‘People thought it was a bonkers midlife crisis’

Nisha Katona, Mowgli Street Food, across the UK

Abandoning a 20-year career as a barrister, “curry evangelist” Nisha Katona was determined instead to build a scalable Indian restaurant empire. The aim was to fulfil a “nagging obsession” with sharing the home cooking she grew up with in Ormskirk in Lancashire and explored while visiting her grandmother in Varanasi in India.

Katona’s simple, light food represents her Brahmin Bengali background, from temple dahl to “office worker’s tiffin” and fenugreek-kissed fries. Her signature dish was a risky move: the yogurt chaat bomb, a cold vegan starter, is an explosion of flavour that must be eaten within eight minutes of being prepared to order.

Before her first site opened in Liverpool in 2014, she experienced both euphoria and fear. “I would work in court all day and then waitress every evening. The only time I would see my children at that time is when they came into the restaurant to do their homework. Miraculously, queues formed almost immediately.”

It proved a hit, and within a year, Katona opened another in Manchester; now, she has 10 UK restaurants. She has published three cookbooks, and received an MBE for services to the food industry. So, how did she do it? “I looked at Indian food on the high street in Britain, and it’s a million miles away from the humble food I eat, which is made with far less ghee and cream. If you have a unique passion and you see a gap in the market, your idea comes alive. I couldn’t sleep for thinking about Mowgli – it was like a child waiting to be born.

“I had a salary and brilliant prospects, two daughters to raise and a mortgage to pay, and my husband travels a lot – so it seemed like a crazy idea. Everyone thought it was a bonkers midlife crisis. I put all our family savings into it, and I could still fail – I’m only ever as good as my last service. I wanted to take my food to the nation in volume, and the secret to that has been reasonably priced, delicious, healthy