Reimagining Tribal Cuisine for the Gourmet World
About Tanisha Phanbuh
Multi-disciplinary artist and culinary maven, Tanisha Phanbuh is the founder and director of Tribal Gourmet – a platform for showcasing North East’s gastronomical delights. Through this venture, Tanisha aims to showcase the diversity of India’s North Eastern region to the rest of the world by transforming local foods into gourmet delights.
A self-taught expert in the world of food, Tanisha started her professional journey with Ek Bar, New Delhi as the head of house guest relations. Being her first job in the food space, Tanisha fondly remembers her time at Ek Bar, and considers herself very lucky to have stepped into Ek Bar as it taught her everything she understands and knows about the industry today. It was here that Tanisha got the opportunity to open her first northeastern food pop-up.
After her stint at Ek Bar, Tanisha participated in Asia’s first women-only food truck cooking competition, Femme Foodies in 2017 and went on to reach the final round finishing 4th. It was here that she earned the “Tribal Gourmet” tag by Chef
Ranveer Brar for showcasing gourmet versions of northeastern food, which later went on to become the inspiration behind the venture’s name. Tanisha has successfully done multiple food pop-ups at places like Olive, Whisky Samba,
Cocktails and Dreams Speakeasy, The Park Hotel, The Pullman Hotel and The Meghalayan Age, all of which have been well received by people. Tanisha has also been a proud participant in Masterchef India Season 6, having reached the top 20 contestants of the season. Hills On A Plate is the latest show she has been on where she finished runners up. It is airing on Jio Cinema and is a culinary tourism showcase of Meghalaya.
Tribal Gourmet is an amalgamation of Tribal traditional food and Gourmet elevated techniques and thought. The idea behind the pop-ups is to spread the word about Northeastern food & culture across India and the globe constructing the menu’s to be inviting and approachable and giving our guests a unique experience.
We work on every kind of model depending on our host restaurants/bars/hotels and do purely traditional dishes as eaten across the Northeast or change the form of the dishes whilst maintaining flavour integrity.