Chef Vikas Khanna defends Gauri Khan’s restaurant amid ‘Fake Paneer’ allegation
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Gauri Khan, wife of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, recently found herself in the center of attention due to 'fake paneer' allegations a social media sensation Sarthak Sachdeva put on her.
Gauri is the owner of her luxurious restaurant Torii in Mumbai, and the fake paneer allegations affected the reputation of her food brand.
Now, Chef Vikas Khanna has defended the restaurant, expressing concern over how unqualified individuals are often trusted.
On April 18, 2025, Chef Vikas Khanna shared an Instagram story and wrote that in his decades of experience working with the science of food, he had never seen such terrible misinformation as that shared by the YouTuber claiming to be a food scientist.
Chef Vikas continued, “IODINE changes color with reaction in the presence of ingredients: Potatoes, Rice, Bread, Cornstarch, Flour, Unripe bananas. The use of these ingredients (thus reaction) could also happen in cross-contamination. It’s scary that unqualified people are taken seriously.”
He also tagged the restaurant Torii and the YouTuber who had made the allegations.
Have a look at Vikas Khanna’s story!
The influencer visited different celebrities' restaurants and checked the paneer, including Bobby Deol's 'Someplace Else', Shilpa Shetty's 'Bastian', and Virat Kohli's 'One8 Commune'. When tested with the same iodine, none of the paneer samples from those stores turned black, indicating that there was no starch present.
At Gauri Khan’s restaurant, the paneer turned black and blue during the test, indicating the presence of starch.
Reacting to this, Sarthak stated, “Shah Rukh Khan ke restaurant mein paneer nakli tha. Ye dekh ke mere toh hosh udd gaye the (Shah Rukh Khan’s restaurant served fake paneer. I was shocked to see this).”