“Eat, sleep, and live your brand”
Motherhood inadvertently catalysed my culinary career because I quit my finance job and started a small-scale catering business with my mother. Months of writing emails to Michel Roux Jr resulted in my being accepted in the bakery section of Le Gavroche, a threeMichelin-starred restaurant in London, where I was surrounded by the most talented chefs. It soon became my mission to travel and train with chefs to hone my skills in the culinary space. A trip to San Sebastian, Spain, and eating from the rich Basque region drew me close to the discovery of produce. Back in India, I met Prateek Sadhu over coffee and spoke about cooking from the region and harnessing the soil. Masque is a product of that brainstorming cuppa. We worked on a cuisine-agnostic, ingredient-focused gourmet dining experience, driven by the simple food chain that originated with the farmer and culminated at the plate. Where every bite of food has a story to tell, where crockery, cutlery and drapery are crucial players in the gastronomical narrative and where the farmer, the chef and the innovator, script not just a meal, but a lingering memory. Since September 2016, Masque stands out in its commitment to using only the highest quality regional produce in an indigenous menu that’s determined by the seasons. Masque set out to change the way India dines—destination dining in an almost abandoned mill, chef tasting menus, and introducing our patrons to forgotten ingredients such as sea buckthorn. A year old now, Masque today records a monthly turnover of `40 to
`50 lakh. As told to Aditi Pai