C H EF VO I CE
Passionate and Methodical! Anuj Kapoor, Consultant Chef Chef Anuj Kapoor develops and executes Food and Beverage concepts for premium restaurants and hotels. His latest project is one of its kind concept of temple foods of India at ‘Varr’ Restaurant located at Holywater by Ganga Kinare, Rishikesh. Chef Kapoor holds rich experience having worked as the Corporate Chef for Compass Group PLC and Four Points by Sheraton in India, Executive Chef of The Grand, New Delhi & Azaya Beach Resort Goa. He has launched & operated some of the most reputed F&B brands in India and abroad such as Olive Bar & Kitchen, Olive Beach, Set’z (Zest), Yum Yum Tree, Manré, Café Amor, Cha Shi, Café E, Kebab Khan, Zazen and Kink, to name a few. In addition to having a rich background of exemplary culinary experience, he likes to nurture budding talent as well. He has created several programs to mentor numerous aspiring chefs. In the initial years of his career, he learnt the nuances of authentic Spanish, Mediterranean, Italian & the Middle Eastern cuisines. Later, he ventured into Indian & Pan Asian food. He graduated from Hotel Management School, IHM Lucknow in 1996 and started his career as Management Trainee at The Park Group of Hotels. He honed his skills through working hard with a wide spectrum of Food & Beverage business ranging from five star properties, fine dining restaurants, hospitals, bistros and casual diners. He has worked in Bangalore, New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Melbourne, Singapore and Dubai. He has also worked with many well renowned Chefs like Greg Malouf, Massimo di Luca, Manu Feildel, Catherine Claringbold, Antonio Carluccio. In an exclusive interview with Sharmila Chand, he talks about his work philosophy and more….
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Hammer Food & Beverage Business Review
What is your philosophy of cooking? My Motto in all my kitchens over the years has always been – ‘ACE’ – Authenticity, Consistency, Eye for Detail.
What is your area of expertise? Indian food is my native cuisine but surprisingly as a professional Chef - in the beginning of my career it was Spanish cuisine – I was trained under Spanish Chef and was the Chef in-charge of the first Spanish restaurant in the country (Las Meninas). Later I delved into Italian cuisine, and then grew the specialty to Mediterranean. I was lucky that I got to work with some of the finest international chefs of various countries and picked up those cuisines from the best masters available at the time. Greg Malouf (Mid Eastern cuisine), Massimo di Luca (Italian), Catherine Claringbold (Australian), Manu Fieldel (South American). But those were the initial years. Thereafter, I have got the opportunity to return to the roots and opened and operated mutiple Indian F&B concepts.
Tell us about your latest work? My latest work has been curating the concept of Varr Restaurant at HolyWater by Ganga Kinare, Rishikesh. It took us over three months of extensive research across temples of India and the Bhogs offered to deities and Prasadam distributed in and around the temples. Since Ganga Kinare has a multi cuisine restaurant called Jal&Jalebi, we wanted another speciality restaurant which would deliver a unique cultural experience to our guests and take them back a thousand years. Temple food was something which did not have its presence anywhere in India, let alone Rishikesh. With this thought process we launched VARR which would offer a thousand year old history of Indian temples on a plate and would
Feb-Mar ’21
