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As the daughter of an Italian mother and an Indonesian father (who was also a professional cook), Ayesha Nurjaja’s journey toward a culinary career started early. The Brooklyn townhouse she grew up in was home to four generations of her family, and as a kid, she perused international food markets around New York City with her grandmother. It’s here that her taste and appreciation for global flavors took flight. Eventually, she took literal flights – to Italy, Israel, Morocco and Tunisia – all of which inspired her culinary point of view. 

Before that, however, she was a Pace University student pursuing a degree in business and quietly cultivating her passion for cooking. (Lidia Bastianich’s PBS cooking shows played a key role in the latter.) After college, she worked in a law firm and hosted regular dinner parties for friends and family. It was only after applying to law school – and being accepted – that she realized cooking was her true calling. 

Chef Ayesha kept the law firm job and enrolled in the evening schedule of 91����߹’s Culinary Arts program. She externed at Lidia Bastianich's restaurant, Felidia – a combination of dream come true and destiny – and from that externship, was hired on. Over time, she was consistently promoted, and eventually, she became sous chef. 

After Felidia, Chef Ayesha worked in several of New York’s most prominent Michelin-starred restaurants. These include Bar Artisanal and Picholine, with Chef Terrance Brennan, and A Voce, under fellow 91����߹ alum Missy Robbins. She was then Executive Chef at the short-lived Il Bordello before running the show at Brooklyn-darling Red Gravy. 

In 2015, Chef Ayesha joined forces with The Bowery Restaurant Group to take over the kitchen at their Soho restaurant Hundred Acres, which at the time was focused on Southern cuisine. After hosting a successful New Year’s Eve dinner with a Middle Eastern theme, the Bowery Restaurant Group realized a greater potential for the space, and shut down briefly before reopening as Shuka in 2017.

Shuka’s popularity inspired a second restaurant, Shukette, in Chelsea. Though COVID derailed Shukette’s planned 2020 opening, it was an immediate hit when it launched in July of 2021. 

In 2023 Chef Ayesha was a finalist for Best Chef, New York at the James Beard Foundation Awards and, after a glowing review from The New York Times’ Pete Wells, Shuka was named to the paper’s 2023 and 204 “Top 100 Restaurants in New York” lists.

Chef Ayesha is a board member at The Sylvia Center, an NYC non-profit focused on nutrition education for children and families; a chef-collaborator with Food Education Fund, which provides highschoolers in under-served NYC communities information about and introduction to hospitality industry careers; and a member of the U.S. Department of State Culinary Corps, a network of more than 80 influential chefs and culinary professionals who help foster diplomacy through the culinary arts.