A pretty plate, a tasty dish and a comfortable ambience — the whole experience of eating out relies on the hard work that chefs and restaurateurs put into their businesses. On Day One (September 21) of the two-day NRAI Indian Restaurant Summit 2023, successful chefs and hospitality personalities came together to discuss the topic of ‘Running a Restaurant is a Chef’s Business: The Rise of the Chef Restaurateur’.
Excerpts from the discussion where Zorawar Kalra got the conversation flowing.
Zorawar Kalra
What is a chef restaurateur?
It is arguably a fairly new term and refers to somebody who became a chef out of passion and proceeded to convert that passion into a business. It’s an incredible and hard role to balance the business and creative aspects.
— Zorawar Kalra, founder and MD, Massive Restaurants
Vicky Ratnani
Love what you do and you never have to work another day (Balancing the creative passion of cooking and the demands of running numerous restaurants).
While I used to run the restaurants, I used to spend a lot of time there. But as they started growing, I started doing television and I did that to get more fame so that the restaurants have more scope. The pressure was always on. There is this added burden that you have to deal with, which at the end of the day, you feel good about. But I have always loved what I do and I never take a day off from work because I love my work. It’s nothing you can’t do, but it can go wrong in other ways as well.
— Chef Vicky Ratnani, celebrity chef and founder, Speak Burgers
On October 10, the chef will be opening Speak Burgers by Vicky Ratnani at Novotel Kolkata Hotel & Residences.
Urvika Kanoi
Being in a male-dominated industry
It’s not yet equal when it comes to opportunity. Of course, you see a lot more women now in the field and a lot of them come with the pressure of, “Oh, I need to come back home by 7pm.” To be in F&B, we have to be liberal about a lot of things. I see people in my kitchen have very specific problems — they can’t come on a certain day, they have to leave early, can’t do night shifts. So, these simple problems add up and you see the gender becoming a lesser number in the field.
— Chef Urvika Kanoi, founder of Cafe Duco Mumbai and The Daily Cafe Kolkata
Shripriya Gupta Seth
Women can handle more jobs than one
This industry was dominated by males back in the day. I did my culinary training in Le Cordon Bleu, London, and when I came back and started my journey in 2007, the industry predominantly had males. It was a little more difficult back then but now the narrative has changed. There are so many women excelling in every field, not only as restaurant owners or chefs. Now people are more accepting of women and the challenges we faced back then are not so valid in today’s day and age. Women are multi-functional, multi-faceted and can handle more jobs than one… definitely more than the men.
— Shripriya Gupta Seth, founder, Little Pleasures Patisserie
Shaun Kenworthy
Making Kolkata your home
Kolkata is this incredible city that has this obsessive, living, breathing soul. People have lots of spirit and energy. There’s not lots of money, unfortunately, but people don’t necessarily need it since there’s great energy and spirit. And I like to think that I am classed as being a Calcuttan these days although I spend most of my time running around the country, consulting.
— Chef Shaun Kenworthy
Chalapathi Rao
Transitioning from a professional chef to running a business
It wasn’t an easy decision to turn from a chef to a restaurateur because you are moving from a comfortable zone where, at the end of the month, a certain amount would get credited to your bank account. It took me one-and-a-half years to take that plunge. About donning these two hats, as a chef the passion tells you to do something but as an entrepreneur, there are times you need to sacrifice something as a chef depending on what the entrepreneur says, and vice versa. There are times when you have to put your foot down and switch one hat to the other. It was difficult but now I have adapted to it. Which hat wins? The chef, because that DNA is still in me.
— Chef Chalapathi Rao, founder, Simply South
Suborno Bose
Rise of the ‘chefpreneurs’ in India
I’ve been in the industry for 30-odd years now and we need to understand that the ‘chefpreneurs’ are now going to stay. Because, traditionally India was very business-centric in terms of restaurants — restaurants were owned by entrepreneurs who weren’t chefs. But over the last 10 years, we have seen so many chefs who have opened their own restaurants and they’re really good. They understand the food, the technology, the quality, the menu, hygiene. Currently, we don’t have the Michelin stars in India but when we do, we will have another 200 chef restaurants coming up. Because people will have more of an aspiration to get that star. The only challenge a chef restaurant might face, from a business point, is scaling up their business — they have more in terms of quality and restaurants run by entrepreneurs are more in terms of quantity.
— Dr. Suborno Bose, founder of IIHM and Indismart Group Worldwide
Ashvin Chadha
Common facets to see in chefs and restaurateurs
My community is people who invest in F&B businesses. We basically sell capital, and the availability of capital in these last few years will allow the chefs to become chef entrepreneurs and have their own restaurants. So, I am looking forward to partnering with these chefs and creating many billion-dollar franchises out of India that are owned by chefs. This is possible in the next few years.
— Ashvin Chadha, co-founder, Anicut Capital
Aninda Palit
Bringing your team together
We are three directors, one of them is a chef (Sushanta Sengupta), the second gentleman is from sales (Swaminathan Ramani) and I am from the service side. One thing I keep telling Sushanta is, “Please, step out of your chef’s shoes and start thinking like a promoter.” I don’t agree with the part of this topic that says, “Running a restaurant is a chef’s business,’’ because the moment you start running the business, from a chef you become an entrepreneur. But the “Rise of the Chef Entrepreneur” is something I agree with. In India, the bawarchi became a chef and the chef became a celebrity. In today’s day, the crucial man who is behind the success of a business is the one who is preparing the ultimate product — the chef. It is better to invest in that man than anything else, which is why you have more chef restaurants.
— Aninda Palit, co-director, Savourites Hospitality
