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| Mickey Bhoite is heading back to Florence leaving his Royal Enfield for the highest bidder |
By Sourish
Bhattacharyya
DELHI'S five-star hotels are heading for a churn because of
exits by familiar faces and entrances by new arrivals.
The big news is that Le
Cirque's Abhay Singh 'Mickey' Bhoite
is going back home to Italy, where he plans to settle down in Florence (closer
to his collection of more than 60 venomous snakes, who are now in the custody
of his mother). That'll be a big blow to The
Leela Palace New Delhi (a little bird informs us that Bhoite's deputy, Federico Tucci, is exiting as well) because
Le Cirque's reputation owes a lot to Bhoite's personality and style of cooking.
Royal Enfield enthusiasts, though, are waiting for
the opportunity to bid for Bhoite's custom-made motorbike, which comes equipped
with mind-blowing woofers. Bhoite and his young colleague, Vaibhav Roy, team up together with friends as often as they can and
hit the highways. People who know the motorcycle (known as the Highway Queen) say
it is in sparkling condition and Bhoite is reportedly asking for Rs 4 lakh for
the beauty.
Vella Ramaswamy may not have burnt rubber on
highways, but the Mauritian who grew up in Australia is the only expat general
manager I know who has seen two hotels in Delhi-NCR come up under his
guardianship from the bhoomi pujan to
the first guest walking in.
As the opening general manager of The Leela Kempinski Gurgaon (now known as The Leela Ambience Gurgaon), he got the hotel off the ground at a
rather difficult time for the global economy and successfully established Spectra as one of Delhi-NCR's foremost
restaurants. Then, as the founding father of the Kempinski Ambience Hotel Delhi, he turned its locational
disadvantage on the head and took full advantage of the size of its banqueting
area to make it the go-to destination for mega business providers in the MICE
(Meetings Incentives Conventions Exhibitions) segment. The hotel is also a
favourite of wedding planners and has seen many a Big Fat Bania Wedding take
place with a no onion, no garlic vegetarian spread laid out for 1,000-plus
guests.
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| Vella Ramaswamy gave Delhi-NCR to hotels, but is now returning to home city Melbourne |
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| Puneet Singh is back in Delhi after spending 20 years with Kempinski Hotels in eight countries |
Ramaswamy's time is up. The affable hotelier with a brilliant
sense of humour is going home to Melbourne and he is in the process of handing
over charge to a Delhiite, Puneet Singh,
who is returning to his home city after putting in more than two decades with
the Kempinski hotels in eight countries. After completing his hotel management studies in Germany, Singh got selected to Kempinski's four-year management training programme, which took him to Germany, the U.S. and Turkey. Thereafter, the polyglot roving hotelier, who's fluent in six languages, spent six years gaining F&B operations experience in culturally diverse markets, then held leadership positions at Kempinski hotels in China, Tanzania, UAE, Russia and Egypt, and even in the midst of all this movement, got his Executive MBA from the top-rated Reims Management School, France. Before his transfer to Delhi, Singh was
the General Manager of the Kempinski
Grand and Ixir Hotel at the Bahrain City Centre.
In other developments, Sevilla
at The Claridges has been shut for its annual refurbishment; it is expected to
open in October-end. I can't wait to see what Executive Chef Neeraj Tyagi and his deputy, Rajiv Sinha, have up their sleeves for
the new Sevilla. Vikramjit Roy, who
Delhiites remember from his days at Wasabi by Morimoto, is returning to the
rooftop of ITC Maurya to open an
'Asian Cooking Studio' named Tian. The restaurant will replace
My Humble House, which never came
close to the popularity of Bali Hi. An IHM-Taratolla graduate, Roy opened Pan-Asian
at the ITC Grand Chola in Chennai about
a year ago and became an instant superstar in a city that hadn't been exposed
to his genre of fine dining.
And of course, The Leela Ambience Gurgaon is taking a leap of
faith by turning its poolside into a 69-seater restaurant, Skydeck Lounge, with a Greek menu washed down by ouzo, the anise-flavoured aperitif, and
retsina wines, which have a more
than 2,000-year-old history. It is the first five-star hotel to tread into this
unfamiliar territory. I hope it's not the only one taking this plunge.
