Profile | From engineer to influencer to MasterChef finalist, this dad is subverting Indian stereotypes by spending time in the kitchen
- Harish Closepet wears many hats, from entrepreneur and civil engineer to social media star – he has half a million Instagram followers – and MasterChef finalist
- His love of cooking and care for his daughters’ health led to him experimenting in the kitchen to make lunchboxes, then stardom on social media and television
Civil engineer and entrepreneur Harish Closepet is not only the co-founder of Itsy Bitsy, India’s largest chain of arts and craft stores. He was also a top- five finalist on TV cookery show MasterChef India and he is the face behind hugely popular Instagram account @harrys_lunchbox.
As a boy, Closepet – the youngest of five siblings in Bangalore, South India – would often help his mother in the kitchen, while his father cooked during festivals and family gatherings.
It was while at college that Closepet started taking cooking seriously – the food in the student quarters was so awful that he began making his own to feed himself and his friends.
After he married his wife, Rashmi, and moved to Singapore in 1992, the couple took turns to cook and host dinner parties at home – and when he realised his two young daughters were becoming fussy eaters, he decided to make innovative lunchboxes for them.
