Nayan Desai

Nayan was born in Iowa, raised in Zimbabwe, and started his love affair with Texas in 2002. After leaving a career in technology sales, he transitioned to cooking professionally in 2011. He worked at Uchiko and Odd Duck before becoming Chef de Cuisine at Lenoir and Executive Chef at Launderette. He now serves as the Program Chef for a K–12 school district, where he brings creativity and care to the public school system.

His food is inspired by growing up in a traditional Gujarati household—where his grandmother grew nearly everything herself—and shaped by more than two decades of living and cooking in Texas.