Padma Lakshmi

Padma Lakshmi is a television host, producer, model, author and food expert best known for hosting Bravo’s Top Chef and creating and hosting Hulu’s Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi. Lakshmi was born in Chennai, India, and moved to the United States as a child, growing up in New York and California. She graduated from William Workman High School in 1988 before attending Clark University in Massachusetts, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in theater arts and American literature in 1992. While studying abroad in Spain, she was discovered by a modeling scout.

Lakshmi began her career as a fashion model, working in Europe and the U.S. for designers including Armani, Versace and Ralph Lauren. She went on to pursue acting, appearing in film and television productions including The Son of Sandokan, Wasteland, The Mistress of Spices (2005), 30 Rock and Brooklyn Coffee Shop. She also hosted Food Network segments including Padma’s Passport before landing a hosting role on Planet Food. In 2006, she joined Top Chef as host, and she remained with the Bravo series for 19 seasons, later serving as an executive producer. From 2020 to 2023, she also hosted the Hulu series Taste the Nation.

Lakshmi has received multiple Emmy nominations for Top Chef and Taste the Nation, while Taste the Nation: Holiday Edition won a James Beard Foundation Award in 2022. Her cookbook Easy Exotic (1999) won Best First Book at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. She is also the author of Love, Loss and What We Ate (2016) and Tomatoes for Neela (2021).

Lakshmi was married to novelist Salman Rushdie from 2004 to 2007. She shares daughter Krishna Thea (born in 2010) with businessman Adam Dell. Lakshmi and Dell maintained an on-and-off relationship over the years before splitting and agreeing to coparent their daughter.