Inside Chef Avinash Martins’s kitchen: Memory, Goan flavours and a life rewritten

As he sharpens his knife and begins chopping red, juicy carrots, pumpkin, sweet potato and portobello mushrooms, his fatigue seems to evaporate. Ginger, onion, tomato, garlic, coriander and curry leaves follow, laid out with the confidence of someone at home in the kitchen.

A meat lover, Martins’s relationship with vegetables transformed during the COVID years when he began working closely with farmers. “All my produce comes from my village, Velim (in Salcete, South Goa),” he says. “They don’t use fertilisers; it’s all cow dung and natural manure.”

Soon, a Dutch pot goes onto the stove, oil heats up, whole spices crackle, releasing an aromatic waft in the air. Ginger and onion follow a garlic-and-curry-leaves paste. The vegetable chunks go in next, then milk, coconut milk cream, pepper and finally salt. Alongside, a salad comes together effortlessly. Martins warms ladi pav in butter, cracks eggs for omelettes and reheats a pre-prepared Goan curry of white peas and beans — a popular local breakfast dish.

What’s striking is the quiet rhythm between Martins and his wife as they work in sync. In no time, the table is laid out and we eat a generous, comforting brunch.

It is hard to imagine now but Martins was destined for a life at sea. Like his grandfather and father before him, he trained to be a mariner. The pull of the kitchen came from his grandmother, with whom he grew up. “My earliest food memories are of my granny,” he says later, sitting on the balcony of his bungalow in Gogol, surrounded by lush greenery. “She was a culinarian. During Portuguese-ruled Goa, she studied cooking at a convent school.”

At home, food was elaborate and celebratory. Chicken pate ankru — minced chicken stuffed with olives and baked like bread — was a staple. “I thought that’s what food looked like in everyone’s house,” he laughs. His father brought North Indian influences from time spent in Mumbai, while his mother cooked traditional Goan dishes like fish curry and masala rawas. “Every occasion called for a celebration.”

Martins began cooking young. French fries came first, then omelettes, stir-fries, biryani, chilli chicken and fried rice. “By the time I was in Class 12, I could cook quite a lot. My aunts would call me over when they had guests and ask me to make a few dishes,” he recalls.

Chef Avinash Martins in the kitchen of his Goa home. (Express photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee)

Still, the culinary world wasn’t his first choice. He went to sea but that life didn’t suit him. “I’m driven by emotion, not logic,” he says. “Sometimes the sea was so rough you wouldn’t know if there was a tomorrow. I missed home.” He returned, much to his family’s disappointment, and decided to become a chef. “They couldn’t understand — captain to bawarchi?,” he animates the disapproval.

Martins trained at the Swiss Asian Hotel School in Ooty and later at the Oberoi Centre for Learning and Development. At the Oberoi, he was part of the team at 360°, working in one of India’s earliest live-kitchen concepts. “We were doing sales of Rs 9-12 lakh a day, Rs 13 lakh on Sunday brunches back in 2012,” he says. The guest list was elite, and Martins built strong relationships. “I ended up developing a rapport with the Gandhi family, the Dutts, the Munjals, Jindals, Kapoors, etc. They were on my dial list. In my exit interview, Mr Oberoi called my departure a loss for the group.”

Yet, he chose not to capitalise on those contacts immediately. Instead, he worked internationally with Michelin star restaurant chefs like Georges Blanc, Gary Danko and Thomas Keller. When he returned to Goa in 2013, and decided to open his own restaurant Cavatina in Benaulim, few knew his name. The location was deliberately off the beaten path. “It’s not ‘on the way’. You have to plan and come,” he says. The early years were brutal. “There were weeks with no guests. We broke fixed deposits to pay salaries.”

To survive, Martins took on every opportunity he could find to make money — catering for a school canteen, managing F&B for a small 20-room hotel, renting out an event space, opening a burger joint. “Now I can sit back and be selective because I know my positioning in the market and I have accounts like G20, the Ambanis, the Godrejs but at that point, I wouldn’t let go of even the smallest catering opportunity,” he says. “To be an entrepreneur, you need the heart of a lion.”

COVID marked a turning point. Forced to shut the event space, Martins focused entirely on Cavatina. With time on his hands, he began spending it with farmers, fishers, basket weavers and toddy tappers. “That’s when I realised that if I don’t tell their stories through my food, I’m a soulless chef,” he says.

One dish at Cavatina is inspired by the Dhangar community, nomadic goat herders. Martins discovered their handmade goat’s milk cheese, reminiscent of French chèvre, and turned it into a plated dish named after the community. “People noticed. They connected.”

The recognition grew, peaking when Martins cooked at Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s wedding. “I cooked eight vegetarian, pre-plated dishes for 800 people,” he says.

Last year, Martins opened Janot at the Panjim Gymkhana, overlooking the Bhausaheb Bandodkar Ground. The food, he insists, resists labels. “If tomato and mozzarella can come together so beautifully, who are we to say it’s Italian?” he asks. His cuisine is ingredient-agnostic, flavour-forward and deeply rooted in story. For Martins, the journey from sea to stove has been anything but linear — and that, perhaps, is exactly the point.

Vegetable Stew. (Express photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee)

RECIPE for Vegetable Stew:

INGREDIENTS:

Oil – 2 tbsp

Fennel – 1 tsp

Cinnamon – 1-inch stick

Cloves – 6

Bay leaf – 1 small

Ginger (sliced) – 1-inch piece

Green chilli (slit) – 4

Garlic (crushed) – 6 cloves

Curry leaf (crushed) – a few

Onion (sliced) – 2 medium

Pumpkin – 100 gm

Portobello mushrooms – 100 gm

Sweet Potato – 100 gm

Carrot – 100 gm

Tomato – 1 diced

Garam masala – 1 tsp

Coconut milk – 2 cups

Fresh coriander – 1 handful

Salt & pepper to taste

Method

1. Wash, peel and cut all vegetables into large, even-sized pieces.
2. Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add fennel seeds, cinnamon, cloves and bay leaf. Let the spices roast until fragrant.
3. Add sliced ginger and sauté briefly, followed by the onions. Cook until soft and translucent.
4. Crush the garlic and curry leaves together using a pestle and mortar, then add to the pot along with the green chillies.
5. Add all the vegetables and sauté for a few minutes, allowing them to absorb the aromatics.
6. Pour in the coconut milk and bring to a gentle simmer.
7. Season with garam masala, salt and freshly ground pepper. Cook until the vegetables are tender but not mushy.
8. Finish with fresh coriander and serve warm.