Famous chef shares secrets to success
Yellow Chilli founder talks about restaurant expansion, surprise ingredients, music — even clam chowder
It was a red-carpet welcome for the Yellow Chilli legend.
Master chef Sanjeev Kapoor, India’s most famous culinary figure, flew in from Delhi to host last week’s grand opening of the newest restaurant in his global empire, the Yellow Chilli in Santa Clara.
The Bay Area’s Indian media crowded the red carpet to capture the arrival of the man whose reach may exceed that of any U.S. celebrity chef, and local dignitaries feted him with proclamations and plaques.
How big is Kapoor? His long-running “Khana Khazana” TV show reaches an estimated 500 million people, making it the most-watched program in Asia; he launched his own 24-hour food channel; he’s written more than 150 cookbooks; and his website boasts 15,000 recipes. His restaurants are found throughout Asia and increasingly, North America.
Despite his vast empire, Kapoor is often praised for having a personal touch more
“I want to show the world that Indian food can be cooked with fresh ingredients and a lot of expertise and finesse.”
— Master chef Sanjeev Kapoor
common in workaday cooks than celebrity chefs. Customers come in the door because of his name, he said; however, he added in introducing corporate chef Pradipto Das and his Santa Clara chefs, “When they go out they should remember your name.”
The audience was packed with fans who had followed Kapoor for years, both in Asia and in this country.
“He has healthy, easy to cook recipes. It’s easy to take what he says and apply it,” said Sundari Mitra, the CEO of NetSpeed Systems, who said she was looking forward to Kapoor infusing new recipes with Burmese and African touches from his travels. She attended the opening with nephews Pranay Vissa and Prashani Vissa, both of whom had grown up in Dubai and had eaten at Kapoor’s restaurant there.
In Monday’s wide-ranging conversation, Kapoor touched on the topics of global expansion, surprise ingredients, music — even, believe it or not, clam chowder.
ON HIS CULINARY PHILOSOPHY, WHAT SETS HIS FOOD APART >> “I want to show the world that Indian food can be cooked with fresh ingredients and a lot of expertise and finesse,” he says.
Beyond that is the element of surprise, for which Kapoor is known. And no, he says, “We don’t want to bring foams and spheres and molecular gastronomy” to the dishes.
By “playing around” with ingredients he means adding an unexpected touch — like lemongrass in a kebab. If you are a “discerning diner,” he says, you may notice it
and enjoy the change.
“We look at food to bring a little smile to your face.”
ON THE NAME YELLOW CHILLI >> There’s the story, and the back story. Both are true, Kapoor says.
According to the restaurant website, Kapoor remembers coming across the yellow chile while visiting his grandmother at her home in Meerut.
Years later, after he’d become a chef, he started using a stylized red chile logo on his business cards, then discovered the artist later did some moonlighting and re-used the image. So Kapoor switched the color to yellow. When it came time to create a restaurant name and brand, “I didn’t want anything cliched.” The light bulb went off: They would use the yellow chile from his cards.
“Now there is the actual story, and the story we tell the world.”
ON HIS SPECIAL SANTA CLARA DISH >> “At every Yellow Chilli, we try to adapt something that is local,” Kapoor says.
Here, it’s a clam chowder — one of Kapoor’s first Bay Area memories — made with local clams, fresh fish and served in a Boudin bread bowl. What makes it Indian are the ingredients he adds — turmeric, cloves, curry leaves and a squeeze of lime.
Kapoor prepared the fragrant dish onstage and presented it to Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor. ON HIS BUSINESS PLAN >> Kapoor already runs the world’s largest restaurant chain serving Indian food but still has his sights set on further growth. “We first populated Indian cities, then the Middle East. Our next focus is North America.”
His plan is to take baby steps first, see what works in these markets. He said he may open one or two more restaurants in the next
year or 18 months.
ON HIS OTHER TALENT >> Kapoor is also an accomplished drummer and percussionist and has his own band. He often plays with (and cooks for) India’s top singers and musicians.
ON HIS PROMISES TO LOCAL FANS >> He vowed to bring live music into the Santa Clara restaurant and also to set apart this Yellow Chilli with a wine program. “I guarantee we will bring in wine from the region,” he said.
ON WHAT’S NEXT >> After business trips to check on his enterprises in Los Angeles, Toronto, Mumbai and Delhi, Kapoor says he’ll be back in the Bay Area to raise money for Akshaya Patra, a charity devoted to eliminating classroom hunger in India. The midday meal program serves more than 1.7 million children at 14,000 schools across 12 states in India.