Shaheen Ghazaly

Shaheen Ghazali, the chef and owner of Kurrypinch, joins Five Rules for the Good Life to share his Five Rules for Getting to Know South Asian Cuisine. Born in Pakistan, raised in Sri Lanka, and shaped by years traveling the world as a marine cadet with his father, Shaheen approaches food through the lens of curiosity, evolution, and connection. This conversation goes far beyond the idea of “authenticity” and digs into how cuisines borrow, adapt, and grow over generations. From why spice doesn’t always mean heat to how curry is often misunderstood in the West, Shaheen breaks down the common language that exists across cultures and why understanding food means looking deeper than labels.What I love most about Shaheen’s approach is that he talks about food the way some people talk about music, art, or family history. There’s a calm confidence in the way he explains flavor, balance, and tradition without turning any of it into dogma. He understands that food is alive. It changes with migration, memory, trade, and circumstance. Sitting with him, you realize he’s less interested in defending a cuisine than inviting people into it. The best meals do that. They lower your guard, tell you a story, and make the unfamiliar feel personal. Shaheen cooks and speaks from that exact place.Five Rules for the Good Life is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.IntroductionHello and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life.I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz.Today I’m joined by Shaheen Ghazaly, the chef and owner of Kurrypinch, a Sri Lankan restaurant here in Los Angeles. He shares his five rules for getting to know South Asian cuisine.It’s about the fundamental understanding that food and cuisine is always evolving, that spice doesn’t always mean spicy, and that balance is the key ingredient to any successful meal. It is an incredibly philosophical conversation about cooking and global cuisine, and how anyone out there who wants to know more about what they’re eating should dive a little deeper.So let’s get into the rules.Shaheen, so nice to meet you.Thank you for stepping away from the very busy Curry Pint to sit down and chat with me for the show.Thank you for having me.You were born in Pakistan, raised in Sri Lanka, and spent a large part of your early life traveling with your father. How did that shape your outlook on food?Since I was a kid, my mom is a Pakistani, my dad is a Sri Lankan. When my mom passed away, we moved to Sri Lanka. My dad was taken care of, and since he was traveling, he taught us how to take care of ourselves by having limited ingredients at home to make food.Breakfast, whatever it’s available.That made me be creative and come up with my own way of food.Since I was 10 years old, I fell in love with food, not only by looking at my aunt cook, I just fell in love with it.We were not raised like most Sri Lankans. They go with the spices like heat, but we grew up having flavored and not too much heat going on.That deep love of food, is that what brought you to the United States to open a restaurant?No, the cooking was a hobby. I always enjoyed it. After I finished my college and everything, I started traveling with my dad. He was a captain in a ship. I joined the ship with him as a Marine Cadet officer and then I traveled the world.When we were growing up, we were limited to certain things or knowledge. For example, fish cutlets, that’s a Sri Lankan dish. But when I started traveling, then I learned it’s just a term that we use when it comes to the technique, the method. The ingredients are all very, very similar.This made me dig deep into culture and food.When I said traveling, I have been to many countries. Whenever we touched down at a port, my first thing would be to go and try many different cuisines. Their traditional food.So I wanted to bring, because Sri Lankan food is not that popular in LA, I just wanted to introduce our cuisine in a term people would understand.At the end of the day, the ingredients and the technique remained true to our culture, our background, and things like that.Was there a moment when you realized that enough people in LA, or the people who kept coming back to the restaurant, really understood what you were cooking and learned about the Sri Lankan food and the South Asian food you were serving?Not all of them.Sure.I have had so many times, “Oh, this is not authentic.”I’m like, there’s no such thing as authentic.Sure.Because in Sri Lanka, there are many regions, many parts, many cultur