Restaurants boom, cuisines multiply as the liberal Indian eats out with a vengeance
YEAR 1993. Delhi-based publisher Sanjeet decided to follow a hunch. The time, he decided, was ripe for launching a food magazine. Thus was launched Eating Out, Delhi's first foodie publication. Circulation three years on: a healthy 35,000. And growing. This, despite a recent price hike of Rs 10 that jacked up the price to a steep Rs 30.
Not hunch alone. The hardnosed businessman with his ear to the ground was responding to a trend he'd shrewdly assessed was a happening one. "The food business is booming like never before," says Sanjeet, citing figures to prove his point. 8,000 licensed and an equal number of unlicensed restaurants in Delhi alone. New businesses opening everyday: 10 restaurants with an investment outlay of at least Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh each, opening in the capital's upmarket Defence Colony within the short span of seven years. Each of them notching up daily sales of Rs 10,000 to 100,000 a day. Cash registers tinkling merrily in another 14 expensive eateries, start up investment Rs 10 lakh to Rs 30 lakh, in tres chic Hauz Khas Village. Each of them raking in Rs 5,000 to Rs 1,50,000 a day.
No Delhi phenomenon, this. It's a story that's replicating itself countrywide. Restaurateurs in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Calcutta, Ban-galore, Chennai are all riding the crest of a Food Boom. A boom fuelled by the newly splurging have-money-will-spend breed of Indian. Affluent, urbane, well travelled, with-it, untramelled by considerations of caste, conditioning or cuisine. His palate refined and diversified by travel, education, exposure, the desire to live the good life, inhabit epicurean valhalla, be the gourmet at cheche gatherings, the oenophile at the French collaborator's deal clinching party. This is the '90s Indian: steak-seduced, brochette-biting, khimchi-chewing, sushi-smitten, tacho-talking, nacho, nori, gnocchi-knowing, linguini-loving, martini-sipping. At once the cause and the consequence of rampant consumerism, seeking to star in the popularly purveyed fantasies of glittering good times daily directed at him through a million television screens across the country: men and women wining and dining in expensive three and five-star havens that go by fancy names like Las Meninas, Casa Medici, Taaja, Tai Pan, Thai Ban, Ichiban, Isfahan, Khyber, Wan-chai, Sogkarran, Mezza Luna, Tamarind Tree, Farmhouse, Curry on the Roof.... Where the food, like its consumers, looks like it has been to the beauty parlour.
It's these Indians who are pushing up restaurant revenues, stampeding to be admitted into exorbitantly priced five-star eateries a la Las Meninas, the newly-opened Spanish restaurant at Delhi's upmarket Park Hotel where three-course meals for two sans booze costs Rs 1,600 plus, at Revathi Nagaswamy's sushi joint in Chennai where platters for two cost Rs 700, at Tomatoes in Ahmedabad where two people can stuff their faces with pasta and chicken for Rs 500, at Chowk Ki Dhaani in Jaipur where a 'eat till you're beat' thaali meal for two wouldn't cost anything over Rs 350, at Taaja in Calcutta where two crab imperials cost only Rs 240. It's these Indians again who are creating a whole new breed of Pasta Pashas and Curry Kings in the bargain.
When and why did Indians become such Eating Out junkies? In the '80s mostly. The Squirelling '60s and '70s were about saving. The Rajiv Gandhi Camelot era about earning money. And splurging it. "The food business registered a 50-per cent growth in the late '80s, early '90s.
Our sale is Rs 1,30,000 daily," admits Delhi-based owner of the 371-cover Asiad Village restaurant complex, P.L. Lamba. What triggered the Eating Out boom? "It's as much about felt need as it is about fashion," says Delhi-based restaurateur, Sticky Fingers' Andy Varma. "This is about a 3,000-million strong Indian middle class riding the crest of an opportunity and income wave. Its about DINKS with hefty disposable incomes living the good life of which eating out and eating well is an integral aspect". Well put. It's also about eating out being the only entertainment option available to families starved of any other entertainment.
It's also about convenience. Who wants to cook at home, wash up afterwards, waste in scraping and scrubbing, time, that could be better used earning money working overtime, trading shares at stockmarkets, pursuing a hobby sidelined for want of personal time? It's also about couples preferring to take other people out rather than go through the hassle of having people over with all the attendant irritants of primping up house, person, linen, crockery and cutlery. It's about urban loneliness too. Young single exec types working hard, playing hard, prefer to eat out every night with other faces, for who wants to go back to an empty bachelor flat and eat warmed up tinned soup for dinner? Last but not the least, it's about Indian yuppies travelling more, diversifying palates to accommodate more cosmopolitan fare: dimsum and khimchi, Mexican and Brazilian, Thai and Vietnamese, Spanish and Italian cuisine.
Not convenience or preference alone. Eating out today is also about social pretensions. "It's trendy to be seen out, say oh-have-you-ever-been-to-that-place-the-wife-and-I-discovered-the-other-night, casually drop exotic dish names, recommend restaurants because 'such-n-such chef is there only those days'," says Madhur Singh, proprietor Ritu Dalmia's partner in Delhi's Mezza Luna, explaining the eating out craze among urban Indians. Dalmia agrees: "It's a class thing. Implying familiarity with honey mustard, pesto, parmesan, nori, wine implies you've been having it all your life. That's the variety that asks for 'crap' instead of crepes in my restaurant. They want to acquire an air. In the process we acquire their money. Good for us," she shrugs philosophically. That variety of pretentiousness can result in hilarious situations. Singh recounts an instance of a client complaining his smoked salmon was cold. "Didn't bat an eyelid," she recalls with a chuckle, "I just asked the steward to heat it up".
Some go out eating to air pretensions. Others, as Sanjeet points out, go out to 'make an impression'. He recalls the example of the reader who called to ask where to take his bank manager who was to grant him his loan. "He didn't want a very expensive place lest the manager think he was too affluent to need the loan. He didn't want a cheap place because that may have implied a social slight." Adds Mumbai food writer Rashmi Uday Singh: "Eating is replacing all other forms of entertainment. More so because, unlike theatre and film, it fills all your senses."
More than anything else, the let's-go-and-eat-out boom is media-inspired. Television made tofu familiar to the would-be gourmet. Mumbai foodie Gul Anand is producing four cookery shows for assorted cable channels hoping to attract audiences avidly watching the half-dozen other cookshows on view.
Then there are books. "Look at the number of expensive cookbooks in the market," says Roli owner and publisher Pramod Kapoor. "Interest in food is peaking among health conscious go-getters as well as gourmets." Rupa has released eight cookery books in the last two years alone. Penguin continues to launch and commission yet more. Mumbai's Strand Book stall has sold over 800 copies of a £ 40 cookery book by Larousse, Camellia Punjabi's expensive 50 Indian Curries book has sold 7,500 copies and is into its third reprint. "Sales of cookbooks have tripled in the last three years," says Strand proprietor Narayan Shanbagh.
So have the number of people writing on food in the newspapers. Unsurprising in an environment where Times of India former editor and gourmet Dilip Padgaonkar waxes eloquent on the fare dished up in an Israeli restaurant on the hallowed edit page, where Swapan Dasgupta holds forth in a metaphysical vein in The Indian Express on the connection between cuisine and politics, where Delhi's Eic-her Gallery hosts a widely-acclaimed exhibition called Is Food Art?
Art or not, it does sell on the mart. Entrepreneurs are not complaining. "This is the only business," says Dinwala, "where you get a 30-per cent return on your investment. On cash-and-carry terms. Which other trade offers you that?" That logic seems to have registered with restaurateurs countrywide who have invested wisely in what they cannily realised was a sunrise industry. Take Ichiban owner Phu-ntsok, 44, an erstwhile House of Ming chef from the Taj hotels. This mid-level player is today riding a Wonton Wave. Revenues when he started his 53-cover restaurant in 1993: Rs 3,000 a day. He rakes in Rs 27,000 today. "Few Chinese restaurants fail," he states modestly. "I was helped by word-of- mouth publicity, value-for-money food served in generous portions, also by my food cost which I keep low at 35 per cent." Delhi-based Kochar brothers, Maneesh, 31, and Asheesh, 28, of Colonel's Kababs represent the yuppie face of the food boom. Revenues at their Defence Colony outlet have zoomed from Rs 3,000 in 1989 to Rs 20,000 daily today.
These success stories seem to be the rule rather than the exception. Take Ahmedabad-based Rushad Dinwala, 39, ex-Taj employee, who put in Rs 8 lakh to start Mirch Masala, "an informal, 75-cover, Punjabi food eatery with attached chaat and mithai shop" on Ahmedabad's busy C.G. Road in 1992. USP: non-intimidatory familiar ambience geared to guarantee customer comfort created with vintage Hindi film music and cinema posters from the '50's, low prices. "We were gunning for low-prices-high-turnovers," explains Dinwala. Four years on, his overheads of Rs 60,000-odd remain constant as does the food cost at 35 per cent. What has zoomed are revenues, up from Rs 7,000 in 1992 to Rs 14,000 a day today.
Those revenues 'Masala' Dinwala ploughed back in '94 into Tomatoes; a 100-cover restaurant he opened with a partner in downtown Ahmedabad. Another runaway success. Cuisine served: Italian, Mexican, Continental and Indian. Prices pegged low again. Decor reminiscent of New York diners. All fake bar, posters, vinyl reds and yellows synonymous with good cheer, youth Multitudes of which descend here in droves keeping daily pick ings high and surprisingly constant at Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 con sidering each cover is sold at least thrice on any working day. The Dinwala wagon rolls on. Early this year he opened another sit down-cum-takeaway outlet above Tomatoes. RG's or the Real Great Pizza shop-cum-salad bar now nets Dinwala Rs 8,000 a day
Mezza Luna proprietor Dalmia, 24, met with similar success within months of starting her 50-cover continental food eatery in 1994. Revenues December '94 through May 96: Rs 5 lakh per month. "We peaked initially. Then stabilised at Rs 3 lakh to Rs lakh a month," recalls Dalmia. "Even if I do 10 tables a day as I do with my constant embassy clients I break even," explains Dalmia She's done a little more than that. Two years on she's recovered her investment, opened a second restaurant Cafe Cappacino in partnership with Singh, diversified into a catering business, start ed Europa Mart which supplies speciality foods to five-star hotels "There's a great future in food," she purrs contentedly.
Dalmia, Dinwala, Phuntsok.... No flash in the pan fortunes these. Their stories only underline the point that the food busi ness is booming. Eating houses countrywide: five-star, fast food, restaurant, or the roadside variety are thriving. Pav bhaji to pael-las, boursini to fettucini, tofu to tempeh, fuesilli to tabouli, guacomale to gaz-pacho, noodles to nori, pul-goli to broccoli. Indian palates seem to be thirsting for all this and more. Never mind the price.
Take the overwhelming response to the The Las Meninas restaurant at Delhi's Park Hotel that opened last November with all the fanfare of the New York Trump Tower opening. Current revenues: Rs 50,000 average daily. Welcomgroup Maurya's pricey West View and Dum Pukht where a meal for two can leave you poorer by Rs 2,000 are notching similar sales. Spending patterns discerned at the Maurya and Mezza Luna might be justifiably dismissed as being unrepresentative of a trend; these outlets being regarded as the watering holes of the Indian upper as well as the middle classes, but there's no dismissing the message being sent out by the ringing cash registers at middle-of-the-road eateries a la the Sagar chain of restaurants in Delhi, the Thai Ban and Sogkarran in Mumbai, Dahlia at Chennai, Koshy's and Sunny's at Bangalore, Curry Club and Taaja at Calcutta.
Sagar in Delhi is the small success story that's most revealing. One-time Ghaziabad canteen contractor, Jairam Banan, 42, started his 45-cover south Indian eatery in 1986 with 17 staffers and a Rs 50,000 investment in 1986. Cut to 1996. Banan has opened eight branches in Preet Vihar, Malviya Nagar, Vasant Kunj, Vika-spuri,the Lodi hotel in Delhi apart from Noida, Faridabad and his native Karakal in Karnataka. Combined daily revenue: Rs 2,66,000. Future plans: "I want to open 25 outlets and a five-star hotel in Delhi," reveals Banan.
Many Banans in the making countrywide. In the Hindu hinterland of gastronomically conservative Chennai, Revathi Nagaswamy is successfully peddling sushi and tempura at Rs 350 a plate to a small but growing clientele. In the same city AVM Dasa is profitably selling its mixed menu of south Indian and Italian cuisine. At Annalakshmi, they go one better. Food is upmarket South Indian. So are the cooks, local celebrities who occasionally volunteer—dancer Soryakala, paediatrician Usha Devi. In Mumbai, Richard Dias of Thai Ban is expanding his 220 sq ft, 28-cover place into a 48-cover facility. Obviously business is soaring. Meanwhile, comedian Mehmood's brother Anwar Ali is laughing all the way to the bank. Revenues at his Thai food Sogkarran takeaway are Rs 10,000 a day. And growing. Meanwhile, the owner of the downtown Khyber restaurant is contemplating opening another outlet in south Mumbai. Business must be brisk at the old Khyber for him to contemplate opening another outlet that industry insiders aver would cost him over a crore in real estate alone.
Business has never been better at Marine Drive's Jazz by the Bay and the seafood speciality restaurant Trishna managed by one-time psychiatrist Suhas Awchat and his customs officer wife Deepa Mhambre. Indeed, they've doubled the 48 covers they had when they opened. Koshy's, one of the oldest establishments at Bangalore that offers 500 dishes from three continents to patrons flocking to its doors, is planning to open a takeaway foodshop later this month that will cater to busy clients unwilling to wait. Arjun Sajnani's Sunny's meanwhile continues to draw in the style-conscious hipsters who would feast on the quiche a la champignon that Shobha De immortalised by waxing eloquent about it through a whole para in her Mumbai newspaper column. The Curry Club run by Calcutta catering college students continues to expand a loyal young clientele even as Taaja run by Bibi, 36, and Biswajit Sarkar, 40, that opened in upmarket Dover Lane last month is raking in the moolah with its exotic offering of Burmese, Indonesian and Mediterranean cuisine "The response is stunning. Looks like we'll break even sooner than we thought. People seem to like our innovative menu," says a delighted Bibi, who's planning to open another outlet for Bengal cuisine soon. This apart from the thriving catering business the couple already run.
Key word: Innovation. In a market choked with new entrants, each wanting a larger slice of the pie, it's the innovators who'll steal the march. Cafe Cappacino's USP: a pool table that yields a Rs 200 every 20 minutes considering each of the five players playing a 20-minute game pay Rs 40. "Players provide the coffee revenues too," says Singh. Daily pickings: Rs 8,000.
Surendra Patel of Vishala at Ahmedabad went one better on innovation. No pool games. He offered clients a 13-acre playing field replete with magicians, folk performers as well as delicious snacks, regional food in a thali priced at Rs 12 way back in '78. Those days about 150 people a day came to the 50-cover restaurant on the Ahmedabad highway. Total investment: Rs 25,000. Eighteen years later Vishala entertains at least 300 people per day including politicians, cricketers and filmstars who pay Rs 179 a thali. Daily revenues 1978: Rs 500 odd. Daily revenues today: Rs 50,000 plus. On the anvil: plans to put up a Rs 25-crore, 100-room residential hotel on an adjacent 70,000 sq mt plot. Brothers Subhash Vaswani, 41, and Gul Vaswani, 44, of Jaipur were quick to follow suit. Thus was launched Chowk Ki Dhaani on a three-acre plot near Jaipur in 1988. They recovered their 20-lakh investment within a year as 150 people flocked daily to savour an ethnic experience, feast off Rajasthani food thalis priced at Rs 50. Eight years later it's a three-crore enterprise that yields them a daily revenue of about Rs 80,000. Business is growing. A Rs 30-lakh, 12-acre Chowk Ki Dhaani project is slated to start up in Indore. "People don't want to eat only. They're looking for entertainment, a going out experience, a place where family and kids can go eat, relax. We succeeded because we provided this," says Vaswani explaining his success.
Transnationals have been quick to cash in on the market. Thank God, It's Friday in Delhi's posh Vasant Vihar pumped in an exorbitant Rs 7 crore to start their Vasant Vihar outlet last November. The returns: Rs 1.5 lakh a day, more than justified their investment. Other chains have already accelerated their projects. Wimpy's which already has six outlets in the city is looking hungrily to the realm of the robust appetites namely Jalandhar, Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Amritsar besides Chennai, Mysore and Hyderabad. Local fast food giant Nirula's with 24 outlets that cater to 45,000 people daily, netting an estimated Rs 22,500,000 daily revenue, is planning to double its capacity according to company spokesman Sameer Kuckreja. Meanwhile, Dominos is spreading its Rs 250-crore investment over 50 projected outlets in the country.
Attitudes in place, appetites ever robust, all indications are that Indians are graduating from chamchas to chopsticks, becoming gastronomically sophisticated and adventurous. Well, the restaurents are certainly not complaining.