Chef Highlight: Anand Sastry of Highway Restaurant & Bar

At the helm of Highway Restaurant & Bar in East Hampton and Main Street Tavern in Amagansett is Chef Anand Sastry, who uses his many years of round-the-world experience to create balanced menus of savory dishes and seasonal favorites.

Sastry, born and raised in the United Kingdom, has decades of experience working in some of the best restaurants in the world, including the Michelin three-star Troisgros in France and Eleven Madison Park in New York City, in addition to his tenure as private chef to King Hussein of Jordan. Food was a big part of Sastry’s upbringing, and he knew he wanted to be a chef by age 14. At home, his family grew a lot of their own fruits and vegetables, and he worked part-time in a butcher’s shop on the weekends. He was mostly inspired by his mother’s home cooking. She is an accomplished cook, particularly with Indian cuisine, and always fed his large family well.

His biggest influence has been Marco Pierre White, a British chef, restaurateur and television personality. He’s also worked in some of the best restaurants in New York City like Eleven Madison and Le Bernardin. The teams from these restaurants changed his approach to cooking and influenced him tremendously.

In his spare time, he loves to watch his son play soccer; his music loves are Red, Queen and Coldplay. His dream trip: To Brazil’s Amazon!

To learn how and where to taste his perfectly balanced cuisine, visit highwayrestaurant.com or mainstreettavern.com.