Floyd Cardoz's Last Supper

Raised in Bombay, India, Floyd Cardoz is the Executive Chef of North End Grill in Manhattan's Battery Park City neighborhood. His first cookbook, One Spice, Two Spice, features his favorite Indian foods and flavors and how to expertly add them to American cuisine. He has been awarded “Humanitarian of the Year,” launched a line of convenient “4-Minute Meals” and “Ready-to-Cook” entrées and most recently won Season Three of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters.

What would be your last meal on earth?

It would have to be seafood. As many kinds as I could get. Definitely crab, shrimp, calamari, clams, striped bass. Grilled, steamed, sauteed, stewed, with spice, without spice. A plethora of seafood, that's what I absolutely love. If I had the choice and someone said I couldn't eat seafood I would be so upset. Also caviar eaten as is. Maybe on some blini but with tons of caviar, maybe even golden ossetra. And a dish with morels and ramps.

I'd have my mom's xacutti. My mom makes this dish with young goat, toasted coconut, chilies, ginger, mace, nutmeg - it's got like 19 ingredients. Served with steamed basmati rice. For dessert there would be a dish called Bebinca, which is a Goan dish that has been influenced by the Portuguese. It's like a custard but instead of using milk you use coconut milk. Egg yolks, coconut milk and flour. It's made in seven layers. Each layer baked individually. Each layer caramelized.

What would you drink with your meal?

I'd start off with single malt scotch. Vintage Riesling. Followed by a Brunello. Magnums are good. Then finish it off with a cognac or a twenty-five year old single barrel scotch. That would be nice.

 What would be the setting for the meal?

I'd be on a beach. Not exactly in the middle of summer but at summers end so it's not too hot. Wind, palm trees, water and charcoal fires where I could cook the fish. It would be sunset and there would be a few hammocks lying around.

Who would prepare the meal?

I couldn't. I would be with my family: my mom, dad, wife and kids. A couple of my friends who can cook and eat would be there and we'd all be cooking together, BS-ing around the fireplace, enjoying the meal. Maybe there would even be a pig roasting there somewhere.

Would there be music?

Elvis Costello would be playing an acoustic guitar. He's pretty cool on the acoustic guitar.