Chef Voice

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….

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

leave our guests with a story to tell and a deeply spiritual experience.

The service sequence, audio visuals and small rituals at VARR will fill Indian as well as international guests with great respect towards our culture and that is something we wanted to aim for while serving some extremely fantastic food cooked with healthy ingredients, sourced locally and from select vendors across India.

Why is this concept important in the New Age?

We believe that the onset of Covid is a great turning point in the history of India as well as the world. In keeping with our belief that we as humankind need to celebrate and respect what we already have and pause this relentless pursuit of material expansion, we felt that the concept of VARR was apt and contextually relevant to explore now more than ever.

There has to be a place for a speciality restaurant like VARR in the Indian landscape which seeks to keep the traditions of our temple food alive and acts as a reminder to our guests of where we come from. Guests who visit us come with the multiple generations of their family together, from 6 to 60 year olds. The amount of inputs that every single guest is giving us apart from just rave reviews is overwhelming and deeply motivating for our team. We feel we have only explored the surface when it comes to temple foods of India and this concept needs to exist even internationally as a flag bearer of Indian traditions in its purest form.

What has been the most rewarding moment in your career?

His Royal Highness, the Prince of Spain had visited India, and one of his dinners was at my Spanish restaurant. I was heading the Paella station (traditional Spanish complex rice preparation, think Biryani). After the dinner the Prince wanted to meet the person who made the Paella. He shook my hand and mentioned -“Your Paella reminded me of my grandmother’s Paella, she used to make it exactly like this.”

How has the journey been so far?

The journey has seen tremendous amounts of learning, having worked in so many cities and with so many nationalities. For me most important part of being a Chef is that each day is a new day with fresh ideas, learnings and excitement. There’s no monotony.

What are your future plans?

Disclaimer - It probably won’t sound that Glamorous. I would want to revolutionize Hospital food next. I would be on a lookout for that kind of opportunity. There’s really no reason for Hospital food to be sad and boring. And of all places where a person dines - Hospital can be one place, where one would appreciate good food, without the distracting phones & screens, even without the chatter of group of people!