A dynamic chef with a gift for building complex flavors, Aneesa Waheed has been putting her own visionary stamp on Moroccan food for 12 years as Tara Kitchen’s founder and executive chef. Her modern, accessible take has converted diners across six Tara Kitchen locations—Tribeca; New York’s Capital Region; Wildwood, NJ; and her native Hyderabad, India—into aficionados of the cuisine.

Ironically, Aneesa, a former publishing professional, never dreamed of becoming a chef. Instead, her accidental career in food began with a love story: She was on vacation in Morocco when she fell in love with the food, and with her husband, Muntasim Shoiab, a Pakistani-expat living there. Taking a leap of faith, the couple married, and Aneesa spent the next year flying from New York to Marrakech to visit him while waiting for approval of his U.S. visa. It was on these visits that Aneesa honed her Moroccan cooking knowledge and skills, thanks to local friends, visits to the world-famous Jma el-Fna market, and trips throughout the country, where she learned about traditional cooking methods, ingredients, unique spice combinations, and flavor profiles. It was also there where the seeds of Tara Kitchen were sown: the dream of making this complex, ancient cuisine as widely known and beloved in the U.S. as others (such as Indian)—by packing flavor into every dish while simplifying processes and using widely available ingredients alongside traditional ones.