plans for restaurant chains and his own 24-hour TV channel. In the era of the celebrity chef Indian hospitality industry bigwigs are known to concede that "in this country, there is just one, and that is Sanjeev Kapoor". That's what the Taj group's top honcho, Hemant Oberoi, one of the most important chefs in India, is supposed to have told a quote-seeker some time ago. The equation still holds good. If the West has had its share of Gordon Ramsays, Marco Pierre Whites and Nigella Lawsons, India has only Sanjeev Kapoor. The chef with the winsome smile and a middle-class connect (that has enabled him to dabble in everything from ads to reality TV dance shows) has been teaching us his unique brand of Indian khana "" with a twist for more than a decade now. Kapoor's 13-year-old Khana Khazana has been the longest-running TV show in the country and no one has even come close to challenging its popularity. Tarla Dalal, the grand dame of vegetarian (including veg Chinese and Continental) cook books failed miserably when she attempted a reel innings. Karen Anand, with her sophisticated westernised palate, is known just to an elite few. Kapoor, on the other hand, needs no introduction "" neither in the metros, nor in cities such as Ludhiana and Jallandar where, pointedly, his Yellow Chilli brand of "affordable" restaurants has been a roaring success. Now, the street-smart chef has gone ahead and signed a long-term partnership agreement with Citymax, the hospitality arm of the Dubai-based retail chain, the Landmark Group. This includes franchise rights for three brands: Khazana, Grain of Salt and Yellow Chilli. Ambitions are big and Kapoor's brand value is at an all time high. "In the next three years, we are looking at becoming a Rs 500-crore company," he says. But when you ask him about having become the highest-grossing chef in South Asia, he smiles, "...that has been true for the last 10 years." Clearly, he is never short of confidence "" in or out of the kitchen "" ,writes Anoothi Vishal.
I enter Veda, the only trendy, non-five star Indian restaurant in Delhi, its over-the-top look famously put together by fashion designer Rohit Bal, and I am immediately dismayed. It has nothing to do with the dim, glittering interiors, often described as "bordello-like". (In fact, I like the aesthetics.) Instead, it's because the restaurant is overrun by kitty parties that afternoon. The decibel level is deafening and we've been given a tiny table sandwiched between two chattering groups. No place for a lunch, this. Kapoor is outside somewhere, prompt to the dot, and asking for directions. I am trying to think of alternatives and fast. Then, I decide to try some Dilli-style armtwisting. "I am lunching with chef Sanjeev Kapoor, you'd better give us a better table," I tell the manager and it works like magic. The new Veda lounge next door, as opulent and more comfortable, is thrown open for us (it otherwise opens only in the evenings) and throughout the meal, we are to be surrounded by waiters on tip-toes, eager to please.
Then, Kapoor arrives and comments on "so many" women next door, tongue-in-cheek. "...Perhaps they knew I would be coming." The chef believes in no unnecessary modesty. He says he does not feel like a celeb but in the very next breath plunges into a story that begins with, "I was a brilliant student...." In short, it goes somewhat like this: Brilliant students in the 1970s did engineering or chartered accountancy or, at the very least, architecture. But Kapoor was not keen on the first two because "I don't like doing what everyone else does" and the last proved tentative once he got waitlisted at the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi. A friend persuaded him to try out hotel management; he went to Pusa and never looked back. Beginning in the ITDC kitchens in 1984, on his first day, he met an executive chef, the youngest at that time in the industry, and "the only question I asked him was how old he was". The gentleman was 40, so Kapoor decided to beat him by a decade when it came to climbing up ranks. It happened just as he had planned; after a stint abroad and just in time for his 30th birthday, Sanjeev Kapoor became the youngest exec chef in the country, at the Centaur hotel in Mumbai. Then, TV arrived.
Meanwhile, our starters arrive "" Kapoor has ordered a tandoori sampler and my only request has been for a paneer sushi roll, which sounded like such a travesty that I had to check it out. "Do you know how unhygenic most restaurant kitchens are in India?" the chef begins by way of a social aside. "Please..." I protest, "I don't want to hear it," pointing to the food on our table. But there's a point to be illustrated. "How many people work here?" Kapoor checks with our friendly waiter and goes on to ask about the restroom facilities. Thankfully, Veda emerges relatively ok (25 staffers, one washroom) but it transpires that most are not: The staff sleeps over in most plush premises without any wash and board facilities. Thankfully, we're back to TV soon.
In 1993, Kapoor, along with some other five-star chefs, was offered a programme called
"Shriman Bawarchi". He was to do just one or two episodes but refused since he didn't like the name. Further discussions with the channel (Zee), however, yielded results and Khana Khazana (a name suggested by the chef himself) was born. It continues to this day, a legend on TV now, the emphasis still very much on familiar desi recipes "" "but with a wow factor." Kapoor gives an example: "You could do a yellow dal and instead of garnishing it with coriander, try mint. The flavour is acceptable so you've breached the first wall but it is unexpected in dal." Sounds mundane? Kapoor defends his image of being a firmly "middle class" chef. "I always see who the user is. I don't cook according to my taste but according to my audiences'," he says and adds, "I do 20-25 food columns a month but what I do for Khaleej Times is different from what I do for Navbharat Times."
Whatever Kapoor says, his firmly Bharatiya sensibilities are in evidence all the time. The waiter asks us about "breads" "" we've ordered their special lamb curry and a biryani "" and Kapoor is quick to admonish, "Go, get a basket with foccacia then." There will only be tandoori rotis here! This is an image a huge chunk of India "" and Indians abroad "" obviously identifies with and around it revolves the Kapoor kingdom.
There are four verticals that his company is focusing on currently. Books and publishing (the chef's done 10 and sells about 1.5 million copies a year, he's now looking at the overseas market with plans in the UK); a website that's become subscription-based recently (1,75,000 subscribers); TV; and the food business "" not just restaurants but also a line of ready-to-eat products and pickles, available in chains such as Tesco, if not in India (the pickles are though). Yellow Chilli and Grain of Salt both figure in the agreement with Landmark and while 10 outlets of the former are to open in the next one year "" in a more upscale format "" two outlets of the latter are slated in the same time at an investment of Rs 2-3 crore each. Grain of Salt (there is one in Kolkata) is conceived as a coffee shop serving "Indian and world cuisine for Indians", read Indian Chinese, Indian Mexican et al ("Why should we be shy of our food? Is McDonald's shy of aloo-tikki burger?"). We are almost at the end of our meal now. The curry has proved to be excellent, the chef feels his Yellow Chilli is just as good, more importantly, he has let out a secret, off-record.
PS: Just as I finish writing this, there's a phone call "" it's going to be no longer off-record. The PR machinery tells me formally that Kapoor will be launching his own 24-hour TV channel on, what-else, but food that will feature all his recipes from the Popular Prakashan books. It is time to tune-in again, then.
