I'm holding a reservation in my name close to the sushi counter. Trouble is, my guest Vir Sanghvi is holding a reservation in his name, too, right at the end of the restaurant.
"It's his table," the waiter apologises "" I'm early, he's late "" so I give in with good grace: besides, it'll allow us to chat freely. Later, Sanghvi will justify, "This restaurant is a networkers' delight so I prefer to sit where no one knows I'm here."
He is arguably India's best known foodie; a convivial TV talk show host who's effortlessly able to pull off scoops on the small screen; and editorial director of Hindustan Times "" the last the reason why he's turned his back on the diners who would love a bit of inside gossip from one of the most powerful men in the newspaper industry.
For many, these personas are different, and Sanghvi himself isn't beyond admitting that the kind of HT readers who enjoy his TV shows are also the kind who probably read his Rude Food column in the paper's Sunday magazine Brunch, but not his editorial pieces.
And those who turn to him for his views on Gujarat's Modi or Pakistan's Musharraf aren't the kind who associate him with truffles or club sandwiches on the one hand, or "Raveena Tandon interviews" on the other.
But the Sanghvi I'm meeting for lunch at his current favourite restaurant, Three-sixty at the Oberoi, is as author of the collected writings on food published by Penguin as Rude Food (and shamelessly plugged in his weekly column of the same name), which has been shortlisted for the Grammy version of food writing, the 10th Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2004, the prize to be announced in Sweden.
"I've been invited to attend the ceremony," he says. And? "I won't go," he shrugs, "I'm regularly nominated for major awards "" for best talk show host and the like "" and I've always lost. It isn't nice to sit in a hall and see someone else win. I never win. I've never even won a lottery."
Sanghvi doesn't appear perturbed, though. Not even when, even though freshly showered for the lunch, he says he wasn't expecting a photographer, and can we wait for the pictures to be done?
"Are you vain?" I ask him. "When you're on TV," he explains, "people always stare at you. That makes me incredibly self-conscious. That's why one has to take pains about one's appearance."
During the course of lunch, he'll bust a few myths about himself. Such as his partying ways. "I'm not a party person," he says, "I'm at that stage of my life when no party conversation stretches beyond eight minutes, and then you're stuck with the most boring person for the rest of the evening."
That isn't the Sanghvi I've heard of on the grapevine, I tell him, the one who is always surrounded by his women admirers. "I'm told this about myself," he chuckles, "but where are the women, give me their numbers."
But increasingly, his friends will tell you, they agree with his contention that he's a restaurant "" as opposed to a party "" person. "Unlike others," Sanghvi says, "my earliest food memories aren't ever about home food but about restaurants. I've lived for months at hotels and have never craved home food. In fact, I never have food cravings. I like food, but never have fixed ideas about it."
For someone who's made food sexy beyond belief, Sanghvi is turning out to be an extremely frugal eater. I had been lusting for the signature sushi/sashimi platter, but Sanghvi asks for a portion of pork yakitori from the live station.
That's what most foodies would demolish over a single drink in an evening, but it is to be his entire lunch. Reluctantly, I join him with a spicy chicken salad as my contribution to the meagre fare on the table. Never before has a Lunch With BS been so spartan.
Sanghvi claims he wasn't to be the original writer of the Rude Food column, but became one by circumstance, writing behind the cover of a pseudonym, and that his cover was never really blown ("okay, some of you knew it," he grins) till the publication of the book when, finally, he agreed to let his name be associated with it.
But, week after week of writing about food, is he finding the going tough? "Oh, no," he says, "I enjoy it almost as much as the food itself." And what's his current food phase?
"I used to be an early fan of Thai food but have gone off it. I don't go to Thai restaurants anymore. Right now I'm enjoying Three-sixty because of the food variety, because it's 10 minutes from home, and because my son likes sushi."
Fellow hacks have always admired his capacity to churn out copy or chat shows with apparent ease, but doesn't he find the talk show mode exhausting, considering he started by recording two shows back-to-back (studios are rented by the day), going on to package three and, in the last schedule, as much as five shows in a day?
"I'm very nervous before a recording," he admits, "but what I hate most is waiting for a guest to arrive." "Nervous?" I laugh, "I don't believe it." "It's true," he says, dripping yakitori sauce in his plate, "which is why I don't accept speaking assignments. Ever."
But the ease that comes through in the coversations on air, I ask, is that because he's well primed with research? "Most times, I've never met my guests before," he says, "and I don't read up a lot on them. One of the things I like about the show is that I have no idea where the conversation is going to go. I treat my anchoring like someone who knows a little bit about the guest but not too much."
But the outrageous things he's able to ask? "" I prod him on a bit. "Because the conversation is friendly, I'm able to slip in questions that don't look forced, or hard," Sanghvi explains, quoting such examples as asking actress Rakhee about her alleged alcoholism, or actor Shah Rukh Khan if he was gay, or Congress Working Committee President Sonia Gandhi how she'd heard about Rajiv Gandhi's death "" and then getting them to actually talk about it without offence.
"The trouble with chat show anchors can be self-obsession," he says "" he's sipping black coffee; I, a cappuccino "" "but people tune in to see the guests, not the host." He has other theories too.
"Most journalists do television interviews as an extension of their print careers; I don't. Somewhere, the TV audience connects me to the writer of Rude Food, but not my serious work. That's quite conscious on my part. Many editors would refuse to interview a bimbette on their show, but I am like any other anchor, without snobbery."
It's something he has managed as a print editor too where, unlike traditional HT editors, he doesn't mind changing the editorial position and bringing popular interest to the forefront. Is he a hands-on editor?
"Not at all," he says, "I look at the broad strategy." Which has been? "Empowering people at HT and changing it from the bottom up," he says.
"The greatest challenge has been improving editorial value and finding a reflection of a modern consumer society without turning it tabloid."
The reference to The Times of India is clear, and HT is now ready to take the fight for leadership from Delhi to Mumbai for which "we are more or less ready", Sanghvi says over a second cup of coffee, "but what isn't worked out still is the product itself".
Given just one choice, would he prefer the electronic to the print media? "Print, definitely," says Sanghvi, patting the sparse beard that is so trendy in all of Bollywood, "I'm a writer, not even an editor.
If someone paid me money to sit at home and write, I'd be very happy to do it. Nothing creative "" I could never write fiction "" but features, columns, some amount of analysis."
It wouldn't fetch him a lot of money, I tell him. "Rather than have lots of money, I would love to have lots of fun," he says, explaining how he's always turned down production offers for his programmes because it's something he wouldn't enjoy or might even do well.
But thankfully, TV does give a boost to his earnings, something he burns up "on lifestyle", he explains. Such as? "Hotels," he explains, "food in restaurants, weekends in London... I live beyond my means, but even though I could earn much more, I don't."
Three-sixty declines to give us a bill. "It would have been worth it if we'd had a magnum of champagne on the table," laughs the editor with presumably the largest restaurant expense account in the country, "but they've never done that to me." Clearly, he's a paying customer where restaurants are concerned; why imperil that?
