Anil Amin’s American Dream, 25 Years After 9/11

10 Minute read

10 Sep 2026

Anil Amin

After losing friends and his workplace in the attacks, Amin endured recession and pandemic before starting again at Cardamom in Queens.

Anil Amin discovered something cruel about the American Dream: the path to success can be upended by forces beyond one’s control. He would learn that lesson repeatedly, first on September 11, again during the Great Recession, and once more during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amin had already learned how to start over. After arriving in America, he found work at Indian restaurants across Queens and Long Island, rising to become both a manager and a chef. But after years of advancement, he wanted to take a different path.

“I was desperate for experience in American cuisine,” Amin said.

When Shaffer City Oyster Bar & Grill offered him a job as a busboy, Amin accepted the pay cut, took the lower-ranking position, and changed uniforms. Within three months, he had been promoted to waiter. By his sixth month, he was working in the kitchen as a chef.

Then Amin heard that Windows on the World, the restaurant complex atop the North Tower of the World Trade Center, was hiring busboys. He saw another apparent step down as an opportunity.

On his first day of training, Amin was struck by the attention paid to every detail. “Oh my God . . . the way you walk, how you hold a tray,” he said. “The small details. That’s what I liked.”

At Windows on the World, Amin advanced from busboy to waiter to captain within months, later moving into the kitchen as sous chef at Wild Blue, the complex’s smaller American steakhouse. Over roughly five years at Windows on the World, he learned American fine dining, including under executive chef Michael Lomonaco.

Amin’s father died when he was a baby. His mother later remarried and moved away with her new husband, leaving Amin to be raised by his maternal grandparents. His grandmother encouraged him. “She wanted me to be somebody, but I was not interested in my studies,” he said. She also taught him to be resourceful.

Growing up in a seaside village in Goa, India, Amin found ways to earn money at the harbor. He cleaned boats and filled them with fresh water for the next day’s voyage. He was paid five rupees and a bucket of fish. Amin kept the money, carried the fish to another part of the harbor, and auctioned them off. In time, he saved enough to come to America.

On September 7, 2001, Amin’s grandmother died. From the other side of the world, he struggled to mourn her. On September 10, he worked his usual double, covering breakfast and lunch before beginning the evening shift. His boss, Melissa, could see how heavily the loss weighed on him.

“You don’t look good. Why don’t you take a few days off?” Amin recalled Melissa saying. He told her he couldn’t. Melissa insisted that he at least take the following morning, September 11, off. He agreed to report only for his evening shift.

“She saved my life,” Amin said.

The Windows on the World complex employed more than 400 people across its restaurants and other venues. Before and after their shifts, employees gathered for staff meals in the cafeteria. Amin said he knew everyone. They were his friends, his family. On September 11, 2001, more than 70 of his colleagues were killed in the attacks.

After the attacks, Amin grieved for his colleagues and wrestled with the guilt of having survived.

In time, Amin returned to restaurant work, eventually collaborating with Michelin-starred chef Peter Beck.

After more than a decade of front- and back-of-house experience, Amin opened his own Manhattan restaurant in 2008 and gave it a hopeful name: Nirvana. Two weeks later, Lehman Brothers collapsed, dramatically deepening the financial crisis and the recession already underway.

“It was impossible to get a loan,” Amin said. He needed financing to improve the restaurant and purchase supplies, but without bank support, he had to raise the money himself. “I put in everything. Heart and soul.” He worked every available hour, serving early lunches, hosting late-night parties, and catering on weekends. Sleep did not exist. He found a way to pay the bills, and Nirvana survived.

Then COVID happened. Nirvana closed. And Amin lost everything again.

“I felt done. I felt depressed,” Amin said. Nirvana “was the only thing I [had].”

Then he remembered his wife’s advice: “Think about when you came to America and had nothing. Think like that.”

So he did. Amin shifted his ambitions to Queens, finding more affordable real estate and a sense of new beginnings in Sunnyside. He opened Cardamom there in 2021, giving the venture a more down-to-earth name. With about a dozen tables and a small bar at the back, the compact restaurant soon developed a following of its own.

On a recent weekend night, the restaurant bustled as diners tore naan and spooned up brightly colored curries packed with flavor and heat. The first bites played crisp against tender: brittle dahi puri shells filled with chickpeas, yogurt, and pomegranate, followed by lasuni gobi and Chicken 65, both crisp outside and tender within, in a tangy tomato-garlic sauce.

Goa, where Amin grew up, was a Portuguese colony until 1961, and Cardamom’s menu reflects both that history and his own. His Goan fish curry honors his late grandmother with fresh coconut, tamarind, Kashmiri dried chiles, curry leaves, and her secret spice blend. The vindaloo, a Goan adaptation of the Portuguese dish carne de vinha d’alhos, was vinegary, spicy, and brilliant. Cardamom’s dum biryani should not be overlooked either: its rice is cooked with milk and ghee beneath a layer of dough that seals in steam and flavor.

“Slowly, it’s working,” Amin said of Cardamom, which earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand. “I’m happy. I have time for myself. I can focus more on the food than ever before.” When I spoke with him on his day off, he had just returned from a fishing trip in Montauk. “Life is short. I’m balancing it.”

On the first few anniversaries of September 11, Amin and his former Windows on the World colleagues gathered at a Manhattan pier. “We all got together to talk about the memories,” he said. Priests and imams joined them to lead prayers and honor those who died. “Once it became more like a barbecue, I stopped going.” Amin didn’t want to celebrate; he wanted to remember.

When he first opened Cardamom, he hoped to advertise in a local newsletter that he would give free meals to first responders. Someone in Sunnyside told him that it was illegal; it was seen as a kind of bribe. He shrugged. Amin would do it anyway.

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About the author

Noah Lederman is the author of A World Erased. His writing about chefs, restaurants, food and drinks has been featured in Eater, Bon Appetit, the Michelin Guide, Slate, BBC...

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