By Sourish
Bhattacharyya
IT IS difficult to be Jiggs
Kalra's son because of the gastronomical legacy you carry on your
shoulders, but Massive Restaurants
Managing Director Zorawar Kalra wears
his heritage with elan. As he gets ready to open his newest concept restaurant,
Farzi Cafe at the Cyber Hub, Gurgaon,
reinventing the coffee shop culture with the tools and techniques of molecular
gastronomy, Zorawar is carrying forward his father's tradition of innovating with
imagination.
With Farzi Cafe, Zorawar Kalra is all set to firmly establish himself as the young and credible new face of Modern Indian cuisine |
Jiggs Kalra turned the salmon tikka and galauti kebab into
national favourites; Zorawar Kalra is pushing the envelope with boti kebab tacos, dal-chawal arancini, karela
calamari and anda bhurjee with chilli
con queso (or molten cheese dip spiked with chillies) -- all invented dishes that
may seem to a traditionalist to be straight out Mad Hatter's tea party, but
which, without doubt, will bring the young back to the cuisine they had
forsaken because it had become too predictable to tickle their taste buds.
And as he goes about giving Modern Indian cuisine a new
direction with his talented team of Varun
Duggal, the strategist, and Himanshu
Saini, the star chef who (with Saurabh
Udinia) has made Masala Library
the go-to restaurant of Mumbai, Zorawar is working to a five-year business plan
loaded with ambitious targets. He had set out with an infusion of funds from Gaurav Goenka's Mirah Hospitality,
which has also made big-ticket investments in Riyaz Amlani's Impresario Entertainment and Hospitality and the
Rajdhani restaurants, but with this money
exhausted by his first round of projects (including Made in Punjab), Zorawar is going back to the market to raise $8
million (Rs 48 crore at the present exchange rate) to finance his expansion
plans.
Zorawar's plan is to take Made in Punjab to Tier-II cities,
with 15 of them up and running in the next three or four years, open at least
eight Farzi Cafe outlets in the same period, starting with the next one in
Dubai, and go international with Masala Library with a network franchisees
extending all the way to Dubai. "I am looking at Massive Restaurants
notching up a turnover of Rs 225-250 crore at the end of five years,"
Zorawar said in an interview with the Indian Restaurant Spy.
Money does matter, but it's food that gets Zorawar most
excited. He seems to be firm believer of the old restaurateur's adage,
"Good food gets good money." Farzi Cafe, he says, has been an idea he
has carried with him for eight years ("the first cafe in the world to
showcase molecular gastronomy"), but it took shape only over the last six
months, after extensive food trials.
Zorawar's vision was given a shape and form by the highly
talented Himanshu, Manish Mehrotra's
former protege who first came into the limelight when he won Chicago/New York
restaurateur Rohini Dey's much-publicised
'chef hunt' last summer with his sarson
da saag quesadilla served with butter milk foam. It was in that moment in
the spotlight that Himanshu made a couple of telling comments that foretold his
future. “There is a thin line between fusion and confusion," he said. "Once
that is sorted, half the battle is won." He then went on to pay a tribute
to his original guru: "You can’t think straight with food. Every dish must
be prepared like a story. That’s what I
learnt from Manish Mehrotra.”
Farzi means 'fake', but it could also be an illusion, which is
what Zorawar wants to serve on the plate -- a dish that doesn't taste the way you'd
expect it to from it looks. The cafe's bar menu has a dozen molecular
gastronomy-inspired cocktails and its tapas selection is crowded with
surprises, from spare ribs spiked with the world's hottest bhut jolokia chillies and a double- deck galauti burger to tandoori lamb served with maple-soy sauce and
whisky sour cream and a Philly cheese raan
hot dog.
For the mains, some of the options are Thai green curry khichdi, roomali roti ravioli with eggplant mozzarella bharta and poha Pad Thai with
wok-tossed red snapper. A couple of the desserts seem straight out of science
fiction -- phirni oxide, for
instance, or Bailey's lollipop prepared on Zorawar's favourite new toy, the
anti-griddle, which can reduce the temperature of any liquid to minus-30
degrees Celsius in a flash -- but there's also the Parle-G cheesecake or the Cassata
Indiana served with Magic Pops. It's as if Zorawar and Himanshu just let their
imagination go on a free ride on the wild side.
Diners in Mumbai have savoured the creative repertoire of
Zorawar's team, but at Cyber Hub, sadly, he's invariably measured by the day's
lunch buffet at Made in Punjab, which not only is a steadily popular restaurant, but also has an a la carte menu studded with gems. Farzi Cafe, I hope, will allow him to be judged for what he and his young, talented and
turbo-charged team are really worth.
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