diff --git a/charts/my-recipes-chart/templates/frontend-deployment.yaml b/charts/my-recipes-chart/templates/frontend-deployment.yaml
index 8973e53..52edc17 100644
--- a/charts/my-recipes-chart/templates/frontend-deployment.yaml
+++ b/charts/my-recipes-chart/templates/frontend-deployment.yaml
@@ -25,13 +25,26 @@ spec:
             - containerPort: {{ .Values.frontend.service.targetPort }}
               name: http
               protocol: TCP
-          {{- with .Values.frontend.env }}
+          {{- /* compute API_BASE: prefer frontend.env.API_BASE, else use first ingress host */}}
+          {{- $apiBase := "" }}
+          {{- if .Values.frontend.env.API_BASE }}
+          {{- $apiBase = .Values.frontend.env.API_BASE }}
+          {{- else if .Values.ingress.hosts }}
+          {{- $firstHost := index .Values.ingress.hosts 0 }}
+          {{- $apiBase = printf "https://%s/api" $firstHost.host }}
+          {{- end }}
           env:
+            - name: API_BASE
+              value: {{ $apiBase | quote }}
+            {{- /* include any other env vars provided in values.frontend.env (skip API_BASE to avoid duplicate) */}}
+            {{- with .Values.frontend.env }}
             {{- range $key, $value := . }}
+            {{- if ne $key "API_BASE" }}
             - name: {{ $key }}
               value: {{ $value | quote }}
             {{- end }}
-          {{- end }}
+            {{- end }}
+            {{- end }}
           livenessProbe:
             httpGet:
               path: /
diff --git a/charts/my-recipes-chart/values.yaml b/charts/my-recipes-chart/values.yaml
index 76ad8f8..542968f 100644
--- a/charts/my-recipes-chart/values.yaml
+++ b/charts/my-recipes-chart/values.yaml
@@ -91,14 +91,17 @@ ingress:
   className: "nginx"
   annotations:
     cert-manager.io/cluster-issuer: "letsencrypt-prod"
+    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target: "/$2"
+    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/use-regex: "true"
   hosts:
     - host: recipes.local
       paths:
         - path: /
           pathType: Prefix
           backend: frontend
-        - path: /api
-          pathType: Prefix
+        # use a regex to capture and rewrite /api/... to /... on the backend
+        - path: /api(/|$)(.*)
+          pathType: ImplementationSpecific
           backend: backend
   tls:
     - secretName: recipes-tls