THE DINNER CLUB BAZAAR BEAUTY
Whether it’s introducing authentic European cuisines or making Parsi dishes fashionable again, FIVE CULINARY CZARS reveal how they decide what India will eat next. By Deepali Gupta
THE TIDE HAS TURNED. From five star-only finedining restaurants to standalone ones, from Indianised versions of international food, to those serving authentic tastes, India’s culinary scene has undergone a revolution. At the helm of this are five pioneers. They have introduced haute cuisine to the nation. Their restaurants are accessible but aspirational, their culinary chutzpah catapulting the country’s dining scene to the next level. There’s AD Singh with his much-loved brand Olive, whose talent for investing in new projects has given us the Parsi-Irani café Soda Bottle Opener Wala, Le Bistro du Parc (French), and Guppy by Ai (Japanese) in Delhi, LikeThatOnly (Asian-inspired casual dining) in Bengaluru, as well as one of India’s first gastro pubs, Monkey Bar. The affable
Riyaaz Amlani started out as a shoe salesman, only to end up teaching India how to drink coffee with his Mocha chain of cafés. Today, his restaurant Smoke House Deli is revered as the mecca of casual gourmet dining, while his company Impresario Entertainment & Hospitality runs over 33 outlets of multiple brands in 13 cities.
Rahul Akerkar heralded a new breed of chef-restaurateurs. His iconic Mumbai restaurant Indigo has not only changed the way European food is perceived in the country, but is also one of the most recognisable success stories of standalone fine-dining restaurants. Fellow chef-restaurateur, Ritu
Dalmia is a celebrated TV show host and author, who has had Delhi eating out of her very capable hands for almost a decade and a half with her chain of Italian restaurants, Diva. And as the scion of the Leela Group and one of the most charming hoteliers around, Aishwarya Nair has set up two signature dessert brands while creating some of the best-stocked wine cellars in her hotels countrywide. She has also brought award-winning international restaurants Megu and Le Cirque to our shores.
Bazaar tempted all five to abandon their kitchens and boardrooms to look back at the factors that influence what we should look forward to next.
Harper’s Bazaar: We’ve eaten at your restaurants and read your stories, but did you know for certain that you had found your calling when you started out in this industry?
Rahul Akerkar: Interesting that you should ask that, because I still don’t know what my calling is! I thought my calling was engineering, till I woke up one day to find that it wasn’t.
Riyaaz Amlani: I had no grand plan either. When we opened the first Mocha in Mumbai, I expected to grow old running that one coffee shop all my life, but people took to it so warmly that one place grew to two and three and then further. I only realised how quickly we were growing when I started spending less time in the restaurants and more in my office!
Ritu Dalmia: You know how anyone who enjoys food has a dream of opening something of their own? Back then, I thought I was the only one. I’d never been to cooking school, had no experience, and yet, just because I travelled to Italy frequently, I thought I knew it all and wanted to bring authentic Italian to Delhi. I got a reality check on the opening day of my first restaurant, MezzaLuna in Delhi, but since I didn’t come from any training— in the kitchen or at home—there’s a sense of humility that developed and helped me persevere.
Aishwarya Nair: For me, having the gift of the gab and a certain unparalleled
joie de vivre is probably what led me to hospitality. But once I knew the direction I wanted to pursue, I moulded my lifestyle to my profession and being an industry trendsetter became my priority. Whether it was having the first Red Velvet on my menu in 2008 or selling the most expensive wine in India, being the first to do things appeals to me.
HB: Was it a challenge to expand your brands while creating new concepts?
RD: Absolutely! I’ve had more failures than successes. After I returned to India, I attempted to do a food court, but lost money on it every day. I didn’t call those setbacks super failures and give up, though. I just realised I wasn’t cut out for making high quality, low-cost food. The truth is I’m old fashioned and follow a simple business model— all our projects are personality driven. I’ve never worried about feasibility, so it may not be the best way, but it’s how I want Diva to grow.
AD: Much like Ritu’s story, my journey has been all about the circumstances. I didn’t expect Olive to be the success it was. Ai [AD’s first Japanese eatery in Delhi] was only born after Olive Delhi was sealed and we had to find new locations. Shutting Ai some years later was one of my saddest days, but now with Guppy (Ai’s casual, quirkier sibling), we have a great model in place. The market today is drastically different from the one I entered 13 years ago with Olive. Now it’s about concepts that are interesting as well as riskaverse, which can grow better and be scaled higher with lower price points
R Amlani: I feel that each space speaks to you if you listen carefully and every brand has its own growth chart. Mumbai’s Salt Water Café was a natural extension of the same philosophy of Salt Water Grill at a time when people wanted gourmet food in a casual format, while Smoke House Deli was envisioned specially for the mall in Vasant Kunj, Delhi. It has turned out to be our best-loved concept, but the brand is as much about the location and its journey as it is about the menu.
R Akerkar: Exactly! Indigo took shape because of Just Desserts [where Akerkar collaborated with AD Singh] and Under the Over [Akerkar’s first restaurant set up in 1992 in Bengaluru]. I began to realise that I really wanted to create a serious, food-focussed and chef-centric dining establishment with impeccable service and warm hospitality. While Neel [a celebration of Nawabi cuisine that replaced Tote on the Turf, which garnered initial praise and awards and was called the new Indigo, but soon declined] came about because I hired a talented chef to handle Indian cuisine at Moveable Feast, our catering wing. His food was so great that people suggested we do this in an à la carte format. It made sense and things fell into place.
“People want easy, approachable food without having to spend the time to ‘ dine’.”—Rahul Akerkar
HB: Rahul, you mentioned Tote on the Turf and Neel, but you are still largely considered a one-brand man. Any plans to diversify?
R Akerkar: Well, it’s pretty clear to me that sophisticated or fine-dining is no longer the way to go. People want easy, approachable food without having to spend the time to ‘dine’. It’s sad, but that’s where it’s going. Keeping that in mind, Indigo Deli has phenomenal potential for growth and we are in the process of multiplying it, first with New Delhi and after that wherever we feel it should go. But I don’t think our flagship Indigo, which is a chef-driven operation, will grow too much post the second one that will soon open in Delhi as it wouldn’t make sense or even be feasible.
HB: What about all of you? Which cities are you looking at next?
R Amlani: We are looking at moving into new cities s uch a s Chennai a nd Hyderabad as well as establishing our hold over existing markets in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru for Smoke House Deli, while a new outlet has just been opened in Kolkata.
AD: The potential to take the Olive brand across India is huge, but concepts need to reach a larger audience and that’s what we are going with Olive Bistro (Pune and Hyderabad) and Pizzeria (recently opened i n Gurgaon). We’ve al s o conceptualised another Olive concept, even more af f ordable t han t hese two brands, to suit smaller c i t i e s a nd of c ourse, SodaBottleOpenerWala (Gurgaon) and Monkey Bar (Bengaluru and Delhi) will be expanding to other metros.
HB: Speaking of SodaBottle and Monkey Bar, what led to your collaborative projects with other entrepreneurs and your own employees AD?
AD: We can never grow without good people and eventually talented people want to do something more, so we’ve lost people before. In fact about three years ago, some of the best places in Delhi were opened by people from Olive—Rara Avis [French bistro], PCO [a speakeasy], and Imperfecto [serving European cuisine]. We were happy that our employees were getting opportunities, but we also wanted to give them a chance to grow along with us while we benefitted from their expertise too. The current situation is a win-win for everybody. So for example, Chef Manu Chandra is our chef partner for Olive Bistro and he and his partner, Chetan Rampal (both former Olive employees) look after Monkey Bar and LikeThatOnly where my involvement is minimal. SodaBottleOpenerWala and Le Bistro du Parc are run similarly.
HB: Ritu, how did Diva Kitsch and your tryst with Asian cuisine happen? Is that a direction you will continue to take?
RD: You know people learn a new language when they turn 40, but I already speak such wonderful Italian that I didn’t need to. I thought I would experiment with a cuisine instead. Asian was an obvious choice, but I wanted to do it the way I like it. Due to my upbringing, I had a problem with fish sauce, paste, and their ilk so we decided not to use any pre-made pastes. Kitsch is still very fresh though and people are responding well to it, but for me it was more about seeing if I could do something new rather than another variant of European food.
HB: Aishwarya, where did your love of wine come from and why did you decide to focus on dessert concepts?
AN: My love of wine was built at The Culinary Institute of America. Wine was the hardest class to pass and being competitive, I just had to do well in it. Now, it’s a lifelong romance. Most enthusiasts will tell you that wine appreciation has little to do with getting debauched and more about understanding the nature of a magical elixir. It’s also preservation of history and time. As for my dessert concepts, Dolce was started in 2009 because I saw the need for an authentic pastry brand, but with the recently launched AMAI, a health product line based on clean eating, it was about keeping with the
“Riyaaz is the Rockstar, AD the Maverick,
Rahul the Revolutionary, and Ritu the Radical Inventor.” —Aishwarya
Nair
current ethos of fitness and being conscious of what we eat. AMAI’s recipes don’t use any refined sugar, flour, or artificial additives, which is game-changing because no one in India is focussing on vegan, gluten-free, on-the-go products. HB: What are your takes on the current industry?
R Amlani: I’d say that if you have the right product, the right consumer will come to you. The one fact that is undeniable is that people want to experience a whole lot more, but they want to do it in friendly and casual environs.
AN: I’m much more optimistic! I think it’s a fantastic time to be in the industry with stalwarts like Le Cirque and Megu being received with immense pleasure, and people trying to recreate dining experiences akin to those internationally. Everyone is getting more experimental with cuisine, which makes restaurants inventive and we’ll see cuisines like Peruvian and Argentinian in the future. Also, food will become more interactive to serve the purpose of entertainment as well.
R Akerkar: I’m both excited and concerned about what’s happening in our industry. But I fear we have few homegrown concepts and talent to meet these demands and are importing ideas that don’t necessarily translate for the Indian palate.
RD: The client base has evolved with increased spending power and more travel, plus active social media is keeping us on our toes. The age group coming out to eat is a lot younger and although we have a long way to go, the media has helped make chefs and restaurants into stars, which is encouraging entrepreneurs to open new concepts. But going forward, I’d love to see more regional Indian food being showcased before it dies out.
AD: What’s positive is that there are a lot of new people coming into the business with fresh concepts— sometimes they are borrowed from here and there, but they are doing great.
HB: Do you all eat out a lot in India? Do you have any particular favourites?
R Akerkar: I eat out a fair amount, but have no favourites and where I eat is entirely mood- or craving-based.
AD: I love Pali Bhavan in Mumbai and think Mamagoto is a good product. All of my contemporaries are oldtimers in the business—I’ve seen Rahul and Ritu’s career graph grow and respect them a lot.
R Amlani: I love Mamagoto as a restaurant. They have immense potential for growth. If you ask me for a favourite spot though, it would have to be Indian Accent in Delhi, but it’s a concept that can’t be replicated.
RD: Yes, I do eat out a lot in India. I like to go to Indian Accent and when I’m in Mumbai, a stop at Indigo is a must.
AN: My local favourites are Yauatcha’s shrimp chestnut dim sum, Megu’s baked unagi, and Jamavar’s gucchi masala. As for contemporaries, all the four people here play special characters in my fairytale—Riyaaz is the Rockstar, AD the Maverick, Rahul the Revolutionary, and Ritu the Radical Inventor.
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