Cheetie Kumar is an India- and Bronx-raised Southerner, musician, award-winning chef and restaurateur of Ajja and Big Cat restaurants in Raleigh, North Carolina.<\/p>\n
Ajja, located in the city\u2019s Five Points neighborhood, draws inspiration from the diverse foodways and cultures, bright spices and herbs, and cooking techniques of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and beyond. Ajja builds on the legacy of Cheetie\u2019s previous restaurant, Garland, and continues telling the rich story of North Carolina\u2019s growers, farmers and purveyors in a vibrant indoor-outdoor neighborhood restaurant.<\/p>\n
After opening in June 2023, Ajja quickly earned a James Beard Foundation Award semifinalist nomination for Best New Restaurant. Ajja was also named an Esquire Best New Restaurant, Eater\u2019s Best New Carolinas Restaurant <\/em>\u0648\u0623\u0641\u0636\u0644 \u0645\u0637\u0639\u0645 \u0641\u064a \u0631\u0627\u0644\u064a \u0645\u0646 \u0623\u0643\u0633\u064a\u0648\u0633<\/em>. In 2025, \u0627\u0644\u0630\u0648\u0642 \u0627\u0644\u0645\u062d\u0644\u064a<\/em> named Cheetie North Carolina\u2019s Best Chef.<\/p>\n In spring 2026, Cheetie and a collective of experienced Raleigh operators, including her husband Paul Siler, Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand recipients Angela Salamanca and Marshall Davis of Mala Pata, among others, and Justin Pasfield of Locals Seafood and other projects, opened Big Cat in Raleigh\u2019s East Mordecai neighborhood. Anchored on the corner of Brookside Drive at Glascock Street, Big Cat is a multi-concept operation featuring day-to-night offerings for the surrounding family-centric neighborhoods it serves.<\/p>\n Cheetie\u2019s refined and thoughtful cooking, filled with equal parts imagination, rebellion and soul, earned her two James Beard Foundation Award nominations (and six semifinalist nods) for \u201cBest Chef: Southeast\u201d for her multi-cultural menus.<\/p>\n As a child in India, Cheetie could often be found in the kitchen with her mother and grandmother watching and learning as they prepared daily meals. Her family held strongly to their culinary heritage, thoughtfully passing on generations\u2019 old techniques and authentic preparation since most recipes were not written down and much of this knowledge was lost in the partition. When Cheetie was eight years old, the Kumar family relocated to Bronx, NY. About that time, Cheetie shares: \u201cI was immersed in a world of various ethnicities and new cultures. Struggling to forge an identity in a new country, food and cooking were the languages that bridged my family and new friends. My desire to reconnect with the \u2018Northwestern provinces\u2019vof my family\u2019s heritage helped inspire the menu direction at Ajja.\u201d<\/p>\n After high school, Cheetie attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she majored in Psychology with minors in History and Comparative Literature. While there, she also earned a solid education in music production, show, band management, and promotion while working at the University\u2019s radio station and as part of the school concert board. It was those experiences that led to her move to Raleigh, NC, to pursue a career in music. In Raleigh, Cheetie found a community filled with creative musicians and artists, and she also discovered a culture rich in agriculture, racially diverse food sources, and a culinary history that is as complicated as it is delicious.<\/p>\n Cheetie is a self-taught cook who studied recipes while pursuing her career as a guitarist in bands The Cherry Valence and more recently, Birds of Avalon, alongside her husband and business partner, Paul Siler. The years they\u2019ve spent on tour, and as the owners of the music venue Kings and adjoining cocktail bar, Neptune\u2019s Parlour, taught Cheetie the value of the independent, artistic spirit that is the backbone of the Raleigh community where she and Paul find inspiration and are happy to call home.<\/p>\n \u062a\u0645 \u0639\u0631\u0636 \u0645\u0644\u0641 \u062a\u0639\u0631\u064a\u0641\u064a \u0644\u0640 Cheetie \u0641\u064a \u0627\u0644<\/em> \u0646\u064a\u0648\u064a\u0648\u0631\u0643 \u062a\u0627\u064a\u0645\u0632<\/em>, \u0627\u0644\u062d\u064a\u0627\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u062c\u0646\u0648\u0628\u064a\u0629 <\/em>\u0648 \u0648\u0648\u0644 \u0633\u062a\u0631\u064a\u062a \u062c\u0648\u0631\u0646\u0627\u0644<\/em>, among many other national publications.\u00a0 She is active in food advocacy and serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Independent Restaurant Coalition as well as the Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Southern Foodways Alliance.\u00a0 She also serves on the board and the Government Affairs Committee of NCRLA. Cheetie is part of World Central Kitchen\u2019s Chef Corps, a global network of culinary leaders who champion World Central Kitchen\u2019s work providing fresh meals following crises.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":9871,"template":"","class_list":["post-1030","chef","type-chef","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southernsmoke.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/chef\/1030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southernsmoke.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/chef"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southernsmoke.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chef"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southernsmoke.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southernsmoke.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"\u0648\u0648\u0631\u062f\u0628\u0631\u064a\u0633","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}