Anup Joshi was working at All Spice in San Mateo, California, when he received a call from his former boss, Seamus Mullen, inviting him to come back to New York City to help him open Tertulia. Though it may seem unusual for a chef to leave a modern Indian restaurant in California for a Spanish one in Manhattan, it was a homecoming for Joshi, 27, who worked with Mullen at Mullen’s first restaurant, Boqueria. A native of Chester, New Jersey, Joshi has traveled extensively, most recently spending six months in Pune, India, cooking alongside his grandmother. For Tasting Table, he prepared an inspired take on sambhar, loaded with vegetables he purchased at Patel Brothers, an Indian grocery in Jackson Heights, Queens, not far from where he lives.

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