Representative image. Chef Damu, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Why it matters
For millions of Tamil households, Chef Damu was the face of home cooking on television for over two decades. His work also reached school plates: the midday meal recipes he helped design and the 1.4 lakh cooks he trained shaped what children in government schools ate.
Chef Damu, the Padma Shri awardee known to Tamil television viewers as a judge on the cooking show Cooku with Comali, died in Chennai on Sunday, 25 October 2026. He was 72. Reports said he had been in poor health for some time; no detailed cause has been given publicly.
His full name was K. Damodharan (some outlets spell it Damodaran). Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay condoled his death in a post on X, saying the chef had brought cooking closer to ordinary people through television and that his passing was a great loss to the culinary world, The Hindu reported. Media Masons, a media firm, also confirmed the death in a social media post, Mint reported.
How Chef Damu became a television favourite
Long before reality TV, Damodharan was a fixture of Tamil cooking programmes. His Padma Shri citation, quoted by Mint, credits him with hosting cookery shows on Raj TV, Pothigai, Jaya TV and Vijay TV over 22 years. His screen work later moved to YouTube as well, The Economic Times noted.
The wider fame came with Cooku with Comali on Star Vijay, a cooking competition in which contestants are paired with comedians, called “comalis”, who make the cooking harder and funnier. As a judge, his easy manner with contestants earned him the nickname “Damu Appa” (appa means father in Tamil) among viewers. Season 7 premiered on 4 April 2026 and ended on 30 August.
He had faced false reports of his death once already this year. In August, after he was missing from a semi-final episode, he posted a video saying he was alive and well, explaining that an injection in his leg had kept him away and that he had taken part in the finale, according to reports at the time.
From hotel kitchens to a Guinness World Record
Born on 3 September 1954 in Tamil Nadu, Damodharan studied hotel management and catering at the Institute of Hotel Management in Taramani, Chennai, and started as a management trainee with the Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation. He began, by his own account to The Better India, by washing dishes in hotel kitchens. He went on to earn a commerce degree, a management degree (MBA) and, according to Mint, became the first Indian chef with a PhD in hotel management and catering technology.
On 22 December 2010 he set a Guinness World Record for the longest cooking marathon by one person, preparing 617 dishes weighing 190 kg in 24 hours, 30 minutes and 12 seconds. That works out to roughly one dish every 2 minutes 23 seconds, by NewsPlainly’s calculation. He later set Guinness records for the longest dosa, made in Madurai in 2012, and the largest curry, cooked in Little India, Singapore, in 2014.
Chef Damu’s life in key dates
His career ran across classrooms, government kitchens and television studios. The timeline below joins the dates reported by Mint, The Economic Times and The Hindu.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1954 | Born on 3 September in Tamil Nadu |
| 1986 | Began teaching; later headed three Chennai catering institutes |
| 2008 and 2011 | Worked with the state on its midday meal scheme for 1.68 crore schoolchildren |
| 2010 | Guinness record: 617 dishes in about 24.5 hours |
| 2012 and 2014 | Guinness records for longest dosa (Madurai) and largest curry (Singapore) |
| 2019 | Tasted 12,000 dishes across Tamil Nadu in 13 days |
| 2025 | Awarded the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian honour |
| 2026 | Judged Cooku with Comali season 7; died on 25 October, aged 72 |
The Padma Shri chef’s work beyond the screen
Much of what the Padma Shri citation lists happened away from cameras. When the Tamil Nadu government reworked its midday meal scheme in 2008 and 2011, he helped add eight rice dishes and six egg dishes for 1.68 crore schoolchildren, and trained 1.4 lakh meal workers across 32 districts, Mint reported. The state’s Social Welfare Department sent videos of his demonstrations to villages to train cooks.
He wrote 17 cookbooks for home cooks containing 2,700 recipes, plus four textbooks for catering students. Chettinad food, the spicy cuisine of the Karaikudi region, was his particular interest; he travelled there almost every weekend to collect recipes and made his own spice blends. He helped more than 6,000 catering students find hotel jobs, and in 2019 he trained a team of 10 Indian chefs who won four gold medals at the Food Olympia, according to Mint.
Other honours included the Culinary Legend Award from the World Tamil Organization in London and a lifetime achievement award from SRM University and Nestle, both in 2021.
What his death means for Cooku with Comali viewers
Star Vijay has not announced any change to the show’s plans, and no statement from the channel on his death had been reported by Sunday afternoon. Season 7 had already finished its run in August. Tributes came from across the food world, including chef Sanjeev Kapoor, Asianet Newsable reported.
Details of the funeral had not been published at the time of writing. For more from Indian reality television, read our report on Rohit Shetty’s Bigg Boss 20 promo.
Frequently asked questions
How did Chef Damu die?
Reports said he died after a period of ill health. No detailed cause had been made public by Sunday afternoon.
What was Chef Damu's Guinness World Record?
On 22 December 2010 he cooked 617 dishes weighing 190 kg in 24 hours, 30 minutes and 12 seconds, the longest individual cooking marathon.
When did Chef Damu get the Padma Shri?
In 2025, for his contribution to the culinary arts.
Was Chef Damu in the latest Cooku with Comali season?
Yes. He was a judge in season 7, which ran on Star Vijay from 4 April to 30 August 2026.