6 Ballygunge Place wants to give a taste of authentic Bengali cuisine to people in other cities, and go abroad as well
In Bangalore, you can step into an address that is quintessentially Kolkata — 6 Ballygunge Place, a restaurant that smacks of true ‘Bangaliana’ and serves authentic Bengali delicacies.
The restaurant, which started its journey from a sober bungalow on — you guessed right! — 6 Ballygunge Place, has recently registered a trademark of the address under Intellectual Property Rights. This is a first in India. “Since we are tenants here, the owner could always have evicted us and opened another restaurant here. We wanted to preempt any such thing,” says S Ramani, one of the three friends — the others being Sushanta Sengupta and Aninda Palit — who started the restaurant. All three had experience in the hospitality industry. “We had our specialisations in different areas of the industry and decided to start a catering business called ‘Savourites’,” says Sengupta who is the chief chef. Ramani takes care of sales and marketing, while Palit takes care of the food and beverages department.
“In 2003, we opened 6 Ballygunge Place and we decided to keep a continental menu vis-a-vis the Bengali menu,” says Sengupta. The partners felt that a Bengali restaurant would not attract customers in Kolkata. But after a year they realised that people were thronging the restaurant to indulge in authentic Bengali dishes. Since then, 6 Ballygunge has became synonymous with authentic Bengali cuisine. Having opened a branch in Salt Lake, the partners are now looking to open another outlet in north Kolkata in six months’ time.
After Bangalore, the partners are eyeing outlets in Delhi and Mumbai as well. The owners want to go overseas as well to cities such as Paris, London and a few in the United States as well. “We are in talks with a few people to open overseas outlets on revenue-sharing basis and by 2012, we should hopefully start operations abroad as well,” says Ramani. “We have tied up with Axis Bank which will provide funding in these ventures,” he adds.
No doubt all of these will be called 6 Ballygunge Place.
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The flagship items at the restaurant are the various fish dishes such as Bhetki Macher Paturi, Dab Chingri and Bhapa Ilish. They also do special recipes of mutton and chicken. The restaurant also holds food festivals and promotional offers on special occassions such as Poila Baishakh — the Bengali new year — and Durga Puja.
Talking about their business model, Ramani says, “We don’t intend to go down the franchisee route because we don’t want to compromise on the quality of food.” Apart from quality management, the franchisee model is not conducive for the restaurant business as the chefs are trained in-house. “There is a serious dearth of chefs specialising in Bengali cuisine,” adds Sengupta. The partners are also not keen on opening outlets in malls because they believe it would prevent them from pricing their products fairly.
Last year, the company posted a net turnover of Rs 7.5 crore with almost 30 per cent profit margin. A chunk of their customers are NRIs and Bengalis who stay outside the state. “The place evokes a sense of nostalagia among customers as they get a slice of old Bengali recipes which are no longer prepared in Bengali households,” smiles Sengupta. Among its loyal customers, 6 Ballygunge Place boasts of names like singer Asha Bhonsle, actor Rishi Kapoor and the who’s who of Kolkata.
