Not all culinary grads are going the restaurant route. The result? More playfulness in formats, where the winner is the diner
Diners at Magazine Street Kitchen. Pic Courtesy/Sakshi Parikh
In 2013, a piece in the reputed Bon Appetit magazine proclaimed: “Pop-up restaurants are over.” The writer went on to explain why he is sick of pop-ups: because they are overhyped, because they are held at gimmicky spaces like art galleries, because they have it easy as compared to brick-and-mortar establishments.
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In Mumbai, however, this definitive forecast doesn't seem to hold true. A new breed of chefs is on the rise and, instead of knocking on the doors of a hallowed restaurant after graduating from culinary school, they are striking out on their own. While some chefs do open standalone restaurants, the new kids on the block are, interestingly, walking an entirely different path: that of pop-ups.
Buffalo, Pepper, and Popcorn
Bring out the experiments
Among the several pop-ups and supper clubs making their presence felt in the city lately, two stand out. The first is a joint venture by Jahan Bloch and Le Cordon Bleu graduate Ronak Nanda. The duo came together in May last year to form 425 Omakase, whose pop-up last week at an Andheri brewpub involved dishes that complemented the craft beers on offer.
Every pop-up by the venture features a new menu, giving diners something different to look forward to, while also allowing Nanda and Bloch to flex their creative muscles. Their fare is layered, complex and inspired by cuisines from across the globe. So, it comes as no surprise that the pair has been given opportunities to join other restaurants.
“We chose to turn them down. Restaurants are most often controlled by the management, and the emphasis is on making money. The chef's vision is lost in the process. Our goal is to elevate the quality of food available in the city, and present it in a different format from that of a restaurant's. It's about creativity, and I don't know if every restaurant kitchen has room for it,” says Nanda.
Chef Alex Sanchez at Magazine Street Kitchen
Yet another duo, Shweta Menon and Sunaeyaa Kapur, make up Shweta and Sunaeyaa's Table, which hosted its first pop-up a month ago at Out Of The Blue in Bandra. There, over a sit-down dinner, they plied guests with Lucknowi fare that had been turned on its head. There were dishes like Three Bean Galawat Kebab (with a Mexican influence) and a chaat-inspired Arugula Pomegranate Bell Pepper Salad, all thoughtfully paired with drinks curated by Kapur.
Moolah matters
Menon and Kapur reveal that they burned their hands trying to open a restaurant a year ago. “It was hard to find the right space. Then, once we found it, the landlord was being difficult. So now, we prefer to hijack an already existing restaurant for a day for our pop-ups,” says Menon.
Ronak Nanda and Jahan Bloch
Even Bloch and Nanda agree that although there isn't much money to be made through the pop-up format, it gets them exposure and other gigs, which beats funneling moolah into a restaurant that might never take off, or worse, fail.
Gauri Devidayal, who co-owns Colaba restaurant The Table with Jay Yousuf and chef Alex Sanchez, weighs in. “Opening a restaurant involves huge risks, and takes more than one person. Finding an investor is not easy, and the market is so saturated that it's tough for chefs to differentiate themselves. It's also challenging to find good staff, and the best ones come at a steep price.”
Incidentally, the trio launched Magazine Street Kitchen in Byculla less than a year ago as a culinary space that could be used for up-and-coming restaurants to develop their menus. Instead, it caught the attention of chefs who didn't have an eatery of their own to showcase their fare.
Sunaeyaa Kapoor and Shweta Menon
This venue, along with culinary studios such as Flavour Diaries in Khar and APBâu00c2u0080u00c2u0088Cook Studio, rent the space out to these chefs — for a fee, of course — for a day or two. Devidayal adds, “We also offer them support, from kitchen and service staff on the day to publicising the event.”
Similarly, restaurants, too, are opening their doors to new talent. Chef Conrad D'Souza, who co-owns Out Of The Blue, says the cost charged per person is split between the guest chef and the restaurant. Kapur adds, “It's a win-win for both. If the pop-up is held on what is otherwise a slow day, it still manages to pull in crowds for its novelty.”
Smart or silly?
More often than not, great chefs tend to make lousy restaurateurs. So, are pop-ups actually a strategic move, or is it a format that can't be sustained?
Riyaaz Amlani, president of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) and the man behind the successful Social chain, believes that this trend is a symptom of the “age of Instagram and Twitter,” where instant gratification reigns supreme.
“Nowadays, many young chefs are impatient and don't want to go through the hassle of slowly rising up the ranks at a restaurant. Pop-ups will get you 'likes' and tell you how people take to your food, but running a restaurant is a different ball game.”
He adds that even the mindset of the diner matters, and that a pop-up should not be used by chefs as a way to test the waters before opening their own space. “A guest at a restaurant is different from one at a pop-up. One bad dish at the former is enough to make them angry, but at a pop-up, they are more open-minded about the food. Pop-ups are a hack, but in the short term, there's no denying that they work.”
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