Ashish Tulsian: 

I’d love to know how it all started.

 

Silvena Rowe: 

I come from a very ancient part of the world, one of the oldest countries in the Balkans, in Europe, Bulgaria. Our food is beautiful, it’s vibrant, it’s real, it’s unadulterated. Food was a source of excitement from very early on. I was very greedy in a sense of wanting to eat all the time. Pushtenliva, it means when you see somebody eating, you want their food, you want to grab their food. I was the food writer for The Guardian for four years. I did a lot of TV, I was on BBC cooking, I was on ABC as well. I did 15 cookbooks that were sold in many languages. I was in Bulgaria for three years doing MasterChef, being part of The Judge. There may be four major cuisines for me in the world. So I would say Indian, French and of course Ottoman and Chinese. And Ottoman cuisine has thousands of recipes on patlajan or aubergine.

 

Ashish Tulsian: 

I feel health food or healthy food, whenever you put a label to that, especially in the context of restaurants, it goes boring.

 

Silvena Rowe: 

No such a thing as healthy food. I’m sorry, this is a cop-out. This is BS and I’ll tell you why. Because I have a beautiful brand called Dose by Silvena, which is stepped very deeply into the principles of longevity and biohacking.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

What has changed post Dose?

 

Silvena Rowe: 

We did not expect such, alhamdulillah, success in two and a half years. We need to really learn to walk properly before we run. But I have two amazing partners. My partners are great, they’re decent. Ingredients that earth and God has put into our food, you create this umami, you create this insatiable desire to feel life through food because food is life.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Hi, welcome to Restrocast. Today, my guest on the pod is somebody who can rightfully boast of doing something that only she’s doing in this world. We have Chef Silvena Rowe today. And Chef Silvena is the name behind Dose by Silvena that is taking the world by storm. But the most amazing thing about her is that she carries a strong 38 years legacy behind her that is truly global. A Bulgarian chef that takes a lot of pride in her Bulgarian upbringing, its history, its culinary, you know, prowess. Somebody who cooked for some of the top families in London to, you know, running great restaurants there. And did not really shy away from reinventing herself. Studied to be a longevity science chef. Somebody who is right now also a professor in Geneva, teaching longevity food to the world. With Dose, what she’s doing is not only incredible, the pace at which Dose by Silvena is growing is worth looking at. I had great conversation with her. I’m still absorbing a lot of information from that conversation. I’m sure you’re going to take notes. Enjoy. Welcome to Restrocast. Silvena, welcome to Restrocast.

 

Silvena Rowe: 

Thank you. Very wonderful to be here.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You know, I was reading a lot and, you know, our team did a lot of research on you. And I’m so tempted to dive into the, you know, deeper end of the longevity and food as medicine. But, you know, before that, I would love to know how it all started. Tell me about your early years. If we can go back to your, you know, childhood. And then how did you land into this?

 

Silvena Rowe:

I come from a very ancient part of the world. Probably one of the oldest countries in the Balkans in Europe, Bulgaria. So I have Turkish roots. My father is from Turkish Ottoman origin. My mother is Bulgarian. And I come from a city that steeps very deeply in Ottoman, after that Greek and before that Roman roots. So all these amazing influences, they didn’t just influence architecture and habits and kind of daily lives. They influenced food. So our food is beautiful, it’s vibrant, it’s real, it’s unadulterated. It’s honest, it’s decent, it’s unprocessed. Of course, this was my childhood food. Nowadays, like everywhere in Europe, it’s a little bit more complicated.

The fast food has entered the scene. People are busy, people are stressed. And it’s very difficult for them to understand that eating bad food is actually the beginning and end of inflammation in our bodies. Sooner or later, it’s going to hit you. There is just no shortcut. The problem is that when you eat bad food, it’s like the speed of a snail. It takes time, it takes years. It accumulates within you. Them antibiotics, them nasties, them artificial flavors and colorants, they are hiding themselves slowly, slowly, slowly. And then you wonder how at 40 I have cancer, you know, very often. Because we now know one thing is for sure. Genetically, we are our genes, no more than 20%.

So you may have the most incredible genes in the world with parents and grandparents and great-grandparents that lived 200 years. If you live badly, if you slept badly, if you ate badly, if you had stress, it doesn’t matter that you will suffer, you will become sick. And the other way around, if you had terrible, terrible genes, but you have amazing epigenetics, amazing lifestyle, you can really come much better out of it. So my life started as the daughter of one of the most prominent men in the most beautiful city in Bulgaria, Filippopolis or Plovdiv, which is built on seven hills where the ancient stone roads still pulsate with the memories and the whisper of the past, where we are surrounded by Roman artifacts everywhere, where you stepped in this culture and history, and where you know you have provenance. And education was education. I will never say a bad word about communism because education was education.

 

Even so, my father was partly persecuted because he was from Turkish origin. And I still would say that we had certain amazing, carefree, very sultry lives during communist days. So for me, I have to say my childhood was great, it was carefree, it was amazing. I was roaming the roads and thinking a lot about food. I was a greedy child. Alhamdulillah, I was never fat, but because I had real food. I would go on a holiday and others will talk about the weather, the sea, the sun. I will go into a whole essay about the food, the way it was presented, how it tasted, what it meant. Normally, I’ll be sending this to my grandmother and grandfather because I’ll be obviously with my parents. So food was a source of excitement from very early on. Like, I was very greedy in a sense of wanting to eat all the time, wanting to try everything. We have a very beautiful word in Bulgarian, which I don’t know, it cannot be translated.

In English, there is no such a word, but maybe there is one, some word like in Indian, Pushtenliva. It means when you see somebody eating, you want their food, you want to grab their food, you want to eat their food. You know, that’s the word. So I was like that. It excites me. It’s no wonder that I went into the food business because it excites me up to today. I will never stop working, I will never stop creating, I will never stop being in the world of food because it’s just life creation.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You know, I never had, I never tried Bulgarian food.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Oh, it’s amazing. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

And I never… While you’re speaking, that’s what I’m thinking, that how, wow, I’ve never come across Bulgarian cuisine, let’s say, during my travels, the fact that I’ve not been to Bulgaria. But tell me what Bulgarian cuisine is like.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Bulgarian cuisine is heavily influenced by Ottoman Turkish cuisine. It’s lighter. It’s a lot of salads, a lot of greenery. Bulgaria is actually known as the garden of Europe because we have tremendous sun-filled, sun-drenched summers. So when you talk peaches, there’s no better peaches than Bulgarian peaches. Tomatoes, especially. I don’t care who says what, tomatoes in Bulgaria are the best. Don’t know, it’s the soil, but it’s also the sun. And literally, it’s very special.

 We make the most amazing cheeses, salami, cured meats. Not as good as we did years ago, but still, it’s happening. Of course, the yogurt. Yogurt is a Bulgarian thing. It’s not Greek. It’s not French. Yogurt was… 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Really?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yeah, of course. Yogurt means culture. It’s called Lactobacillus Bulgaricus. And that is the most prominent, the most prolific probiotic culture in the world. It makes yogurt the probiotic that yogurt is. Hence, it carries the name of my country because it’s Bulgarian culture. It’s a bit like the curry. I cannot say curry comes from Bulgaria. We know where curry comes from. I mean, this is Indian curry. I know that there is thais and etc. So, yogurt was…

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Is it called Lactobacillus there?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Of course. Lactobacillus Bulgaricus. Yes, this is the main culture. And it’s a live culture. And it doesn’t exist anywhere else. It’s only alive in Bulgaria. So, we have this on our side. Of course, our cheese is phenomenal as well. Then you have the kebabs. Then you have the grills. The grills are like this long jeweled skewers of glistening, delicious, voluptuous, mouth-watering cubes of meat. Our mincemeats, our kofta. Oh, la, la, la, la, la, la. There is nothing like it. Like the Bulgarian kofta.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I’m hungry. We need to stop this and we need to eat.

 

Silvena Rowe:

You don’t know. I mean, because our spices are different. We don’t go… We have a bit of chili, but we don’t go for spicy, spicy. We go for oregano. We go for thyme. We go for parsley. Even basil is not a big thing in Bulgaria. So, we are more delicate, but still quite ethnic with the spices. So, I can’t say we’re refined or European or anyway. We are European. We are Eastern European. We’re Balkan. The Balkan food is something else. The beans, the lentils we have are outrageous.

Especially the beans. See, beans is ultimately one of the most prolific messengers of longevity. And it is a longevity food. And beans is our staple. Our staple is beans. And if I could eat beans, I would eat beans every single day.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Sorry, pardon my naivety. This is like beans, what? Kidney beans, red beans, black beans?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yes. With beans, I’m referring now to white beans. We don’t so much have… We have other beans. We have beautiful, Smilansky Bob we call it. We have these beautiful, very large purple beans. So, when the beans are purple, just like purple tomato, like purple potato, like aubergine, like blueberries, anything with purple has one of the most prolific antioxidants in the world known as anthocyanin. And anthocyanin is very important for the cellular health of us, of humans. So, when you eat anything with purple hue, you are doing yourself the best favor you can. This is the most luxurious food.

So, if you give me a Wagyu steak, which is very nice and delicious. And if you give me a bowl of purple beans or purple potatoes, I will always be going for that one because this will give the right information for my body. And I want this information. Yeah, this is a very nice protein, but I have the protein in the beans as well. If I can combine two, it’s even better.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Are you saying that… Okay, and this is contrary to… And I’m just quoting what I’ve heard. In India, the popular narrative is that aubergine has no inherent value as a food, while Indians eat a lot of aubergine, right? So, don’t get me wrong there. But it’s called…

I mean, in Hindi, the primary or the most popular Indian language, aubergine is called baingan, which loosely translates to the one without any properties or one without any goodness. So, it can be made up. I don’t know, right? But this is how people say. So, back to your purple point. Are you saying aubergine is like a superfood?

 

Silvena Rowe:

I will tell you something. There are three major cuisines in the world. And I’ll put Indian there because Indian cuisine is phenomenal. There’s no two ways about it. Indian cuisine is varied. It’s authentic. And what I love, and I’ve only been to one area of India, what I love about Indian cuisine is that it keeps its identity in different regions. Most countries now have become one big pot, you know, but you go to Southern India, Northern India, and the differences are amazing. So, three major cuisines for me in the world. French, but there may be four. Okay, I’ll put the Chinese in there as well. So, I would say Indian, French, and of course, Ottoman and Chinese. So, let’s call them four. 

And Ottoman cuisine has thousands of recipes on patlajan or aubergine. Aubergine is phenomenal. It is magical ingredient. The way it lends itself. I love eating aubergine with Indian cuisine but one has to be very skilled to deal with aubergine because it can be your worst enemy if you don’t know how to deal with that. So, I would say purple aubergine. Well, it’s purple anyway. It’s amazing. It’s delicious. I love my moussaka. I use it a lot.

It’s, yes, it has incredible quality in a way of nutrients as well. But I will do it because I’m skilled at cooking it. It was my father’s favorite ingredient and I have probably in my repertoire at least 70 recipes only with aubergine and I love it. Wow. I love aubergine. Aubergine is just this voluptuous, quite sexual, not because it looks like that and it looks like an emoji but it is completely and utterly not because it’s phallic, no.

It is, for me, it’s very important because I’m half Ottoman. I’m half Turkish. And used to be, there is a dish called Hüngö Beğendi. Hüngö Beğendi means the, the sheikh is not a sheikh, the sultan is pleased. But also it means like it’s so pleased that he collapsed and he fell because he was so happy and it’s a dish that creates this amazing, very soft, voluptuous, decadent, delicious, silky, velvety aubergine that you prepare with a variation of bechamel in certain cheese I add. And on the top of it you make this mouth-watering, very slow-cooked lamb and you serve it like that and you will understand it because it’s almost as if you eat certain Indian dish but without the spices.

So I’m very good at making Hüngö Beğendi but it’s a very old Ottoman dish. You know, many, many, many, many years ago Napoleon visited the Ottoman Empire and he didn’t know what to expect. And of course he’s French, French cuisine, you know, we’re still French chefs, so like, ha, ha, ha, you know. But he was blown away. Why? Because the produce in Turkey, the cuisine variety, the way meat is handled is not unlike like in India. It’s just very different spicing. That’s all. Because when you consider all these trailers, all these spices, they travel from Europe to the Far East or to India or to the Middle East and they all went through Turkey. Everything went through Turkey. So there you have this mix of this amazing everything but it is also very, very Turkish, very authentic. So going back onto the aubergine, yes, I love aubergine, it’s my favorite and I just love cooking it but it’s temperamental. It’s temperamental.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

How did you get into cooking from a greedy child who was thinking about food and enjoying food? When did you land into cooking?

 

Silvena Rowe:

I got married very early and my English wasn’t great but I started cooking and in the beginning, I wasn’t that good. And then I was in London because my husband is British and I’ve never eaten so many cuisines. I never knew. I came from Bulgaria. I thought the world is Bulgarian cooking. That’s what I thought. They eat what we eat but no, as we know, no, no. So I started eating here, there, everywhere. I broadened my horizons. I started testing my food at home and very quickly, I started cooking for some very rich, famous, well-known people because I was just very good at it. Even if you didn’t pay me, I would still do it.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You were cooking for them in what capacity?

 

Silvena Rowe:

As a private chef.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Oh, wow.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yes, because I mean, I’m not going to name drop but very easily can find who they are if you go on the internet. We don’t know. Nearly 40 years ago, a long time ago. So I cooked for certain places at the time. I was taking it easy. It was like pocket money, easy, hobby, ta-ta-ta and all that. And then things changed. I started cooking in a restaurant in Mayfair and this restaurant was part of a hotel that belonged to one of the richest Indian men in the world. And I believe he’s 50 in Europe or something. And he absolutely loved my food. I had an amazing time.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Do you remember who owned that?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yeah, Jasminder Singh. Yeah, his name is Jasminder Singh. A very big family. He owns a number of hotels within three mile radius in the center of London. He’s a very wise, very smart businessman. And the family are wonderful. And I had a great time being there. But then an opportunity came in Dubai and I thought, I’m a little bit done with the stress and being overweight and being overwhelmed in London. You know, there’s just too much hate. We in Dubai, we’re lucky there’s no hate. And even if there is, they keep it to themselves. You know, it’s not like in the West. We are lucky to be in Dubai. We’re safe. We’re in a place that is so progressive.

A place that everybody says, yes, you can. Yes, yes, you can. This yes, you can attitude does not exist anywhere else. I loved it. And I stayed. So I came here and this saved my life. And I created an amazing brand. And then, I mean, of course, in the, what I’m not mentioning is that I was a food writer for The Guardian for four years. And I did a lot of TV. I was on BBC cooking. I was in ABC as well.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

While you were in London?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was a TV chef, you know. And British are good like that. They’re not so nationalistic that to keep only their own in front, you know. Of course, I could never been Angela Lawson and Jamie Oliver, but I didn’t want to be that. I turned out to be very happy the way I am. And literally, I did 15 cookbooks that were sold in many languages. And my recipes, when I, in the beginning, was saying, I’m not doing a cookbook. I’m not doing that. Too many cookbooks out there. And then I became a master chef. So I became a global master chef. I was in Bulgaria for three years doing master chef, being part of the judge and jury.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

That was for Masterchef Bulgaria?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yeah, Masterchef Bulgaria. But Masterchef, as you know, is very big in India as well. It’s the biggest culinary show. And Bulgaria was also very big. But, you know, TV is good. But I, and I’ve done it a lot. I’ve done it a lot, you know. But now my priorities have changed. I like my peace and quiet and serenity.

I’m in a very creative period of my life. I have a beautiful brand called The Dose by Silvena, which is stepped very deeply into the principles of longevity and biohacking. I have been able to talk around the world about all this. As you probably know, I’m a senior lecturer in the Geneva College for Longevity Science where I’m teaching longevity nutrition. It works. And I love doing what I’m doing. We have now four doses in a space of two and a half years, four doses in the Middle East and Europe. And it’s a growing trade. I would love nothing more to take it to India. Why? Because there is a contingent in India that understand, that wants it. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Oh, absolutely.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Love it. And nobody understands it like I do. I would love to have more colleagues to understand it. But my chef colleagues love cooking the traditional, the conventional ways. Now, what good is it? You’re giving me a beautiful, up to seductive piece of cake that is laden with the sugar, with all the colorants. Even now, they put color in there. Indian cuisine is very guilty of color, putting too much color. So there is sugar.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But not really. I’ll tell you one thing interesting. I’ll tell you one thing interesting about the amount of color that I see here in the name of Indian cuisine is crazy. When I go back to, and I’m from New Delhi, that’s the capital city in India. I don’t really see as much color, though it’s true that in the commercial cooking, in the restaurants, Indian cuisine, they do use color, you know, they do use a lot of color, but not really, not as much as I see outside of India. Even let’s say, even if I’m in New York, when I will go to an Indian Pakistani, you know, sort of restaurant, and I will see the chicken tikka and I’ll pick it up and my fingers will turn orange. I mean, that’s as shocking to an Indian as it should be for anybody outside. I’m just saying.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yeah, no, I totally believe what you’re saying. I have no understanding. I’ve never been to New Delhi. I will tell you something. If I go to India proper, as I call it, I’ll be eating out. I will come back maybe 10 kg extra because I just love the food. You know, I’m greedy. I don’t know when to stop. This is the problem. If I love something, I don’t want to stop it. I have no sense of moderation in that sense. So, yeah, so literally I’ve done a lot.

I’ve developed food ranges for Waitro and Martin Spencer’s back in the UK. And for five years, I was developing food ranges here for Spinis. I literally stopped two years ago because, you know, it was a great partnership, a great relationship. We’re still friends. But, you know, I like to concentrate now solely on my longevity. I have one or two very, very VIP private clients that I cook for. I’m only interested in cooking food for longevity. That’s all I’m interested in. I have no interest.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I’m going to take you back a little. So, right. So from, you know, being a private chef to, you know, cooking for restaurants or being the chef for the restaurants and being on TV in London. What brought you to Dubai? What was the first opportunity?

 

Silvena Rowe:

My restaurant was fabulous. Very well known. I totally sexed up Turkish cooking. And put it in the middle of Mayfair. And this is the belly button of the world, for God’s sake. You know, you don’t leave easily Mayfair to come even in Dubai. So I started getting approached. I had a lot of people coming and saying, oh, we would love it to open in Dubai. We would love it to open in Dubai. This was 15 years ago. And at the time I thought, oh, I’m not going to Dubai. Am I crazy?

Why would I go to Dubai? I see them all coming there and they are the playboys and stuff, you know, in what it’s called, in Mayfair. And the moment I stepped foot in Dubai, oh my God, I loved it. Actually, I did not even want to stay in Dubai. Thank you. I didn’t even want to stay in Dubai.

 

I stayed in Almaha, 50 kilometers out. But then I had meetings here. And the moment I entered, the energy of this city hit me. And this was the beginning of my never-ending, passionate, incredibly beautiful, turbulent love affair with Dubai, which I still have very much. I’m an ambassador of Dubai.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Why turbulent?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Beautifully. Turbulence is not such a bad thing. It brings you sometimes back to a place, shakes you up a little bit. It’s turbulent because I’m a woman in a man’s world. And as a woman, chef is not so easy. However, being in Dubai, contrary to what the world thinks, I have been never more respected. Never more valued than I’m here by men and by women. And I mean, I came back from two months in Europe the other day. I was so overwhelmed to be back. And I had an amazing time being away. I had an amazing time. I was with family. I was with children, grandchildren. It was incredible. But to be back in Dubai. So I had to put a post on my Instagram to say, oh my God, I love it. The moment my foot steps on an Emirates aircraft, I’m home. I love it. I love it. I feel, but then again, I’m valued here. In the beginning, when you introduced gold visas and I still remain, I was the first female chef to be awarded gold visa for contributions to the culinary and culture scene.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Beautiful.

 

Silvena Rowe:

And for me, I mean, even my own country hasn’t done that for me. And I do a lot there, you know. So I’m loved. I’m appreciated. And with every breath of my body, I give back to Dubai. And genuinely I do. You know, because I love being here. I’m happy here. So that’s what brought me here. And I thought, I’ll go to Dubai and I will put my name into a restaurant and I’ll come three times, four times a year and I’ll be fine. They said, no, no, no. We burned ourselves. We don’t want that. You either come full time or you just don’t come. And it was, of course, it wasn’t an easy decision, but at the same time was easy because the kids were already older. My kids are older. At the time, they did not need me there. They were at finishing the private schools, going to a university shortly. And I came and I never looked back. It was so…

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Tell me about your family.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Oh, I have an amazing family. I have beautiful husband. I have beautiful children. I have beautiful grandchildren. Alhamdulillah.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You have grandchildren?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yeah, I have grandchildren. Yes. I have grandchildren, two beautiful granddaughters. We have two sons and now I have two beautiful granddaughters that are everything and would you believe one of them is a copy of me? How do you think I feel? I go crazy. I look at her and I look at myself at the same age in this. It’s how marvelous.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

That’s good quality narcissism.

 

Silvena Rowe:

I just don’t care. I just see it. You wait, it will happen to you with some luck. You know, this is phenomenal.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I’m already, trust me. I’m on the same boat. I have a 11 month old daughter and you know, whenever she does something which my mom will, you know, look at and you know, will frown upon and say, you know, where did this come from? It’s you.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yeah, I feel very good.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I know she’s frowning, but I’m like.

 

Silvena Rowe:

But here is not just character. Here is physicality. You know, it’s just like how Allah works in this incredible way. This girl, it’s me and my mother because I’m my mother and you know what? It’s beautiful to be me. I have no problem with it, you know, because I know what it’s like to be me.

I know it doesn’t sound very humble, but you know, it is, I know what I’m good at. I don’t go around. I will not tell you my Indian cuisine is the best because earlier I mentioned I cook Indian with olive oil for God’s sake, you know, my family is happy. I’m happy, but I will have nothing better to go in an authentic Indian restaurant and have the most beautiful, incredible Indian cuisine. Indian is exciting. And you know what? You can’t have one dish. You have to have 10, 15 dishes. That’s what I want because the variety is everything, especially in Indian cuisine, the same for Bulgarian, the same for Turkish cuisine. I love that variety and you can afford that variety without getting bored.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, I mean in Indian cuisine, I can tell you, I think the most amusing part of Indian cuisine, when we call it just Indian, is that 99% of Indians have not really tried regional Indian cuisine outside of whatever region they belong to, you know, you already understand the difference between the North Indian and the South Indian, the East and the Western, you know, cuisine, and these are four different spice profiles, four different, you know, palates, not only menu. And, you know, most of the people don’t even know what’s, you know, the level of diversity that India has. I’m talking about Indians who don’t know that.

I will count myself in that, like up until, let’s say a decade back till the time I really traveled all across India. I never knew, you know, the diversity in cuisine as much. You only know, you know, a few popular dishes.

 

Silvena Rowe:

You see, this is all very important, but I love to have the ingredients. I love to be in control of the ingredients you eat. And as much as I love Indian cuisine here in Dubai, I am afraid to eat it because I don’t know where the chicken came from. I don’t know if the meat is quality. In my restaurants and the doors, I only ever offer and cook organic chicken. Why?

Because it’s very simple. For the period from a little egg, from egg and chick to a chicken in the supermarket is 28-29 days. Normally, if it’s a broiler chicken, in most cases, because majority of the world eats broiler chicken, the cheapest one, that chicken is injected, is harmonized, is full of sodium, water and many, many more worse things, you know, so you don’t have enough period for it to cleanse it. And God forbid, I love chicken liver. I will not touch the chicken liver of this because all the impurities are in there of this 29 days. Now, for me, it’s very important, the source as well.

The skill of the chef is one thing, but then the chef needs to understand and not be an idiot about it. He needs to understand that his job is so much easier if he gets quality to cook good quality because you give me rubbish, even if I’m the best chef in the world, I cannot make you a delicious food. It’s very difficult. With Indian is a little bit more different. And I don’t know why I’m talking about India, but I do love Indian food. I have to say, maybe in my next life, I wouldn’t mind being an expert. You know what? All I want is to cook three dishes, four dishes. I want to do a tadka dal to do every day. Every day will be a featuring. You know, I want to do a tikka and I want to have a butter chicken. But I’ll do a butter chicken, which is all right.

But believe me, it drives me crazy. My house smells, which is fine, but it smells for too much longer after that when I don’t eat Indian food. So if I eat Indian food in three days time, I don’t want the kitchen smelling of Indian, you know?

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But does your love for butter chicken and chicken tikka and dal, does it, you know, draw the roots back to London?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It has to be. I mean, London has incredible Indian cuisine. I have friends. I will mention…

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I think the amount of chicken tikka and butter chicken, when we joke about it, London is carrying.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Oh, masala.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I think most of the India is not carrying that.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yeah, the masala and stuff. See, I don’t know what authentic Indian is. I’m not there. I’m sure I’m going to love it. I love spicy foods as well.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

No, London does. London, you get, you get…

 

Silvena Rowe:

I have good stuff. No, no, in London. Oh, I know, because I tell you, I have so many Indian chefs here and not all of them cook good Indian food. No, no, no. They do it and I think, no, thank you. No, that’s not tasty. Maybe your mother likes that, but not for me. So, literally, that’s how I started. I kind of cooked, I can do various cuisines, but I cannot tell you, oh, I’m so good at Indian. Oh, I’m so good at Chinese or Japanese. And I spend maybe in total, it won’t be a year, maybe nine months in Japan, for example, learning, you know, working with them, going to do stage. This was before COVID.

I stopped after that. But this was just for me to learn, to understand, but I stay true to my Mediterranean roots. So, the most thing I can tell you is that all the food I eat and prepare has to be longevity driven, longevity directed. I cannot give you anything that will not do the job for you.

 

Ashish Tulsian: 

How did you come around that? And I’m, you know, you said that your brand Dose by Silvena is recent. I mean, 

 

Silvena Rowe:

it’s recent. Yeah, right. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

How did you come about that?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Even before I was doing it, I had another brand before called Omnia. You know, I had about nine restaurants here in Dubai. And that particular brand Omnia won every single award that there was to be won. It was pronounced the healthiest. It was the first ever restaurant to do gluten-free and sugar-free and vegan, but it was before its time. And even now, people talk, oh, I love vegan food, I love vegan food. And then you see them eating caviar and foie gras and steak. No, no, no. Even now, people are not so true to what they say. I have to tell you that I kind of, for the last 10 years, have been doing this kind of thing.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You mean people are being served foie gras?

 

Silvena Rowe:

No, no. No, they say they’re vegan, but they would like to have foie gras.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Okay.

 

Silvena Rowe:

So they’re not true vegans. You know, that’s what I’m saying. No, no. In my case, literally, for the last 10 years, I’ve been going much more and more deeper into the realm of longevity nutrition. And what serves me well and what does, what for me, for my cellular health, I have been able to reduce my biological age as my, alhamdulillah, my chronological age, it’s going forward because that’s what we want on this earth. So I kind of refused to age. I didn’t want to age. I didn’t want my energy to be depleted, especially now with the grandchildren. I want to be as active as I was with my children, you know, to run around.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I still need to tell you that I’m quite zapped that you have grandchildren.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Thank you very much.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I’m not kidding. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not really kidding.

 

Silvena Rowe:

I’m not the only one. Yes. Well, I have this amazing positive attitude to everything. I’m very willing. I love life. I love to create. I used to be quite harsh and hard and bitter and aggressive, but this came because.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

On yourself or others?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Both, you know, because when you run a kitchen, but somehow if you’re a man, if you’re a man chef, oh, it’s okay. Look at him. He has a swagger. If it’s, oh my God, she’s mad. She’s menopause. She’s emotional. Life is so unfair to women, you know, so literally as part of my longevity nutrition, I also created the longevity nutrition for my mental health, you know, so the pillars of longevity, but the pillar I know and I understand is nutrition. I know food very well. I know food, what food does. I know what’s source to get my food from and it doesn’t have to be expensive. I was the first farmer’s chefs in the UAE. So I work very closely with the farms here. We have a lot of phenomenal organic farms and as much as I’d love to tell you that most people are into that kind of thing is not yet that common. However, more and more people are waking up to the thought that you literally are that what you eat and I think was it not Gandhi that said health is wealth. That’s an Indian saying and it is simply like that.

It is health. It’s wealth. Do you know people they will spend money on handbags, on shoes, apartments, airplanes, first class and then they will eat something that they will never even question why it’s so cheap. I always wonder why people are questioning. Oh my God, this organic chicken is hundred and twenty Dirham. Okay, you’re in Dubai. But even if you’re in UK an organic chicken is about 20 quid anyway. You question that why are you not questioning? Why is this chicken three pounds? Why is this chicken not 10 Dirham and that I don’t understand.. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I’m with you on that hundred percent. 

 

Silvena Rowe:

You have a Ferrari. You have a beautiful glorious amazing modern chic sexy Ferrari and then you polish it. You almost like make love to that Ferrari. You put the best oil the best diesel the best. I don’t know what when it comes to this Ferrari when it comes down to your body. What do you do about yourself? What do you do about yourself? Oh shawarma here shawarma there. No, and that is I’m sorry. You’re not smart. You’re not intelligent and you’re short-sighted. That’s how I view it.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You’ve been you know, what happened with Omnia? You said you had mine stores and you know, you’re doing healthy. You’re at the…

 

Silvena Rowe:

Some was sold some were closed because that’s Dubai, you know, and.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

So, did you franchise it or no? 

 

Silvena Rowe:

No, no. No. No, we wanted to franchise it and we were going to franchise it but my business partner at the time did not want to do it. So what to do? I was very small part there. So but you know, I’m happy this happened because Sose by Silvena, it is so much in its own place. It is so much of its time now. I mean we open in Ibiza. We open in Europe. We open in a place where the competition is such cutthroat. I mean Dubai is the same. Let’s be honest, but in Ibiza, you know, 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Why Ibiza because when you when you’re talking about the kind of food that you’re talking about I should I’m sure it can work anywhere in the world and Ibiza gets but but Ibiza has this this party energy people don’t go there to..

 

Silvena Rowe:

That’s what everybody think but Ibiza has mountains and Hills and farms and phenomenal food Ibiza has raw ingredient that makes you want to scream. So when I have this raw ingredient, I produce Miracle food and again, nobody in Ibiza has done it because they told cheap they will want to make a quick profit. No, as a chef you should know first of all you have been chosen to be a chef. I have the power I can make it or break it for you. You don’t know I’m doing that.

Let’s go back in Victorian times where chefs in the kitchens of royalty will be medicinal chefs. You will go there and say I have a pain here or I have a cold and the chef will prepare some amazing miraculous concoction for you. You know, we still have this power.

Why have we forgotten that you know, so if you’re an amazing chef out there think about it think about how empowered you are I as a restauranteur and you will understand that I always felt honored and chosen when people came to do their birthday the anniversary in my place. I was grateful because there’s so many other restaurants you can go and do it, but you chose me you chose me, you know, so this is hospitality and I love serving people. I’m not afraid.

Do you know in my own country in Bulgaria where people are still very snobby? They’ll say oh, you’re just a chef. You’re just a cook. What do you think? I said, yeah, I’m a cook. I love I love being cook. Of course. I’m a cook and I’m one of the best in the world because you know what you have cooks and cooks. You have chefs and chefs. My food is always umami. I managed to do it. I was born with that.

My father had it and now my younger son has it. When you understand and have this wonderful relationship with taste where your palate rules over everybody else where you take three or four simple ingredients and you create this symphony this feast of everything that all your senses want and enjoy, you know, not just food to stuff yourself because we’ve forgotten food is not just nourishment. Food is not just medicine. Food is actually an instruction is information. And if you put the right information in your body, but if you make it delicious, if you combine all these colors and textures and aromas and divine kind of ingredients that Earth and God has put into our food, you create this umami. You create this insatiable desire to feel life through food because food is life, big time.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I mean, I completely agree with each word and you know, a part of me, you know, is also questioning it, you know, I travel a lot and and while I completely agree that, you know, one should be extremely mindful of what is it that you’re putting in your body, but I know that more often than I would appreciate you cannot really control, you know where you are eating. Of course, you can control the larger optics. For example, you know, you know that makes two of us. I don’t eat at cheap places because of only one reason I do and I say this, I mean people around me know that I say this that I don’t understand what is this guy’s motivation to have a high quality ingredient in this food. There is no motivation because you know, the price is cheap so I can optimize for that. But how do we, how do, so two parts to this question. One, how do you control? How do you control when you travel? How do you do that?

 

Silvena Rowe:

You can, see it’s very simple and I’m going to give our listeners and viewers the best tip that I give to everyone. First of all, when I fly, I prepare my own box. I don’t care if I fly platinum class, the food is the food. Also, if you happen to eat once or twice, it’s okay. But if you fly all the time, you really need to start thinking how to control that. But my tip is as follows, don’t worry too much as long as you can be in control 80% of the time, 20% of the time we have to allow ourselves some slack. When I go to a hotel, when I’m hungry, when I’m hungry I eat anything. Oh, it’s dangerous. And even here in Dubai, there is a shawarma place that I love.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Which one?

 

Silvena Rowe:

It’s, I forget the name of it, it’s in Jumeirah High Street. It’s the most, the best shawarma ever, but I don’t even want to think, I don’t even want to think where the meat came from. And I enjoy it. When I go there, I enjoy it. This is part of longevity. Never ever feel guilty. Never ever feel guilty. If you sleep somewhere, say, okay, it’s done. Next day, another day, I’ll go back to the right track. So 80% of the time I eat with intention. I’m careful and I enjoy what I do, but I very carefully eat. When I say carefully, I still eat delicious food, but I know where my meat came from.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

That’s the second part of my question, right? So when you say that, you know, food is information, you’re telling your body something, you’re bringing something in that is supposed to, you know, nurture it in the right way. Doesn’t that get boring? Because indulgence, indulgence.

 

Silvena Rowe:

But I still indulge, but I overindulge. I have a problem because I can overindulge with the healthy food. For me, more is more.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But indulgence of all kinds and types, and I’m not talking about food in general, all the sins in life kind of, you know, are indulgent in some way or come out of indulgence. Indulgence is mindless. So how do you balance? And this is where I feel health food or healthy food, whenever you put a label to that, especially in the context of restaurants, it goes boring or it goes, you know, not really tasty.

 

Silvena Rowe:

No such a thing as healthy food. I’m sorry. This is a cop-out. This is BS. And I’ll tell you why, because there’s a Caesar salad healthy food. Well, no, it’s loaded with nasty calories. Even if you made the sauce homemade, you had to be using, I don’t want you using oil. I don’t want seed oil in my food. I don’t want egg that is not organic in my food.

So I have to be very careful. But again, the rule 80-20, 80-20, you know, so if 80% of the time I eat this amazing food that I prepared or I know what’s in there and it’s still exciting food, you know, I am fine. Or tuna niçoise.

No, again, that’s not healthy food. Or avocado and kale. No, too many oxalates. How you prepare your kale? Where is the kale from? Did you wash it well because of the dozen, you know, the dirty dozen? So no, there’s too many things. However, it sounds like, oh my God, do you really live a life? Oh, yeah, I do live a life.

And if I eat something, like night I’m at a restaurant and what I did, I didn’t eat all day. I haven’t eaten all day so that I can eat normally tonight without feeling I’ve had some other food. I dare say that I will eat things that this restaurant specializes in, like say snails, and I love snails, escargot because it’s a French restaurant and that’s going to be fine. I’m looking forward. So my head is in a good place knowing that that’s what’s going to happen. I will not feel guilty. I even will have creme brulee. I already know what I’m having. I check the menu.

Yes, the eggs probably are not organic, but the chef is French and the creme brulee should be delicious. So because my creme brulee is very good, but it’s not a creme brulee of a French patisserie, you know, so that’s how I manage it, you know, but I will eat out very rarely, very rarely, you know, I get invited to so many new places, so many nice places, but I have my favorites. I like Chinese cuisine as well. And I will say go and have Peking duck because that I cannot do, impossible.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You don’t?

 

Silvena Rowe:

No, I cannot do Peking duck, of course. Oh, come on. Peking duck is like sushi. You study how to do Peking duck for years. The Peking duck they do there. These masters have been mastering the Peking duck for, I don’t know, for 10 years before they become, first of all, I’m talking about restaurants like Night Chinatown.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Oh, I thought you’re talking about you don’t have it.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Oh, no, no, I have it. No, no, I cannot make it. I cannot cook it as a chef. 

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, and I don’t want to cook it. I understand what you’re saying. 

 

Silvena Rowe: 

Do you know I’m the type of chef that I go to a restaurant.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I’m a Peking duck fan.

 

Silvena Rowe:

So yeah, and here we have amazing Peking duck in Dubai, amazing.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I’m going to take some recommendations.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Oh, yeah. So I’m the kind of chef that I will go to a restaurant and I will eat something incredible. I don’t want to know the recipe. I want to be back to eat it from the hand of the chef because it’s so incredible. I’m not one of these people. Oh, here you get the recipe. I’ll do it myself. No, I know what I’m good at. Let the chef be good at that, you know, so, so literally, but very seldom I get thrilled, very seldom, very seldom. I like simplicity as well. You know, I like nothing more than simplicity.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

What has changed post Dose or what, what changed, what changed in you while you were building and while you are growing Dose? How is it different?

 

Silvena Rowe:

We’re still growing the Dose, you know, we were, we did not expect such, Alhamdulillah, success in two and a half years because we need to really learn to work properly before we run, but I have two amazing partners, you know, and my partners. Agreed, they’re decent. The most important thing in partnership is decency. The most important thing in life is decency. The most important thing in the relationship is decency and my partners are decent and they respect me. They value me and they didn’t even want to do anything on the F&B front, but the Dose became so successful.

The revenue, as soon as I took over, whatever place was there, went 600% through the roof in the first six months and people loved it. And when people love it, I do it because people love it, you know, and it makes business sense as well. So, so the Dose has really now, we need to be consistent with the Dose, our food costs have to be watched all the time, but they will never be cheap, cheap because I don’t use seed oils in the Dose.

I have sugar in one corner, which I keep because one of the Dose is attached to one of the most prolific, incredible wellness, gymnasium type of facilities and people there are like the elite of the people that work out in Dubai. Some of them want sugar because it’s part of their workout, etc. Sugar in its own right, a little bit is not bad.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Right. I mean, it can give you the boost of energy that you need.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yeah, just not every day, just not all the time and just not hidden in various foods. So, salt, very little, very little. Salt can be added, but never taken out. I would use accents of salt to incensuate, to bring the flavor out. I will cook only with very high quality of olive oil and coconut oil, virgin coconut oil for my desserts. Most of my desserts are vegan because I’m very, very good at vegan desserts and they are sugar-free, they’re gluten-free. I myself have an intolerance to gluten and so I stopped, although I don’t love bread so much. In an Indian restaurant, again, going back to Indian, I will love my Peshawari Naan. So, I cannot not have with Indian. I may leave the rice, but the bread is always there. Your bread, oof, oof, oof, oof, oof, something else.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

So, you’ll go through the gluten.

 

Silvena Rowe:

They will, but it’s rare. I don’t eat Indian food every day, but I cannot have Indian without the bread. I mean, imagine a dal without bread, come on, it’s impossible. So, what about the dose? It happened, the dose is strong. It’s young, it’s solid, it’s beautiful. We’re opening an amazing dose by Silvena for everyone. It’s not a private club here at the Mall of Emirates.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

So, it started as a private club.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Well, yes, we are. Even at Ibiza and here now we also open. So, we have the dose with seven wellness. We have the dose here with the lob. This is paddle club where everybody can still go and Ibiza. It’s phenomenal. Ibiza is also standalone, but it’s also attached to wellness. And now we’re opening with Grey Wellness in Mall of Emirates and this is a very big space. It’s very sought-after space. Parking is easy. It’s above Kempinski. So, it’s in a very good, beautiful location.

You overlook the view, you see Burj Al Arab and the dose there is big and the menu will be the menu, you know, not so functional because although I have a gym, but it’s standalone. So, in the standalone place, I don’t emphasize on functionality, you know, I mostly go for delicious. I call them negative calories because these calories are so negative that they don’t do you any harm.

If you try my smash burger and if you try my dose burger, you will never eat another burger. I don’t care who says what because my bread is selected, especially my meat is very special. I spend money on it. I get it from a particular supplier that brings it with a particular quality. It has this amazing quality of grass-fed with a grain-fed finish. Only Michelin-star restaurants do that. Why? Because the grain finish at the end gives the flavor, you know, but I want the animal to have been 80-90% of its time to be fed on grass-fed with 10-15, maximum 20% grain-fed finish at the end and only then this will do the trick for me. All my sauces are handmade and accessories to the burger are also mostly organic.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Does grass-fed make meat a little gamey?

 

Silvena Rowe:

No, not that one. No, it doesn’t especially if it’s grain-fed finish because the grain-fed polishes it gives it this eloquent amazing.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

How do you do the grain-fed finish?

 

Silvena Rowe:

I don’t do it. It comes like that from the farmers.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I understand that. I’m just wondering.

 

Silvena Rowe:

For the last 20, see if they plan to kill the animal, say in three years time, for the two years and say eight months or for the two years, they will feed it grass-fed and then they will mix the diet with grain, but quality grain. Grain alone I will not touch. This is American meat and in America…

 

Ashish Tulsian:

It’s all corn-fed and…

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yes, and corn-fed is inflammatory, we know that. I love corn. I just love corn, but corn is very inflammatory. However, if you get organic corn, like a non-GMO corn, that’s good because I’m a lover of corn. I love corn, you know. So, even with the chicken, organic. It’s local, I get it local. It’s fed differently here. It tastes not like a French chicken, which for me is the best chicken in the world. French know how to make their chicken so delicious and so tasty. But I have found a way of brining it and then marinating it and treating it to become very tasty and very delicious. So, with the steak, also I eat steak. Even I do… My most popular dish is called Mongolian beef. Even there, I use filet. I don’t give you anything hali-wali. I use the top cut, the top prime cut tenderloin or filet because I want you… Even my rice is organic.

I don’t… And non-organic rice, I can pay you five dirham a kilo. The organic one, I pay 35 a kilo. But I pass the goodness of this to you, my customer.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I think when you just talked and that’s a very important point as a restauranteur. You said that we need to do the cost control at those and doesn’t mean it needs to be cheap. And that’s a very, very important point. I think cost control is not really about reducing the cost. Cost control is really about having awareness of the cost and making sure that your costs and your price are in sync with each other as per your business plan originally.

 

Silvena Rowe: 

Yeah. And also, you know, I look much more… I concentrate much more on the food wastage now because if I eliminate food wastage, then I don’t have to worry so much about… The food cost is going to be high. Because you know what? I can get the steak at 40 kg a kilo, 40 dirham a kilo. But the steak I get, it’s more like a 90 to 100 because of the quality. And this is still me squeezing my suppliers, you know? So the chicken… The chicken… What can I tell you? The chicken is…

I pay X amount for the organic chicken, but I can pay four, five times less for non-organic chicken. That will come frozen, it will come solidified. I have to literally use a hammer. It comes in blocks. What is this? You know? No. So I can’t… I have conscience. I can’t. I can’t. And the best part is that my two business partners understand that. So they’re not tying my hands. They’re not saying, oh, show me the money, but don’t use this. No, no. You know? So…

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You’re teaching at… You’re teaching in Geneva longevity science.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yeah.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

And given that, you know, you’re a chef, where is that… Where did you find that intersection of talking about longevity in a scientific way while, you know, still being the expert on food?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Well, I’m very fortunate. I have become… Well, for what it’s worth, I’m the world’s leading biohacking chef. And it’s not like, haha, she’s showing off. How I know that is that about two years ago, I was a speaker in one of the biggest summits, biohacking summits in the world, in Amsterdam. And before I went, before I do my talk, I decided to do research. So I’m thinking, oh, let’s go and see what other biohacking chefs do around the world. So I put on the search engine, world’s leading biohacking chef. And then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. My name, my name, my name. There’s nothing, nobody else. So I was like, whoa, what is this? Of course, I was very happy. However, it still remains the same. So I literally work very closely with doctors. I’m also a health coach. I’m actually an integrative nutrition health coach. So I did a diploma. I studied for a year with the New York Institute for Integrative Nutrition, where I studied.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Integrity of nutrition.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Integrative nutrition.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah.

 

Silvena Rowe:

So it’s IIN, Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York. It was very expensive, but it was interesting. Many things I already knew. Some I didn’t. I enjoyed it. It was good to go back to basics, to do tests and to exams, etc. I did it because I needed the paper and to challenge myself. I did it last year, actually. And now I’m also a health coach. I did it because here in Dubai, I’m attached to a regenerative medical clinic. And I work with functional medicine doctors. I’m not a doctor.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

So regenerative medical clinic. Are you talking about?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Regenerative medical clinic.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You’re talking about stem cell direction or?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Some. Yeah, it’s a female. Well, no, they’re males as well now. It’s a clinic here in Dubai. There are some stem cells, there are peptides there, etc, etc. So I’m attached to that clinic as an integrative nutrition health coach. And then I was.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Tell me some things. I mean, if you can give us one or two examples where you have really seen and what the world probably is yet to discover about longevity, especially from a regenerative lens. I’m really interested in. I’m curious about what stem cell research and where is it going. I know a lot of countries are yet not open to like full experimentation.

 

Silvena Rowe:

A lot are not. No, a lot. The U.S. is very progressive.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, I know. I mean, I’ve seen it at some places.

 

Silvena Rowe:

But Europe, no. America, not so much.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

What have you tried or what have you seen as a result?

 

Silvena Rowe:

I have tried as a biohacker on myself. At the moment, I’m trying something very new. It’s to do with stem cells. I am in the moment in the process of having increased my stem cells by 10 million a day, you know, because as you get older, they die. And most people don’t realize that. But stem cells are very important for our cellular.

So I see some, I notice some differences, but I don’t have a problem. The way to know these things work is when you have a problem. Now, I don’t have a problem. I’m not a lover of NAD and NAD plus and all that. Certainly, I’m not a lover of NAD intravenous IV. But stem cells injections, no, I will not touch. I’m doing something else, something very cutting edge and innovative that seems to work on me. You need to know your body. I’m my own best doctor.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But are you, like, if you can share, if you’re okay to share, what is it that you’re feeling? Is it some, are you feeling that something is getting healed, which may not be sick, but, you know, maybe…

 

Silvena Rowe:

For me, it’s too early to say. I’m in my first month. But I have seen the preliminary studies of what I’m doing. I have spoken to physicians in America that have implemented that for their patients with some serious conditions who have seen changes. It’s not a placebo. I know that much. But even if it is, who cares? It works. I feel they have a couple of things that have happened that I know it’s due to that. Okay, I have reduced my body fat mass quite tremendously in a space of eight weeks. I will be very honest with you and say that eight weeks ago, I had a body fat mass of 30.2%. You see, I have always worked out.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

You mean BMI?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Eh, BMI is different. Yeah, BMI. Okay, let’s call it BMI. Yeah, it’s because your body mass indexed. Yeah, okay. Body mass index is a little bit more complex, but let’s call it BMI, yeah. So the BMI for me was 30.2%. And I did this same test. It’s called in-body test. It’s everywhere. And now, eight weeks later, it’s 24.5%. And this is phenomenal. And I think that my body has been sent in. I’ve been watching differently eating as well. But even so…

 

Ashish Tulsian:

But even then, eight weeks is too short a time for…

 

Silvena Rowe:

Too short, too short. I did it twice to see. I have increased my overall score from 78 to 85. Now, and more importantly, I have increased the metabolic rate of calorie burning in resting. Now, this is the most poignant thing for me. We all talk about metabolic health because 80% of humans worldwide have a poor metabolic health, and nobody’s paying attention. And what it means is that how many calories do you burn in resting? So I have increased that number significantly. So I will continue doing what I’m doing, taking what I’m taking, and see what will happen in another two months. I will do the same thing in another two months because I’m already 24.5%, which is really good for me as a woman. And yeah. So I think these things work, but you have to have an open mind. But for me, what works the most, it’s nourishment. And that’s what I understand. That’s what I can control.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, on that note, right? So on the nourishment side, when you say you’re a biohacking chef, and I’ve been meaning to ask this, give me an example of a food that qualifies as biohacking.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Okay, so I’ll give you one example. This is going to be my favorite food, and I love it. I’ll give you the example. It’s this stunning jewel. It’s a fruit. It’s a jewel. It’s a universe of crimson, ruby-like seeds filled with life. It’s the pomegranate. Why is it so good?

Because it is the controller of health in our gut. In our gut, we have trillions of bacteria, okay, in our microbiome. Most of them, so many of them, but there is a small kind of bacteria that represent maybe three or four or five percent. The rest of them don’t even have point, point, point, point percent. That’s why we have trillions. One of the most prolific bacteria and culture in our gut is called Acromencia mucinifila. Acromencia mucinifila is so important, lives in the mucus of the gut, and can only be fed with food. It cannot be supplemented with supplements, and that is a very well-known fact. Pomegranate does miracles for it.

When we consume pomegranate seeds, when they go into our gut, they turn into a compound called Urolithin A. Urolithin A is prolific for the mitochondria of our gut, of our intestine. And it is so important that we have enough Acromencia bacteria in our gut that has been shown in studies now that people undergoing chemotherapy will not succeed unless they have enough Acromencia. So we need to care. All the food I do, it’s for the gut. I’m led by food for the gut.

 

My specialty is to make you food for the gut, because if you have a healthy gut, you’ll never ever be sick, period. That’s it. So all the foods I eat for myself and for my clients are foods that feed the gut. I want your gut to be this amazing universe of stars and suns and humming and singing and moving in harmony beautifully. I never want you to have a problem in the gut, because the moment you have a problem in the gut, you have a problem with the immune system. Why? Because 70% of the immune system lives in the gut. People don’t know that. I don’t know why they think it lives, but it lives in the gut. So if you do not have a healthy gut, your immune system is nothing. So I eat food for the gut. So pomegranate does exactly that.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Does pomegranate help the bacteria grow?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yes, it’s food. It’s this information. You’re giving the information here now to your food. It’s this particular antioxidant. It’s this particular compound that I named already urolithin A that actually strengthens the immune system. Sorry, the mitochondria. And by strengthening the mitochondria, what is the mitochondria? This is the energy of ourselves. You have a stronger immune system.

And I’m sorry to say, but during COVID, we saw it. People with very weak immune system suffered. And I’m not going to go at all into the pro or anti-vaccine, because everybody feels differently about these things. All I know is that make sure that you have a strong immune system and then decide yes or no to vaccine. But without a strong immune system, don’t go anyway, because if you go for vaccine, it may affect you anyway badly because your immune system, it’s not good. So I have longevity protocols that I work with clients. I mean, two clients only. I don’t want that because you need to have arrived to the level of this understanding. I cannot preach to the unconverted, sorry.

I don’t have the time to do that. You need to have arrived and say, I got this. I got this. I’m content. Now I need to become the best possible version of myself. And this is what biohacking is. And my biohacking is biohacking with food, because food does exactly that. I’m a specialist on foods that are anti-cancerous, that actually beat butter to oblivion cancerous cells in the body. And we know who they are. We know what they are. And pomegranate is also one of these things, because if you strengthen the immune system, you do not create an environment of anything to start thriving even.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

What do you think about people like Brian Johnson?

 

Silvena Rowe:

I like Brian Johnson. It’s kind of strange and weird because he lives his life in a very regimented way. But you know, at the end of the day, we live in our head. We live within ourselves. And if you’re happy, if you’re content how you live your life, nobody can tell you otherwise. He lives a very limited life. He does not indulge in the things that you want to indulge. He’s a biohacker, but he’s not a longevity-driven. He wants to live a long time, but he also needs to understand that longevity is let yourself go and enjoy. Like I go and have this shawarma from time to time. I go and I eat it with such a gusto. I eat it and think, this is such a good, such an amazing thing for me. I love it. I love it. Like when I go to Turkey, I will go to Giyoglu. Giyoglu is the best thing for baklava. And I will be eating this sugar saturated baklava, just not every day. But this is enjoyment because then my whole body loves it.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, I love it.

 

Silvena Rowe:

I will give you comparisons, but they are a little bit off the grid, so better not go there. But you need to make your senses enjoy it. Otherwise, what is the point of life? So Brian Johnson is fine. I like him. It’s interesting, but he has things to sell you. I don’t sell anything. The first thing that I’m going to tell you now that I will love it to have, and this has been sold because it’s by the most prolific and leading elite Geneva College for Longevity Science in Switzerland, is my course. But I work hard and my course is based on 30 years of experience in book writing, working with doctors, still working with scientists. And yes, I have been very, very alhamdulillah lucky to make this transition, to create this bridge between culinary and science. Because you see, I give you something stepped in tradition, something proven by our ancestors. I talk about Mediterranean diet because this is my specialty.

So I talk longevity. I talk gluzones, but I cook it for you. Doctors cannot cook it for you. And here I have science. I have cutting edge science. I have stem cells. I have peptides. I have AI, but AI alone is not good for us. We have a chance three times a day to put our bodies in the most beautiful condition than they need to be. And at the end of the day, how you present to people is how you respect yourself.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Absolutely. You know, I know that you already do a lot to, I mean, I’m really impressed by the fact that you went to New York, did your course, and you’re also teaching, right? So this is like a great, grateful circle. What do you do on your regular day to keep your, I mean, you talked about that you don’t take stress or no amount of money is worth buying stress for. 

 

Silvena Rowe:

Yeah, I run away. Even my mother, when she starts stressing me, I have to go, I have to go. I’m sorry. No, I can’t. Because you see, I’m not selfish. I need to be this extraordinary elite human being for my husband, for my children, for my grandchildren, and for my friends and for my business. I cannot afford to crumble down. The moment I crumble down, I become liability to everybody around me. So what do I do? I do a lot of sport. I play paddle tennis. I play four times a week paddle tennis, two hours a day. I do yoga. I do weights as well. So I love sport. I’ve always done sport. It’s not a new thing for me ever since a young girl. So sport is very much in my head. That’s the other frontier of longevity that I understand and I love. But I wouldn’t overdo it. With food, I would do it. With food, I would overdo it because I understand it. I will experiment. With weights, I’m not going to become some kind of chiseled six-pack, whatever. But the fact that I reduce my fat overall, it’s great.

But also what I did, I increased my muscular muscle, skeletal muscle. And that’s what makes me think that what I’m doing now, it’s intensifying the processes in my body. We are now studying it at the moment. So we’ll see.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

And do you read? Do you listen to podcasts? What do you do for your intellectual?

 

Silvena Rowe:

Podcasts all the time. Well, intellectual, I’ve just done a course. And my course is for MDA doctors. It’s for MD doctors. The course I did, that’s intellectual enough. I just finished that. I did it with a lot of studying. I’m developing a new course on biohacking for the biggest food technology university on the Balkans, which happened to be in Bulgaria. So that’s another thing. I love keeping my brain busy.

I listen to podcasts a lot, a lot, but I now choose what to listen because too much information sometimes. And if somebody has to sell me something, I don’t think kindly, you know, like Brian Johnson’s, he’s now selling me olive oil. Mark Hyman selling this. No, do it because you do it from here. And business is business, but you also need to give me something. You need to make me feel. And for 90% of my life and my time, a part of this course, even with the books, I have been always quite shy and I’m not a shy person to promote the books. You want to buy it, buy it. But the course, it’s specialist.

Now, the course will teach you to understand what it means to live in a longevity way. It will teach you how to combine foods and why it’s so important to combine them. Not because orange and chocolate is a marriage made in heaven and they taste delicious. No, the taste is one thing. I’m not teaching you how to cook here. I’m teaching you how to put the best possible information that God and nature put in food into your body.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

Silvena, this is such a great conversation. And I’m still zapped by the fact that you, that you’re, I think you’re a great example of the longevity and, you know, anti-aging for sure. But I’m really excited about what, what those has to offer. And I’m glad that it’s working out, you know, great for you. You know, looking forward to your new space in Mall of Emirates soon. Thank you for being on Restrocast. Thank you for having this conversation.

 

Silvena Rowe:

Well, thank you for having me. I’ve enjoyed it tremendously. I think you’re very interesting. I think you’re very generous and humble and, and wonderful host. And you allowed me to tell you so much. And I said everything with such enjoyment. Thank you very much.

 

Ashish Tulsian:

I’m glad. Thank you. Thanks a lot.