If you only know Chef Ayesha Nurdjaja as a Titan from Bobby’s Triple Threat on The Food Network, you don’t know her very well. The Brooklyn born-and-bred chef—who still lives in Gravesend, where she was raised, just a few blocks from her mother, has thrice been nominated for a James Beard Award.
A veteran of the New York restaurant scene, she trained under heavyweights Lidia Bastianich, Missy Robbins, and Terrance Brennan, before opening her own restaurants, Shuka and Shukette. She also has a cookbook coming this October, Mediterranean All the Way: Bold Flavors, Built to Share. It’s Nurdjaja’s first and brings recipes like green rice, kababs, and her Big Fat Greek Salad, as well as her food philosophy, “rip it and dip it,” to home kitchens everywhere. She tells Edible Manhattan editor in chief, John Ortved, about her Gravesend roots, the secret to good feta, and why her next Shuk could be a pizza place.
Your accent is so stereotypically Brooklyn. It’s like you’re putting it on.
I wish. My brother needs subtitles. But this is it: I’m very proud of it.
You’ve got an Indonesian father, an Italian mother, you’re raised in Brooklyn…
I like to say that there was turmeric in my baby bottle. My dad was a chef. He could cook anything. But when he came home, he would cook Indonesian food.
Did you follow your dad into the world of food?
I never really helped in the kitchen. I was enamored by Lidia Bastianich and her restaurant Felidia, and I got to stage there [in culinary school]. I was stuck in between the dish pit and the pasta station: I was sitting in the front row of the kitchen ballet.
Was there someone or somewhere that gave you a special dose of training?
I think Felidia shaped me into the chef I am today.
What kind of chef is that?
I have high standards. I think I’m tough, but soft in other ways. I have a lot of people that worked for me for over 15 years. I think working my way up in the restaurant business was a very good thing for me.
How did it feel stepping on to a cooking show? There’s that old trope that real chefs aren’t
on TV.
I think it was very natural. I have 20-plus years in the kitchen, all in New York City. It would be silly to question my credibility. People that see me on TV come into the restaurants, and they’re like, “Oh my God. You’re here!” Yeah, I have a real job: It’s the restaurants.
What’s your after-work drink?
There are several. If I’m feeling fancy, a glass of Blanc de blancs Champagne always does it for me. But I’m a gin martini person: Beefeater with a twist of lemon.
That’s exactly how I take it. Why did you decide to do a book now?
Starting as a chef, you’re cooking someone else’s food. So my Italian experience was cooking like Lidia, cooking like Missy. And then you come to a point that you realize, “Hey, I have my own voice.” About 10 years ago, I very much felt that voice develop. I thought, “I should write a book.”
You’ve got rice dishes in here, including a green rice, which I’ve never even seen before.
You just make a paste with the herbs: there’s scallions, parsley, garlic, serrano chilies, baby spinach, and cilantro. And then as you’re cooking the rice with the water, that paste goes in.
You put a Greek salad on the cover. Feel free to smack me if I got that wrong.
No, no. It’s called my Big Fat Greek Salad.
I can never find the right feta.
You have to find feta that’s not commercially made. It has to have that distinct salinity to it. And I prefer sheep’s milk over cow’s.
Same. I like mine crumbly.
The crumbliness is a choice. I like it torn into larger pieces. I find when it’s too crumbled, then it emulsifies in everything that you’re doing. Go to a cheese shop. If you’re in Brooklyn, go to Sahadi’s.
I love Sahadi’s. Is there a recipe in here that you feel is like your baby?
I think there are two: The first recipe that I made for a restaurant that was my own was this escarole salad with Meyer lemon vinaigrette and basil. And then the broccolini salad. It’s got medjool dates in it.
Guess where I get my dates.
Sahadi’s.
Sahadi’s. I find shopping there such a pleasurable experience.
That’s my kind of shopping. Have you ever been to SOS Chefs? Avenue B and 7th. Her name is Atef. She greets you in the store as if she’s greeting you in her home. But if you like spices, jams, vinegars—she has them there.
I mentioned “babies” with your recipes—do you have kids?
I have two restaurants. One’s five. One’s nine. That’s it.
Shuka. Shukette. What’s with the “Shuk”?
I wanted something that wasn’t for one denomination of people and that gave you some Middle Eastern vibes, without it being like straight on the nose.
What kind of cuisine are you approaching there?
I call it Mediterranean Middle Eastern. Geography is not my thing. It’s all about taking the flavors and the spices of the Levant and filtering them through my eyes. Cooking local and sustainable is really important to me.
Can we name your style of cooking?
It’s the rip and dip, baby. There’s no forks allowed. You need pita. And all of these dishes go together. There’s never two things in this book where you’d say, “Don’t eat that with that.”
Who’d you make this book for?
Me. But also really for people. I feel like everybody has the ability to learn. I wanted
to write a book that could really highlight the flavors and my style of Mediterranean flavor profile but done for the home cook. The Mediterranean diet is not a fad. People want to eat this way, and it’s going to remain forever. This could have been a vegetarian book very easily.
Where do you go out in Gravesend?
Michael’s of Brooklyn; it’s old school Italian. Super delicious. La Polina would be another. The martinis there are phenomenal, and so are the big clams. We used to be the pizza capital of the world, but I think, generationally, it dipped off. I would hope to bring that back one day.
Do you actually want to have a pizza place?
I think my inside person would want to have one. I think every neighborhood should experience a really great slice. They call it the New York slice, but I think it’s a Brooklyn slice.
Mediterranean All the Way” Copyright © 2026 by Rip and Dip IP Holdings, LLC. Photographs copyright © 2026 by Ed Anderson. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group.
Shuka: 38 MacDougal St, New York, NY 10012
Shukette: 230 9th Ave, New York, NY 10001
