Chef on the Road | Jharkhand
Nine travellers came together for an immersive 4-day travel experience, savouring freshly-harvested Mahua flowers, trekking through lush landscapes, and sharing meals with local communities.
Chef On The Road
Over a decade of travelling through India’s kitchens, farms, forests, and food memories. Discover the journeys that have played an integral part in shaping ChefTZac and The Locavore—along with upcoming trips you can join!
Conceptualised by The Locavore’s founder, Chef Thomas Zacharias (ChefTZac), Chef on the Road began in 2013 as a way of learning about food beyond restaurant kitchens and cookbooks.
What started as solo, on-the-road research grew into a long-term exploration of India’s regional food cultures—shaped by cooking in homes, exploring markets, spending time with farmers, foragers, and fishers, and learning from people whose knowledge rarely enters mainstream narratives of Indian cuisine.
Over time, COTR became less about documenting food and more about understanding the systems around it: land, labour, season, ecology, memory, and choice.
Today, Chef on the Road exists in two forms:
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Ongoing research and documentation, led by ChefTZac
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Small-group journeys, where this way of travelling and learning is shared carefully with others
Each group journey is designed to be slow, place-led, and participatory—bringing together travellers, cooks, and producers to learn how food actually lives in specific landscapes, seasons, and communities.
Upcoming COTR Trips: Feb – Mar 2026
🗓 28th February – 1st March 2026
An immersive Chef on the Road journey through Two Brothers’ ancestral farm in Bhodani village, exploring what organic farming looks like in practice—across soil, dairy, crops, and everyday decision-making in rural Maharashtra.
🗓 7th – 13th March 2026
A Chef on the Road journey through the Lower Dibang Valley, learning from Idu Mishmi food traditions within the Elopa–Etugu Community Eco-Cultural Preserve (EECEP)—a community-led landscape where food, conservation, and customary law are deeply intertwined.
🗓 25th – 28 March 2026
Chef on the Road returns to Jharkhand this March in collaboration with Wild Harvest and the Ekastha Foundation—a food-led journey through Ranchi, Jonha, and Hazaribagh, timed with the Mahua harvest.
How Chef on the Road Works
Every COTR journey is different by design. Some take place deep in forests; others unfold on farms, in small towns, or around kitchen fires. Whether it’s cooking with foraged ingredients in Jharkhand or sharing a 35-dish long traditional breakfast in Jokai, each journey reflects ChefTZac’s belief that food is best understood through time, context, and participation.
What remains constant is the approach:
- Small groups and slow travel
- Learning through participation, not demonstration
- Food understood in context—of land, season, labour, and culture
- Experiences shaped by hosts and local rhythms, not fixed itineraries
- These are not sightseeing trips. They are opportunities to spend time in real places, with real people, and return with sharper questions about how and why we eat.
Past COTR Trips
Chef on the Road | Jokai
Our four-day trip to Jokai, a small town in Assam, included a traditional 35-dish breakfast, tours of Jokai’s oldest plantations, and many, many, cups of tea.
Have questions? Write to us at connect@thelocavore.in
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