, as well as building a catering and cooking-class business. The locals’ embrace of this new, deeply satisfying food—laden with magical sweet and savory flavor—became a citywide addiction, leading Aneesa and Muntasim to open the first Tara Kitchen in downtown Schenectady in 2012. It was followed by two more in the surrounding Capital Region, and another in Wildwood, NJ. A fifth location opened in Tribeca in December 2022 to acclaim. A sixth restaurant debuted in Hyderabad in December 2023.
A born entrepreneur with a magnetic personality, who as a kid helped her mom sell jarred pickles in Mumbai, Aneesa also developed a line of Moroccan cooking sauces and spice blends, which are sold online. Her first cookbook, Easy Moroccan Cookbook: Quick and Simple Mediterranean Recipes was released in 2022. She’s been featured on Beat Bobby Flay, Guy’s Grocery Games, Kitchen Crashers, and other nationally aired TV shows, as well as a TEDx Talk. Aneesa, a mother of two equally driven daughters, is New York State’s 2024 Small Business Person of the Year.
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