Saqib Keval, Montalvo Center For The Arts

“Feed the mind, nourish the soul, fuel a movement.”

-The People’s Kitchen Collective

Masala y Maiz (Norma Listman & Saqib Keval)

 
 

Saqib comes from a lineage of migrants. His family are Kutchis from South Asia that migrated to Ethiopia as merchants and Kenya as farmers generations ago. He was born and raised in California in a richly diasporic community speaking Kutchi, Kiswahili and English and always maintaining close ties to the family mango farm in coastal Kenya. He learned to cook from his grandmothers, aunts and cousins and, through that, learned how to analyze recipes to trace migration patterns and family legacies. He lived and cooked in the South of France but is bored by the white supremacy of a food world that centers Eurocentric cooking techniques and narratives. He speaks five languages fluently and a handful of others less so. His favorite spice is cardamom but finds that it is often over used. 

He was a program director at the groundbreaking food justice organization People’s Grocery in Oakland CA. where he created The Growing Justice Institute, a food business incubator program. He also served as a national director at the worker’s rights organization Restaurant Opportunities Center where he helped support and organize worker-owned cooperative restaurants in cities across the United States. Saqib has lectured at conferences and universities around the world on topics at the intersections of food systems, art and political movements. He also provides consulting services for community-focused food projects. His years of experience in food justice activism and labor rights advocacy are tied deeply into his work as an artist, chef and restauranteur. In 2007 Saqib founded The People’s Kitchen as a grassroots political project which later became an internationally renowned Collective with co-founders Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik and Jocelyn Jackson. In 2017, Saqib moved to Mexico City to open Masala y Maiz, a social justice-focused restaurant exploring migration & mestizaje with his wife, co-chef & co-owner Norma Listman Sanchez. They have formed a restaurant group that now includes 2 restaurants, a worker owned cooperative grocery store and a chef residency program. They run their businesses with a workers & community first mentality, full financial transparency, a focus on radical hospitality and a collective leadership model they co-designed with Yamileth Melo. 

Saqib has dedicated his career to using food as a tool for decolonization and creating community-based businesses that bring political education & movement building to the table. Saqib uses food as a tool for liberation and believes deeply in the opportunities afforded by gathering around the table. 

 

People’s Kitchen Collective (Saqib Keval, Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, Jocelyn Jackson). Photo Credit: Sana Javeri Kadri