Burlap & Barrel’s Floyd Cardoz Spice Blends Are the Chef’s Delicious Legacy

When Barkha Cardoz toasts spices in a pan, the warming floral and earthy aromas in the air are a connection to her late husband, chef Floyd Cardoz. Cooking had always been a big part of their relationship, and blending and cooking with spices was a longtime area of creative partnership and collaboration.

Floyd and Barkha met at culinary school in India, reconnected in the U.S. in the late 1980s, and married in 1991. He made a name for himself as a chef, heading up acclaimed restaurants like Tabla, North End Grill, and Bombay Bread Bar in New York City and Mumbai, earning several James Beard Award nominations, and winning a season of Top Chef Masters. Although she collaborated with Floyd on projects like their New York restaurant Paowalla, Barkha wanted to do more. After their two sons left home for college, she and Floyd felt it was time to create a food business for her to focus on. They were working on a long-delayed project to develop and market spice blends when he died in March 2020.

“We had a few spice blends that we used at home that we bundled for the kids to take with them to college so they could cook with them,” Barkha says, recalling early conversations about the project. “I’d tease Floyd and say, ‘I’m doing all this with you; what am I going to do for myself?’”

In 2019, those conversations turned toward a business plan when Floyd approached Ethan Frisch, a former Tabla line cook who’d gone on to launch the specialty spice company Burlap & Barrel, about working together. “Floyd came home one day and said, ‘I’ve found the right guy for you to work with,’” Barkha recalls. “Floyd planned to consult on the project, but it was my baby. We were working on the blends, then Floyd went to India to open the Bombay Sweet Shop in winter 2020. We were supposed to sample them when he got back in March.”

Floyd contracted COVID-19 and died shortly after returning to New York. After his death, Barkha and Frisch reconnected and decided jointly to move forward with the project. “For me, the only way to keep Floyd alive was to cook and feed people, and Ethan felt the same way,” Barkha says. A line of spice blends was the perfect tribute.

Floyd was revered for his command of spices, and dozens of cooks who worked with him cite his influence in their cooking today. “I was drawn to everything he cooked,” recalls chef Dan Kluger of New York’s Loring Place of his seven years working with Floyd. “He used spices to create peaks and valleys of heat and texture in his cooking — every bite was a little different. Working with him, I learned how to create balance and use those pops of flavor from spices and chiles and acid to create food that’s truly exciting to eat.”

Barkha and Frisch launched Burlap & Barrel’s Floyd Cardoz Masalas, now called Cardoz Legacy Masalas, with three spice blends in 2020 and have since developed three more, including a vindaloo blend that evokes the flavors of Floyd’s mother’s personal recipe, a favorite of theirs. Floyd shared a version of his mother’s vindaloo blend with Food & Wine in 2017, using fragrant cinnamon, cumin, and turmeric to flavor juicy pork ribs vindaloo. The ribs are seasoned for at least 12 hours before cooking and are then braised, yielding tender meat and a rich, earthy sauce imbued with gentle heat that’s perfect for ladling over rice or dipping into with bread. Barkha’s jarred vindaloo masala makes the preparation simple, but the complexity of flavor in this dish was developed over years of her cooking with Floyd at home. 

“It was the scariest feeling, taking his legacy forward, but I felt that he was there, holding our hands through it,” says Barkha. “I still sense that Floyd shows up in the most unexpected moments and ways. I feel he guides us.”