The low-down on the high spirits by Antoine Lewis.
If I shut my eyes, will I be able to tell whether I’m drinking a red or white wine?
As a matter of fact you could quite easily, and not only if you’re a sommelier or a very experienced wine maker. As a test of their knowledge, sommeliers have to identify wine that has been poured into a black glass, using only their sense of smell and taste. The casual wine drinker might not be able to uncover as much as a professional, but making a distinction between the two kinds of wine is not too difficult.
The difference between the two kinds of wine is a result of what grapes are used and how they are processed. Though red wines are made from red grapes and white wines from green grapes, it is possible to make white wine from red grapes. But it isn’t possible to make red wine from green grapes.
If you peel a red grape, you’ll notice that your fingertips get stained. That’s because the colour in red wine comes from the skin of the grape and the longer the unfermented grape juice stays in contact with the skin, the stronger the colour. To get white wine from red grapes, the skins are separated immediately after crushing.
While the colour is just skin deep, one of the crucial differences arises from the stems and seeds being retained in the production of red wines. Not only do these woody bits contribute to the richer, deeper and more complex flavours of reds, they are also responsible for the higher levels of tannin in red wines. Tannin, a substance found also in tea, produces an astringent, bitter and dry feeling in the mouth. It helps wine age and gives it a heavier body. Tannin is like the backbone supporting the diverse flavours of the wine. White wines are almost devoid of tannin and are dependent on higher levels of acidity to enhance their delicate flavours and provide them with a crisp, refreshing character.
Although the difference between a rich, tannic red and a fresh, crisp white is easily noticeable, it can get a little difficult when red wines are made to be drunk young and light. In this case, the aromas and taste of the wine can give vital clues regarding the type of grape used. Each grape, whether red or white by itself or when blended, will create a particular bouquet of smells. In general, white wines tend to have floral, citrusy aromas of green and tropical fruit such as muskmelon, lime, grapefruit, banana, apple and sometimes the petrol-like fumes of tar and plastic. Red wines have deeper, richer smells of earth and wood; of dark, stone fruits such as blackcurrant, blueberry or cherry; and spices such as cinnamon and clove.
Published in Time Out Mumbai November 14 2008
Friday, March 27, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Food bank
A new breed of restaurant investors is putting their money where their mouths are, reports Antoine Lewis.
Agnelorajesh Athaide, the chairman and managing director St Agnelo’s Computers Ltd, runs a network that provides computer education and services across 40 centres in Mumbai and Pune. For the last six years, he’s been smelling a growing field of opportunity right under his nose in Malad, where his company has its headquarters. The neighbourhood has been filling up with young people employed by call centres, the relatively cheap real estate is drawing young professional couples to the Malad-Borivali stretch and the InOrbit mall is proving to be a magnet for customers between Bandra and Bhayander. So he got together with two friends, one of who runs a finance company and the other who is a property developer, to open a restaurant.
Rouge, their multi-cuisine restaurant with a lounge bar, opened in February. Of course, there was no question of Athaide and his friends getting involved in the restaurant’s day-to-day operations because their other businesses demand their complete attention. Besides, with no background in the hospitality industry, they felt it was better to have a professional to run the place. So they gave South Mumbai restaurateur Henry Tham the contract to manage Rouge. “The property and licences are ours, but the concept and design is Tham’s,” explained Athaide, who confesses that it feels good to eat at your own restaurant.
Athaide and other affluent people with a stash of spare cash are among a new breed of investors driving the city’s restaurant boom. Attracted by profits that average between 25 per cent and 30 per cent, they are attempting to cash in on the seemingly insatiable appetite for eating out that the city has developed over the last few years.
The takings have become so tempting that even corporate houses, private equity players and venture capitalists are waking up to get a sip of the coffee. The whiff of caffeine wafting out of Mocha seemed so enticing that Beacon India Advisors, a $200 million venture fund, has invested Rs 75 crore in Impresario Entertainment and Hospitality, Mocha’ mother company.
The limitation of these large players: they aren’t interested in projects under Rs 10 crore. That, said Riyaaz Amlani of Impresario, is because “the due diligence required for a project worth Rs 1 crore and Rs 10 crore is the same. [Private equity firms and venture capitalists] are only interested in brands where the model can be translated into a profitable, sustainable, scalable business”. Earlier this year, SAIF Partners, a growth capital fund, paid Rs 90 crore for a 20 per cent stake in Anjan Chatterjee’s Speciality Restaurants, which owns Only Fish, Machaan, Sigree, Mainland China and Oh! Calcutta.
For the most, though, the people who invest in Mumbai’s restaurants and who have fuelled the restaurant boom over the past decade are smaller players, by no means as flush as the private equity funds. They include people like stock broker Himanshu Dani, who has invested money in Pot Pourri’s Inorbit outlet in Malad which opened two months ago. Dani has known chef owner Nitin Tandon since they were college students in 1982. “Though I’ve known Nitin for a long time, what attracted me finally to investing with him and his partner Kishore is that they have the pulse of the market, of the different brands they run and the different cuisines they do,” said Dani. “I also wanted to be associated with someone who has a passion for food.” Pot Pourri in turn benefited from Dani’s active involvement in the business through the financial discipline, controls and management systems that he put in place.
Recent investors also include Kushal Shetty, Kunal Jhaveri and Haresh Senjalia, who decided to put their money down on a franchise in Malad after enjoying their experience as regular customers at Little Italy in Juhu. While Shetty’s family runs an Udipi in Crawford Market, the other partners are diamond traders. Instead of opening another Udipi, Shetty and his friends approached Little Italy owner Umesh Mehta for permission to open a branch of his fine dining restaurant in Malad and more recently Lower Parel. “Customers have now cultivated tastes for something different, people are experimenting with different kind of food, they have developed a taste for wine,” said Shetty. “They’re not content with eating at an Udipi anymore.” To ensure quality and consistency, Mehta makes signature foods and ingredients exclusively for the Little Italy chain, and supplies trained staff. “Not only are the returns high but we often have celebrities eating at our restaurant.”
Restaurant investors like Shetty and his friends didn’t exist before the 1990s. Until then, most standalone eateries were run by families. But economic liberalisation gave birth to a breed of restaurateur-entrepreneurs with a desire to carve a niche for themselves with high-quality or concept-driven eateries. They had sniffed out the market and discovered that the moment was ripe to woo customers away from the monopoly of jaded five-stars. Wealth had begun to trickle down to middle-class consumers. At the same time, the city began to undergo a demographic transition. As yuppies moved into Bandra from the entertainment and cultural hub of South Mumbai, the shopping and restaurants followed.
However, since the people running these establishments were mostly young professionals, often from middle-class backgrounds, they still relied on their personal finances or on loans from friends to open up their first outlets. Some like Joy Kapur of the Copper Chimney group and Sanjiv Chona of the Cream Centre had inherited small businesses but lacked the wherewithal to expand. Others like Rahul Akerkar, who decided to stay in Colaba and start Indigo, needed outside finance to surmount the high real estate prices and other set-up costs. With banks refusing to lend money merely on the basis of impressive ideas, restaurateurs had to look for strategic investors.
“Do you know how much it costs to set up a restaurant nowadays?” asks HA Mishra, a restaurant consultant who specialises in analysing the efficiency of a restaurant’s operations. “To set up a restaurant along the lines of Mainland China will cost nothing less than Rs 3.5 crore, a more sophisticated place will cost at least Rs 5 crore.”
The enthusiasm of investors could soon have an effect far beyond city limits. With so much money available, city restaurateurs have begun to develop business models that can easily be adapted to national and international scales. Ashit Patel who started the Garcia’s pizza chain and more recently Mr Chow’s, a Chinese delivery service, believes that if a restaurant is professionally run, “then it is possible to not only get private equity to fund the next 40 outlets but in the long run to even launch an IPO”. Patel is contemplating taking Mr Chow’s international since he believes that no one is catering to the Indian diaspora’s appetite for Indian-Chinese food. Buying out a small international chain with 30-40 outlets is also not out of the question. “After all, if we can buy out Jaguar, then why not a restaurant chain?” asked Patel.
Cross-continental cuisine
Expanding nationally is passé for Mumbai’s restaurateurs – the big bazaar lies in the international market where customers are willing to pay top dollar for quality. You can already stuff yourself on a thali prepared by the Rajdhani group in Sydney, Dubai, and Vietnam, and soon in London and New York. Dubai diners clearly enjoy Sanjeev Kapoor’s khana at Khazana, which he’s preparing to open in Qatar, London and New York. Riyaaz Amlani’s hoping that conversations at his first international Mocha will be punctuated with, “Nice coffee lah!” once his Singapore outlet opens. Anjan Chatterjee’s planning to take his restaurants Only Fish, Machaan, Sigree, Mainland China and Oh! Calcutta to London, New York, Chicago and Shanghai. Ashit Patel believes there’s a captive audience for Indian-Chinese in the West and he’s looking at opening a Mr. Chow’s in London and any US city with a large Indian population. After his success at Joss, Farrokh Khambatta is looking at US properties to open his next restaurant.
Published in Time Out Mumbai, September 5 2008
Agnelorajesh Athaide, the chairman and managing director St Agnelo’s Computers Ltd, runs a network that provides computer education and services across 40 centres in Mumbai and Pune. For the last six years, he’s been smelling a growing field of opportunity right under his nose in Malad, where his company has its headquarters. The neighbourhood has been filling up with young people employed by call centres, the relatively cheap real estate is drawing young professional couples to the Malad-Borivali stretch and the InOrbit mall is proving to be a magnet for customers between Bandra and Bhayander. So he got together with two friends, one of who runs a finance company and the other who is a property developer, to open a restaurant.
Rouge, their multi-cuisine restaurant with a lounge bar, opened in February. Of course, there was no question of Athaide and his friends getting involved in the restaurant’s day-to-day operations because their other businesses demand their complete attention. Besides, with no background in the hospitality industry, they felt it was better to have a professional to run the place. So they gave South Mumbai restaurateur Henry Tham the contract to manage Rouge. “The property and licences are ours, but the concept and design is Tham’s,” explained Athaide, who confesses that it feels good to eat at your own restaurant.
Athaide and other affluent people with a stash of spare cash are among a new breed of investors driving the city’s restaurant boom. Attracted by profits that average between 25 per cent and 30 per cent, they are attempting to cash in on the seemingly insatiable appetite for eating out that the city has developed over the last few years.
The takings have become so tempting that even corporate houses, private equity players and venture capitalists are waking up to get a sip of the coffee. The whiff of caffeine wafting out of Mocha seemed so enticing that Beacon India Advisors, a $200 million venture fund, has invested Rs 75 crore in Impresario Entertainment and Hospitality, Mocha’ mother company.
The limitation of these large players: they aren’t interested in projects under Rs 10 crore. That, said Riyaaz Amlani of Impresario, is because “the due diligence required for a project worth Rs 1 crore and Rs 10 crore is the same. [Private equity firms and venture capitalists] are only interested in brands where the model can be translated into a profitable, sustainable, scalable business”. Earlier this year, SAIF Partners, a growth capital fund, paid Rs 90 crore for a 20 per cent stake in Anjan Chatterjee’s Speciality Restaurants, which owns Only Fish, Machaan, Sigree, Mainland China and Oh! Calcutta.
For the most, though, the people who invest in Mumbai’s restaurants and who have fuelled the restaurant boom over the past decade are smaller players, by no means as flush as the private equity funds. They include people like stock broker Himanshu Dani, who has invested money in Pot Pourri’s Inorbit outlet in Malad which opened two months ago. Dani has known chef owner Nitin Tandon since they were college students in 1982. “Though I’ve known Nitin for a long time, what attracted me finally to investing with him and his partner Kishore is that they have the pulse of the market, of the different brands they run and the different cuisines they do,” said Dani. “I also wanted to be associated with someone who has a passion for food.” Pot Pourri in turn benefited from Dani’s active involvement in the business through the financial discipline, controls and management systems that he put in place.
Recent investors also include Kushal Shetty, Kunal Jhaveri and Haresh Senjalia, who decided to put their money down on a franchise in Malad after enjoying their experience as regular customers at Little Italy in Juhu. While Shetty’s family runs an Udipi in Crawford Market, the other partners are diamond traders. Instead of opening another Udipi, Shetty and his friends approached Little Italy owner Umesh Mehta for permission to open a branch of his fine dining restaurant in Malad and more recently Lower Parel. “Customers have now cultivated tastes for something different, people are experimenting with different kind of food, they have developed a taste for wine,” said Shetty. “They’re not content with eating at an Udipi anymore.” To ensure quality and consistency, Mehta makes signature foods and ingredients exclusively for the Little Italy chain, and supplies trained staff. “Not only are the returns high but we often have celebrities eating at our restaurant.”
Restaurant investors like Shetty and his friends didn’t exist before the 1990s. Until then, most standalone eateries were run by families. But economic liberalisation gave birth to a breed of restaurateur-entrepreneurs with a desire to carve a niche for themselves with high-quality or concept-driven eateries. They had sniffed out the market and discovered that the moment was ripe to woo customers away from the monopoly of jaded five-stars. Wealth had begun to trickle down to middle-class consumers. At the same time, the city began to undergo a demographic transition. As yuppies moved into Bandra from the entertainment and cultural hub of South Mumbai, the shopping and restaurants followed.
However, since the people running these establishments were mostly young professionals, often from middle-class backgrounds, they still relied on their personal finances or on loans from friends to open up their first outlets. Some like Joy Kapur of the Copper Chimney group and Sanjiv Chona of the Cream Centre had inherited small businesses but lacked the wherewithal to expand. Others like Rahul Akerkar, who decided to stay in Colaba and start Indigo, needed outside finance to surmount the high real estate prices and other set-up costs. With banks refusing to lend money merely on the basis of impressive ideas, restaurateurs had to look for strategic investors.
“Do you know how much it costs to set up a restaurant nowadays?” asks HA Mishra, a restaurant consultant who specialises in analysing the efficiency of a restaurant’s operations. “To set up a restaurant along the lines of Mainland China will cost nothing less than Rs 3.5 crore, a more sophisticated place will cost at least Rs 5 crore.”
The enthusiasm of investors could soon have an effect far beyond city limits. With so much money available, city restaurateurs have begun to develop business models that can easily be adapted to national and international scales. Ashit Patel who started the Garcia’s pizza chain and more recently Mr Chow’s, a Chinese delivery service, believes that if a restaurant is professionally run, “then it is possible to not only get private equity to fund the next 40 outlets but in the long run to even launch an IPO”. Patel is contemplating taking Mr Chow’s international since he believes that no one is catering to the Indian diaspora’s appetite for Indian-Chinese food. Buying out a small international chain with 30-40 outlets is also not out of the question. “After all, if we can buy out Jaguar, then why not a restaurant chain?” asked Patel.
Cross-continental cuisine
Expanding nationally is passé for Mumbai’s restaurateurs – the big bazaar lies in the international market where customers are willing to pay top dollar for quality. You can already stuff yourself on a thali prepared by the Rajdhani group in Sydney, Dubai, and Vietnam, and soon in London and New York. Dubai diners clearly enjoy Sanjeev Kapoor’s khana at Khazana, which he’s preparing to open in Qatar, London and New York. Riyaaz Amlani’s hoping that conversations at his first international Mocha will be punctuated with, “Nice coffee lah!” once his Singapore outlet opens. Anjan Chatterjee’s planning to take his restaurants Only Fish, Machaan, Sigree, Mainland China and Oh! Calcutta to London, New York, Chicago and Shanghai. Ashit Patel believes there’s a captive audience for Indian-Chinese in the West and he’s looking at opening a Mr. Chow’s in London and any US city with a large Indian population. After his success at Joss, Farrokh Khambatta is looking at US properties to open his next restaurant.
Published in Time Out Mumbai, September 5 2008
Rosés aren’t red
Pink is the colour of the season for the Indian wine market, says Antoine Lewis.
By the end of the month, wine racks will be filled with a fresh bouquet of rosés. Riding the pink wave are three new Indian still wines, a sparkling rosé and an imported pink champagne. By introducing so many wines in a category that’s barely known (and rarely appreciated), producers seem to be signalling that they’re expecting a rosy future.
The immediate impetus for these launches is the start of the festive and party season. But the long-term potential of rosés is also very promising, said Abhay Kewadkar, the business head at Four Seasons Wines, which is planning to release a rosé over the next few weeks. His optimism stems from the fact that rosés account for about ten to 15 per cent of the total global wine market, but only account for five per cent of the Indian market. Considering that Indians drank approximately 12 lakh cases last year, the market for rosés is potentially 1.8 lakh cases a year, not accounting for the 30 per cent annual growth the industry has been witnessing.
Rosé fans say that their choice of tipple incorporates aspects of both red and white, but has a discernible character of its own. Rosés offer a balance between the delicacy of white wine and a touch of the astringency and tannins of a red. However, wine snobs look down upon rosés, claiming that they are a compromise that offers none of the best qualities of either.
The distinctive pink colour of rosés is the result of a production process in which red-skinned grapes are crushed but the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for only two or three days. The grapes are then pressed and the skins are discarded. If the skins were left in contact with the juice throughout the fermentation period, the wine would grow more intensely red. Depending on the amount of this contact, the colour of a rosé could range from a pale salmon to a deep magenta.
In the saignée (or bleeding) method, rosé is a byproduct of red wine. This method involves the winemaker removing some pink juice from the unfermented juice of a red wine at an early stage. This concentrates the tannins and colour. The pink extract is used to make rosé wine. A third method of blending of red wine with white to impart colour, though once popular in the Champagne region, is not as common anymore.
In Europe, rosés have the reputation of being summer wines. The refreshing crispness and lightness that characterises them is the result of the lower presence of tannins and the higher acidity. In tropical countries like India where summer stretches on for much of the year, rosés are particularly well-suited especially for brunches and afternoons.
While pink champagne is made exclusively from the pinot noir grape, rosés can be made from a variety of red grapes. From the new crop of rosés that will hit the market, the Four Seasons rosé will be made from Shiraz and zinfandel, while Château d’Ori’s uses syrah. The newly released Tiger Hill sparkling rosé is also made from pinot noir but has a taste akin to flat soda. It lacks fruit flavours and has an abrupt finish. In contrast, Indus’ soon-to-be released rosé, a blend of cabernet and Shiraz, is crisp and light with aromas of peach and fleshy fruits, although the flavours don’t linger terribly long on the palate.
While the acidity of rosé wines brings crispness, the light tannins make it a particularly suitable accompaniment for thalis, which feature both light and heavy foods, says Kewadkar. Kailash Dhuru, the winemaker of Chateau d’Ori, believes that rosé can go very well with Chinese cuisine (but not Szechwan whose spiciness is difficult to match).
The introduction of a variety of wine with a limited audience indicates that the Indian wine market is maturing, and has prompted winemakers to vary their portfolios. But this increasing sophistication isn’t the only reason the Indian wine market has now got more diverse. Indians are still highly price conscious when purchasing wine. Unlike sparkling wine, which also has a niche clientele, but is more difficult to make and sell cheaply, rosé is easy to produce and could be more affordably priced.
Published in Time Out Mumbai Friday, October 17, 2008
By the end of the month, wine racks will be filled with a fresh bouquet of rosés. Riding the pink wave are three new Indian still wines, a sparkling rosé and an imported pink champagne. By introducing so many wines in a category that’s barely known (and rarely appreciated), producers seem to be signalling that they’re expecting a rosy future.
The immediate impetus for these launches is the start of the festive and party season. But the long-term potential of rosés is also very promising, said Abhay Kewadkar, the business head at Four Seasons Wines, which is planning to release a rosé over the next few weeks. His optimism stems from the fact that rosés account for about ten to 15 per cent of the total global wine market, but only account for five per cent of the Indian market. Considering that Indians drank approximately 12 lakh cases last year, the market for rosés is potentially 1.8 lakh cases a year, not accounting for the 30 per cent annual growth the industry has been witnessing.
Rosé fans say that their choice of tipple incorporates aspects of both red and white, but has a discernible character of its own. Rosés offer a balance between the delicacy of white wine and a touch of the astringency and tannins of a red. However, wine snobs look down upon rosés, claiming that they are a compromise that offers none of the best qualities of either.
The distinctive pink colour of rosés is the result of a production process in which red-skinned grapes are crushed but the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for only two or three days. The grapes are then pressed and the skins are discarded. If the skins were left in contact with the juice throughout the fermentation period, the wine would grow more intensely red. Depending on the amount of this contact, the colour of a rosé could range from a pale salmon to a deep magenta.
In the saignée (or bleeding) method, rosé is a byproduct of red wine. This method involves the winemaker removing some pink juice from the unfermented juice of a red wine at an early stage. This concentrates the tannins and colour. The pink extract is used to make rosé wine. A third method of blending of red wine with white to impart colour, though once popular in the Champagne region, is not as common anymore.
In Europe, rosés have the reputation of being summer wines. The refreshing crispness and lightness that characterises them is the result of the lower presence of tannins and the higher acidity. In tropical countries like India where summer stretches on for much of the year, rosés are particularly well-suited especially for brunches and afternoons.
While pink champagne is made exclusively from the pinot noir grape, rosés can be made from a variety of red grapes. From the new crop of rosés that will hit the market, the Four Seasons rosé will be made from Shiraz and zinfandel, while Château d’Ori’s uses syrah. The newly released Tiger Hill sparkling rosé is also made from pinot noir but has a taste akin to flat soda. It lacks fruit flavours and has an abrupt finish. In contrast, Indus’ soon-to-be released rosé, a blend of cabernet and Shiraz, is crisp and light with aromas of peach and fleshy fruits, although the flavours don’t linger terribly long on the palate.
While the acidity of rosé wines brings crispness, the light tannins make it a particularly suitable accompaniment for thalis, which feature both light and heavy foods, says Kewadkar. Kailash Dhuru, the winemaker of Chateau d’Ori, believes that rosé can go very well with Chinese cuisine (but not Szechwan whose spiciness is difficult to match).
The introduction of a variety of wine with a limited audience indicates that the Indian wine market is maturing, and has prompted winemakers to vary their portfolios. But this increasing sophistication isn’t the only reason the Indian wine market has now got more diverse. Indians are still highly price conscious when purchasing wine. Unlike sparkling wine, which also has a niche clientele, but is more difficult to make and sell cheaply, rosé is easy to produce and could be more affordably priced.
Published in Time Out Mumbai Friday, October 17, 2008
Server down
Finding good waiters is an increasingly tall order, restaurateurs tell Antoine Lewis.
The tables have turned on the restaurant business. Faced with an economic slowdown and rising costs of ingredients, power and fuel, it isn’t just customers that hotels and restaurants are desperately trying to attract to their tables. They’re looking just as hard for waiters.
With attrition rates running at approximately 30 per cent a month, restaurateurs say that they can’t afford to be picky about the waiters they hire and are wary of firing non-performing staff. As a result they’re spending more time and resources on training employees, even though they know that a competent waiter is likely to leave in a few months.
As management gurus would put it, the number of hungry mouths has increasedeven though the size of the pie has stayed the same. The massive growth in BPO industries and in the retail sector has increased the demand for employees adept in face-to-face customer interaction – skills that waitstaff already have. These sectors have raided restaurants and offered waiters much higher salaries.
A captain – as waiters with five years’ experience are known as – starts on a monthly salary of between Rs 8,000 and Rs 10,000; tips add up to between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000. In comparison, the starting salary for a BPO employee or a retail-chain employee is Rs 14,000 to Rs 16,000. Some retail firms have even been willing to double salaries offered to waiters, said Nitin Tandon, a partner in Water Blue, which runs Pot Pourri, Lemon Grass and banqueting services. He recently lost a newly hired assistant banquet manager to a supermarket chain.
Concerned about persistent staff losses, Tandon approached a hospitality consulting firm to find a solution. They told him that the hospitality sector was going to haemorrhage staff to the BPOs, malls, supermarkets and telecom sectors for at least three years because though the service sector is growing, there are no new training institutes to equip students with the necessary skills. That’s why, students from catering colleges and restaurant staff have become easy choices.
City restaurants are even having a difficult time finding new recruits. While many English speakers have been absorbed into the telecom industry and call centres handling international clients, potential non-English speaking recruits have been hired by courier companies and domestic call centres.
Dominic Costabir, director of the Hospitality Training Institute, which conducts training programmes for the hospitality and allied industries, notes that working conditions in retail can be easier than the gruelling physicality of a restaurant. “A person who would’ve worked as a waiter now prefers working in a shop because they don’t have to work long hours, they don’t have to work shifts,” he said. “It’s a nine-to-five job that doesn’t involve any heavy work.”
However, older restaurants like Paradise in Colaba or Gypsy Chinese near Shivaji Park have not been affected by the crisis. Rahul Limaye, the owner of Gypsy Chinese, said that nearly 70 per cent of his staff has been with him from the time that he opened 25 years ago. The reason his staff have remained isn’t the money, he said. “My staff is not very highly paid and yet I have never had a problem,” he said. “That’s because I’m always accessible to everyone, right from the sweeper to the manager.” The relationship between owners and employees underwent a change in the late eighties due to union pressures. Many restaurateurs refused to make their staff permanent, preferring to give them a break every three months. This saved owners the cost of paying statutory dues such as gratuity, provident fund, medical and leave travel allowance. However, Limaye makes sure that everyone gets their proper dues, and when necessary, even advances soft loans for weddings or other personal expenses.
At Paradise, Mehru Kadkhodai treats her staff like family. “My husband and I didn’t want to take on a partner, so we treat our staff as partners,” she said. Most of her waiters who started with her when the restaurant opened in 1952 stayed on until they retired or passed away. Among the loyalists are Pudanik Naik and Boju Poojari, who have been with Paradise for 30 years.
Unlike New York, where heavy investments are made in training and constantly ensuring high service standards, few restaurants in Mumbai pay quite as much attention to their waiters. New York restaurateurs like Floyd Cardoz at Tabla encourage their waiters to eat at other high-end restaurants, so that they get a sense of their competitors’ standards.
Costabir believes that the restaurant industry shares blame for the shortfall. Instead of a concerted sector-wide effort to develop training programmes and courses that will produce large numbers of staff, individual organisations prefer to give employees on-the-job training. None of the restaurant bodies like the Association of Restaurants and Hotels or the Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India are interested in putting together waiter-training programmes.
Tandon is one of the few restaurateurs who trained his staff before opening his fine dining Asian restaurant Seijo and the Soul Dish in 2004. “We’d have management mentoring programmes at the shop- floor level every day. We had people from other hotels, other leading restaurants coming to talk to them,” he said. “ For three months, they’d have management training for three hours and service training for three hours during which period they received a full salary, but no tips.” Despite this, three of his staff members left to join a new five-star hotel when they learnt that his restaurant’s opening was slightly delayed.
The pressing issue at the moment is not about finding new people, but about retaining trained staff, said Tandon and Limaye. Earlier generations of waiters, being mostly illiterate, had few job options, but workers today can choose from a variety of service-related opportunities. Waiters’ salaries are steadily increasing, but standalone restaurants like Lemon Grass and Mocha believe it is important to have Human Resources teams that chart out growth opportunities and regular training programmes. Even though Tandon believes that the retail bubble will soon burst and salaries will be rationalised, low wages and long working hours for waiters will also become a thing of the past.
Published in Time Out Mumbai November 28 2008
The tables have turned on the restaurant business. Faced with an economic slowdown and rising costs of ingredients, power and fuel, it isn’t just customers that hotels and restaurants are desperately trying to attract to their tables. They’re looking just as hard for waiters.
With attrition rates running at approximately 30 per cent a month, restaurateurs say that they can’t afford to be picky about the waiters they hire and are wary of firing non-performing staff. As a result they’re spending more time and resources on training employees, even though they know that a competent waiter is likely to leave in a few months.
As management gurus would put it, the number of hungry mouths has increasedeven though the size of the pie has stayed the same. The massive growth in BPO industries and in the retail sector has increased the demand for employees adept in face-to-face customer interaction – skills that waitstaff already have. These sectors have raided restaurants and offered waiters much higher salaries.
A captain – as waiters with five years’ experience are known as – starts on a monthly salary of between Rs 8,000 and Rs 10,000; tips add up to between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000. In comparison, the starting salary for a BPO employee or a retail-chain employee is Rs 14,000 to Rs 16,000. Some retail firms have even been willing to double salaries offered to waiters, said Nitin Tandon, a partner in Water Blue, which runs Pot Pourri, Lemon Grass and banqueting services. He recently lost a newly hired assistant banquet manager to a supermarket chain.
Concerned about persistent staff losses, Tandon approached a hospitality consulting firm to find a solution. They told him that the hospitality sector was going to haemorrhage staff to the BPOs, malls, supermarkets and telecom sectors for at least three years because though the service sector is growing, there are no new training institutes to equip students with the necessary skills. That’s why, students from catering colleges and restaurant staff have become easy choices.
City restaurants are even having a difficult time finding new recruits. While many English speakers have been absorbed into the telecom industry and call centres handling international clients, potential non-English speaking recruits have been hired by courier companies and domestic call centres.
Dominic Costabir, director of the Hospitality Training Institute, which conducts training programmes for the hospitality and allied industries, notes that working conditions in retail can be easier than the gruelling physicality of a restaurant. “A person who would’ve worked as a waiter now prefers working in a shop because they don’t have to work long hours, they don’t have to work shifts,” he said. “It’s a nine-to-five job that doesn’t involve any heavy work.”
However, older restaurants like Paradise in Colaba or Gypsy Chinese near Shivaji Park have not been affected by the crisis. Rahul Limaye, the owner of Gypsy Chinese, said that nearly 70 per cent of his staff has been with him from the time that he opened 25 years ago. The reason his staff have remained isn’t the money, he said. “My staff is not very highly paid and yet I have never had a problem,” he said. “That’s because I’m always accessible to everyone, right from the sweeper to the manager.” The relationship between owners and employees underwent a change in the late eighties due to union pressures. Many restaurateurs refused to make their staff permanent, preferring to give them a break every three months. This saved owners the cost of paying statutory dues such as gratuity, provident fund, medical and leave travel allowance. However, Limaye makes sure that everyone gets their proper dues, and when necessary, even advances soft loans for weddings or other personal expenses.
At Paradise, Mehru Kadkhodai treats her staff like family. “My husband and I didn’t want to take on a partner, so we treat our staff as partners,” she said. Most of her waiters who started with her when the restaurant opened in 1952 stayed on until they retired or passed away. Among the loyalists are Pudanik Naik and Boju Poojari, who have been with Paradise for 30 years.
Unlike New York, where heavy investments are made in training and constantly ensuring high service standards, few restaurants in Mumbai pay quite as much attention to their waiters. New York restaurateurs like Floyd Cardoz at Tabla encourage their waiters to eat at other high-end restaurants, so that they get a sense of their competitors’ standards.
Costabir believes that the restaurant industry shares blame for the shortfall. Instead of a concerted sector-wide effort to develop training programmes and courses that will produce large numbers of staff, individual organisations prefer to give employees on-the-job training. None of the restaurant bodies like the Association of Restaurants and Hotels or the Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India are interested in putting together waiter-training programmes.
Tandon is one of the few restaurateurs who trained his staff before opening his fine dining Asian restaurant Seijo and the Soul Dish in 2004. “We’d have management mentoring programmes at the shop- floor level every day. We had people from other hotels, other leading restaurants coming to talk to them,” he said. “ For three months, they’d have management training for three hours and service training for three hours during which period they received a full salary, but no tips.” Despite this, three of his staff members left to join a new five-star hotel when they learnt that his restaurant’s opening was slightly delayed.
The pressing issue at the moment is not about finding new people, but about retaining trained staff, said Tandon and Limaye. Earlier generations of waiters, being mostly illiterate, had few job options, but workers today can choose from a variety of service-related opportunities. Waiters’ salaries are steadily increasing, but standalone restaurants like Lemon Grass and Mocha believe it is important to have Human Resources teams that chart out growth opportunities and regular training programmes. Even though Tandon believes that the retail bubble will soon burst and salaries will be rationalised, low wages and long working hours for waiters will also become a thing of the past.
Published in Time Out Mumbai November 28 2008
Future repasts
Eating out in 2009, in ten easy bites by Antoine Lewis.
Cheaper food, easy meals, goat’s milk cheese and more Japanese – Mumbai is not going to eat out less this year, only more selectively. Appetites haven’t shrunk with the recession, but diners have started tightening their belts and carrying smaller wallets. Restaurateurs are reining in their ambitions for the coming year, and concentrating on keeping their businesses profitable and afloat.
But even as the boom quietens down into a whisper for the next six months, restaurants will continue to open. Restaurateurs may be hesitant to try something radical, but will continue to innovate. New flavours and ingredients will emerge and popular cuisines will be subtly made over. Here are some of the biggest trends.
Comfort food
When life gets tough, food gets friendly. Simple, accessible dishes without complex flavours and textures will rule next year. Instead of steak topped with camembert, caramelised yam and wasabi, it’s going to be steak with a simple pepper or mustard sauce and roast or mashed potatoes. The big difference from the earlier versions of steak and potatoes is that this time the best cuts and the freshest ingredients will be used.
Hispania por flavour
Mumbai’s only Spanish restaurant Caliente has quietly faded from memory, but with a new Spanish restaurant on the cards, the cuisine might make a comeback in 2009. Spanish dishes should appear on Olive’s new menus as owner AD Singh has signed on a Spanish chef. Also in line is Mexican, though the Taj Mahal Hotel’s plan for converting Starboard into a speciality Mexican restaurant has probably taken a backseat in light of the terrorist attacks. Indian computer professionals working in the Silicon Valley turned to Mexican and Tex-Mex whenever they felt homesick. Now back home in Mumbai, they miss the comforting flavours of the substitute and have been wailing about the absence of a good Mexican restaurant. Ever since chef Nobu Matsuhisa, a Peruvian of Japanese descent, became one of the greatest exponents of modern Japanese cuisine with his restaurants across three continents, western chefs have looked closely at Peruvian and Latin American ingredients and flavours. Expat Indian chefs are finally introducing these ideas into Mumbai, which will find expression in restaurants offering modern European cuisine.
A little yen
Japanese, particularly sushi, will finally make the transition from five-star hotels and expensive fine dining restaurants to more modestly-priced affordable outlets. Supermarket sushi, already available at Nature’s Basket, promises to become a citywide phenomenon. By the end of the year, it should be possible to throw a sushi and sake house party at a reasonable cost. At weddings and banquet functions, live Japanese counters will be the next big thing. Demand is expected to be so substantial that freelance Japanese chefs have already started making a beeline for the city.
In praise of prosciutto
The fan following for Italian continues and when things return to normal by 2010, fine-dining standalones should take off. Meanwhile, Italian speciality restaurants in five-star hotels will undergo subtle changes. Instead of generic menus, the diner can look forward to regional menus that also promise to be in tune with seasonal Italian produce. A winter menu, for example, will feature cheeses from Piedmont, which are noted for their quality at that time of the year. A spring menu might focus on dishes from Modena in Emilia-Romagna, which is famous for its vibrant flavours during this season.
More pasta lanes
With pasta becoming quite quotidian, people have switched from local brands to popular Italian brands to expensive Italian brands and finally to handmade, artisanal pasta. Shapes like chitarra (string-like spaghetti, but square instead of round), penne rigate, fusilli, farfalle, capellini (thinner than spaghetti but thicker than angel hair) and linguini (a narrower fettuccine) hold no surprises. The prediction for 2009: retail stores offering packed gourmet fresh pasta like tortellini stuffed with ricotta or Parma ham; spinach, ricotta and walnut ravioli or chitarra in a squid ink sauce.
Go green
Vegetarians will have a great year as restaurants roll out the green carpet for diners with dietary restrictions. Hotel restaurants are planning to offer 100 per cent vegetarian menus alongside their regular menu and are even ready to cater to those with more specific dietary requirements, like vegans.
Tough nut
As diners become more conscious of what they eat, allergen-sensitive menus and allergen-sensitive packaged foods will be a big boon for those who have to follow restrictions. Low-fat, low-calorie and low-sugar options have already been made available. Restaurants are starting to prepare fresh whole-wheat pasta and pizza on request. From 2009, they’ll also be offering sugar-free, gluten-free, nut-free and dairy-free foods on their menus.
Table for one
Hotels have realised that business travellers, Indian and foreign, often travel alone. Guests who dine at a hotel’s Indian restaurant find that they cannot sample a variety of dishes as the portion sizes are too large for a single person. In response, hotels have decided to offer mini meals that are perfect for one. The meal will ideally comprise of a combination of signature vegetarian and/or non-vegetarian dishes along with dal and Indian breads.
Fresh ’n’ fruity
Fresh, exotic fruits are becoming easily accessible and, with the accent on light fresh fare, they are set to become an important part of the diet. Restaurants are planning to offer open cooking stations where fruit juices either singly or in combination will be freshly squeezed. Chocolate, which will continue to reign supreme, will however have to make some elbow room for fruit-based desserts. Syrup-based flavoured cocktails will make way for fruit juice or fruit pulp-based cocktails.
Chuffing down chèvre
Indians love cheese but the cold favourite for 2009 is goat’s milk cheese. The popularity of goat’s milk cheese has been growing steadily over the years and is all set to explode in both restaurants and retail stores. Which ones are best-liked? Almost all the varieties including stinky goat’s milk version of Roquefort and gorgonzola. What’s particularly interesting is the demand for these varieties – which are generally thought to be an acquired taste – is not just from South Mumbai. Supermarkets and delicatessens in the western suburbs and New Bombay are picking up small, but significant, quantities on a regular basis.
Published in Time Out Mumbai ISSUE 9 Friday, December 26, 2008
Cheaper food, easy meals, goat’s milk cheese and more Japanese – Mumbai is not going to eat out less this year, only more selectively. Appetites haven’t shrunk with the recession, but diners have started tightening their belts and carrying smaller wallets. Restaurateurs are reining in their ambitions for the coming year, and concentrating on keeping their businesses profitable and afloat.
But even as the boom quietens down into a whisper for the next six months, restaurants will continue to open. Restaurateurs may be hesitant to try something radical, but will continue to innovate. New flavours and ingredients will emerge and popular cuisines will be subtly made over. Here are some of the biggest trends.
Comfort food
When life gets tough, food gets friendly. Simple, accessible dishes without complex flavours and textures will rule next year. Instead of steak topped with camembert, caramelised yam and wasabi, it’s going to be steak with a simple pepper or mustard sauce and roast or mashed potatoes. The big difference from the earlier versions of steak and potatoes is that this time the best cuts and the freshest ingredients will be used.
Hispania por flavour
Mumbai’s only Spanish restaurant Caliente has quietly faded from memory, but with a new Spanish restaurant on the cards, the cuisine might make a comeback in 2009. Spanish dishes should appear on Olive’s new menus as owner AD Singh has signed on a Spanish chef. Also in line is Mexican, though the Taj Mahal Hotel’s plan for converting Starboard into a speciality Mexican restaurant has probably taken a backseat in light of the terrorist attacks. Indian computer professionals working in the Silicon Valley turned to Mexican and Tex-Mex whenever they felt homesick. Now back home in Mumbai, they miss the comforting flavours of the substitute and have been wailing about the absence of a good Mexican restaurant. Ever since chef Nobu Matsuhisa, a Peruvian of Japanese descent, became one of the greatest exponents of modern Japanese cuisine with his restaurants across three continents, western chefs have looked closely at Peruvian and Latin American ingredients and flavours. Expat Indian chefs are finally introducing these ideas into Mumbai, which will find expression in restaurants offering modern European cuisine.
A little yen
Japanese, particularly sushi, will finally make the transition from five-star hotels and expensive fine dining restaurants to more modestly-priced affordable outlets. Supermarket sushi, already available at Nature’s Basket, promises to become a citywide phenomenon. By the end of the year, it should be possible to throw a sushi and sake house party at a reasonable cost. At weddings and banquet functions, live Japanese counters will be the next big thing. Demand is expected to be so substantial that freelance Japanese chefs have already started making a beeline for the city.
In praise of prosciutto
The fan following for Italian continues and when things return to normal by 2010, fine-dining standalones should take off. Meanwhile, Italian speciality restaurants in five-star hotels will undergo subtle changes. Instead of generic menus, the diner can look forward to regional menus that also promise to be in tune with seasonal Italian produce. A winter menu, for example, will feature cheeses from Piedmont, which are noted for their quality at that time of the year. A spring menu might focus on dishes from Modena in Emilia-Romagna, which is famous for its vibrant flavours during this season.
More pasta lanes
With pasta becoming quite quotidian, people have switched from local brands to popular Italian brands to expensive Italian brands and finally to handmade, artisanal pasta. Shapes like chitarra (string-like spaghetti, but square instead of round), penne rigate, fusilli, farfalle, capellini (thinner than spaghetti but thicker than angel hair) and linguini (a narrower fettuccine) hold no surprises. The prediction for 2009: retail stores offering packed gourmet fresh pasta like tortellini stuffed with ricotta or Parma ham; spinach, ricotta and walnut ravioli or chitarra in a squid ink sauce.
Go green
Vegetarians will have a great year as restaurants roll out the green carpet for diners with dietary restrictions. Hotel restaurants are planning to offer 100 per cent vegetarian menus alongside their regular menu and are even ready to cater to those with more specific dietary requirements, like vegans.
Tough nut
As diners become more conscious of what they eat, allergen-sensitive menus and allergen-sensitive packaged foods will be a big boon for those who have to follow restrictions. Low-fat, low-calorie and low-sugar options have already been made available. Restaurants are starting to prepare fresh whole-wheat pasta and pizza on request. From 2009, they’ll also be offering sugar-free, gluten-free, nut-free and dairy-free foods on their menus.
Table for one
Hotels have realised that business travellers, Indian and foreign, often travel alone. Guests who dine at a hotel’s Indian restaurant find that they cannot sample a variety of dishes as the portion sizes are too large for a single person. In response, hotels have decided to offer mini meals that are perfect for one. The meal will ideally comprise of a combination of signature vegetarian and/or non-vegetarian dishes along with dal and Indian breads.
Fresh ’n’ fruity
Fresh, exotic fruits are becoming easily accessible and, with the accent on light fresh fare, they are set to become an important part of the diet. Restaurants are planning to offer open cooking stations where fruit juices either singly or in combination will be freshly squeezed. Chocolate, which will continue to reign supreme, will however have to make some elbow room for fruit-based desserts. Syrup-based flavoured cocktails will make way for fruit juice or fruit pulp-based cocktails.
Chuffing down chèvre
Indians love cheese but the cold favourite for 2009 is goat’s milk cheese. The popularity of goat’s milk cheese has been growing steadily over the years and is all set to explode in both restaurants and retail stores. Which ones are best-liked? Almost all the varieties including stinky goat’s milk version of Roquefort and gorgonzola. What’s particularly interesting is the demand for these varieties – which are generally thought to be an acquired taste – is not just from South Mumbai. Supermarkets and delicatessens in the western suburbs and New Bombay are picking up small, but significant, quantities on a regular basis.
Published in Time Out Mumbai ISSUE 9 Friday, December 26, 2008
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