Aarti Sequeira

Northwestern University, Medill School of Journalism

Aarti Lucica Sequeira is an Indian chef and television personality, best known as the winner of the sixth season of Food Network's reality television show, The Next Food Network Star. As a result of that victory, her show Aarti Party premiered on the network on 22 August 2010. She had previously worked as a CNN news producer and in 2008 started the online cooking variety show Aarti Paarti. She currently hosts another cooking show, Taste in Translation, in which she seeks out the most popular dishes from around the world.

Aarti Sequeira was born in Mumbai on 19 August 1978 and raised in Dubai. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 2000. After graduation, Aarti worked as a producer for the cable news company CNN until 2003, before moving to Los Angeles, California.

Sequiera trained at the New School of Cooking in Culver City and in 2007 earned a professional certificate. In 2008, she started an online cooking variety show called Aarti Paarti. Drawing on the flavors of her childhood, Sequeira uses Indian ingredients in her cooking, and credits much of her culinary inspiration to her Indian cultural background and her mother's influence.

In 2010, Sequeira became a participant in the sixth season of The Next Food Network Star, a reality series on the Food Network. She was among 12 contestants participating in cooking competitions and on-camera challenges to determine who would be awarded their own culinary show on the network. Although Sequeira believed her experience with the Aarti Paarti online show would give her an advantage with the camera segments, she instead found them to be very challenging. Judges and critics were attracted to her bubbly personality, sense of humor, on-screen charisma and strong food. During the season finale on 15 August, Sequeira was selected as winner of The Next Food Network Star beating out two finalists. Her show Aarti Party focuses on sharing easy ways to enhance American favorite dishes with simple but unique Indian influences.