Saif Ali Khan, who played a restaurateur and chef in the 2005 musical romantic Salaam Namaste opposite Preity Zinta, now dons the chef's toque full time for Raja Krishna Menon's October release Chef. The Bollywood romantic comedy is an official remake of the 2004 Hollywood hit by the same name starring Robert Downey Jr.

This time, Saif prepared for the role by doing a stint in the J W Marriott kitchen at Mumbai under Executive Chef Himanshu Taneja. "Raja wanted me to be comfortable in my character and the role required me to handle high-pressure cooking of pastas. I must have cut tons of onions to get the action right," Saif revealed at the trailer launch of Chef.

The upshot of this was Saif fell in love with cooking. "I now look forward to turning out in the kitchen at home," he said, adding, "I find cooking very relaxing." He finds it easy to cook spaghetti. "But I can't cook Indian food very well," he admitted. Wife Kareena, however, has declared Saif persona non grata in the home kitchen! "That's because she finds spaghetti very fattening. She won't eat it. Whereas I love spaghetti with olives. It's so Italian," he said.

Who is his favourite chef? "Vikas Khanna," Saif told Peeping Moon. He found the New York-based Michelin chef from Amritsar very interesting. "He's a lovely guy," Saif said, "and an outstanding chef. He's one of the Top 10 in the US and told me what a struggle it was for him to get international repute. Chefs are inventors, they make such interesting things, like my Nepali cook Gopal at home who prepares the most amazing food."

Chef also features Dhanish Karthik, Dinesh Prabhakar, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Sachin Kamble, Shayan Munshi and the Canadian comedian of Indian descent, Russell Peter, in pivotal roles