The 3 ingredients in the legacy of serving excellence on a plate

[Music]

hi my name is

and i’m the founder of massive

restaurants we’re a restaurant company

whose main goal

is to put indian food on the global

palette indian food

has been something that’s very close to

me and my father’s heart

my father mr jigskalra was one of the

stalwarts of the industry

he wrote some of the best books that

exist so i’m very proud to try and take

his legacy forward

but the one thing that my father and i

always shared was this deep love

sense of responsibility and passion

towards indian food

i think what drove me to get into the

restaurant business to begin with

was this sense of purpose this sense of

responsibility

towards our great cuisine it was

considered very widely across the world

as cheap takeaway

or a place where you go to a curry house

in the uk

but that’s not the way we wanted or

especially my father

he could not stand that perception of

indian food he wanted to change it

he wanted to create recipes that were

standardized the biggest problem was our

recipes were never standardized they

weren’t documented

chefs wanted to keep those recipes

hidden they didn’t want to share them

with the rest of the world because they

wanted to remain important

they wanted those recipes to only stay

within the family which is not a good

way if you want to propagate your

cuisine

in my opinion the best way to propagate

your culture is through your food

i think it’s the best representation of

a culture it’s an amalgamation of

of centuries of data of experiences of

of family life of of all our entire

you know it’s a basically it’s a

concentration of our culture

into food and that’s the best way in my

opinion

to export your culture to the rest of

the world

so let me talk about uh the restaurant

industry because i’m sure a lot of you

that are watching this

are have either a cursory interest or a

lot of interest

in in this particular field and let me

tell you it is one of the most rewarding

fields in the world but it’s also

one of the toughest um to put things in

perspective the restaurant industry or

rather the business of eating out

is the most popular form of

entertainment for indians

to put a comparison it’s 40 times larger

than bollywood

that’s the reason why great chefs like

sanjeev kapoor and vikas khanna command

the respect that they do

they’re so popular they walk down an

airport or on the street and they get as

much adulation

as the movie stars the bollywood

superstars and that’s because

food is very close to indians hearts we

spend more on eating out than on any

other form of entertainment

it’s also a way to connect it’s a way to

go with your you know celebrate live ski

moments it’s a way to

celebrate uh friends friendship and just

life in general and i think that’s the

beauty of restaurants and

that’s why i love being a part of it

apart from being a lot of fun

it is also a big responsibility because

people are depending upon you

to um take care of their life special

moments

and if you fall to there then in a way

you’re denting their their

life’s precious moments so i think it’s

very important to have that sense of

responsibility when you open the

restaurant business

get it for the right reasons it’s also a

very very big

industry so to speak um we’re lucky now

that the authorities have recognized the

restaurant industry as an industry

it is uh the second largest employer of

humans

in india after agriculture about 7.8 to

8 million people

directly involved in the industry that’s

a lot of people second largest like i

said

it’s also a big contributor to india’s

gdp uh we have now i think the world’s

fourth or fifth largest uh economy and

it’s

uh 2.9 trillion dollars and we’re three

percent of that nearly three percent

between two and a half to three percent

which is a big big chunk a big big

contribution so the restaurant industry

by itself is important to the growth of

this nation

it is also important for keeping us sane

because it’s the number one form of our

of entertainment for us as indians the

flip side is that the restaurant

industry is

perhaps the most high risk industry in

the world there’s a failure rate

of around 90 percent within the first

year so 9 out of 10 restaurants will

shut down

within 12 months and 96 within 18 months

and the biggest reason is

that the barriers to entry are low so

it’s very easy to go ahead and open one

restaurant

but it’s a very complex business there’s

a lot more that goes into it it’s not

it’s not something that can function if

you’re trying to build

uh you know an extension of your drawing

room or if you’re trying to get in it

for

glamour reasons it’s a very tough

business it requires systems

processes there are a lot of gaps there

are a lot of holes that will need to be

plugged

and it will consume you it’s not a nine

to five kind of a job

it’s not a nine to five kind of career

it’s a lifestyle choice

so if you’re trying to get into the

restaurant business

literally write off your weekends

forever because when everybody else is

enjoying their weekends they’re going

for holidays

you guys will be working and it’ll be

your busiest time that being said

again it is i’m in it for a reason and

the reason is that i actually

love it so i think it’s

i think if you get in it for the right

reasons and if you’re getting

into it with a sense of purpose with a

sense of direction

with the sense of making a change or

most importantly if you’re really

passionate

about the kind of restaurant you’re

building or the kind of cuisine you’re

pursuing then

by all means dive right in and you’ll

have great results

my father told me that if you ever want

to choose a line of work that you want

to pursue first find

something that you would do for free and

then figure out a way to make money from

it

because if you don’t like what you do

you will never be good at it

if you want to be a doctor and

somebody’s forcing you to be an engineer

you’ll be a terrible engineer

if you want to be an astronaut and

somebody’s forcing you to be a race car

driver you lose every race

so i think it’s very very important to

first figure out what is it that you

really really love

from the core of your heart something

that you can see yourself do for the

next 50 years

and then pursue it and then pursue it

with full gusto with full power

and i think that’s the key that’s one of

the key things my father taught me and i

can tell you very clearly that

my life’s experiences uh have taught me

that the key thing is to figure out at a

very early age perhaps even pre-teen

years

in my case around 11 12 i knew i wanted

to do restaurants i wanted to pursue

the globalization of indian food and

that’s what i pursued since then and

maybe

a part a small part of the reason why

we’ve been able to achieve

some measure of success is because we

love doing it every day

we wake up in the morning with something

interesting to do we wake up every

morning with an extra spring in our step

simply because we’re pursuing something

that we love to do and the moment you

guys are able to do that

you will excel you will innovate and

you’ll do all the things that make a

business successful

so today i’m going to talk about three

things in my life three instances that

relate to three specific

facets of success they’re based around

sustainability for the environment

because that’s very important without

this earthworm nothing

the second is innovation and the third

is a sense of responsibility

a responsibility towards your passion

towards your craft towards the business

that you’re pursuing

and if you’re able to involve these

three things

you know innovation responsibility and

sustainability into your business you

have something that lasts

hopefully forever the first one i would

want to talk about is

um sustainability we live

in a in a time where we’re taking the

earth for granted we’re taking the

resources of the earth which are very

very finite in nature

for granted and that’s i think the

biggest mistake that we’re making

we have to leave a planet in better

shape than we got it and our parents

gave us the plant in a fairly decent

shape

and their parents before then gave them

the planet in an epic shape now it’s our

job to at least not give them a really

crappy planet

that is devoid of resources and is and

is for the lack of better word just

plain dying so it’s very important to

have sustainability as part of your

career or your business or you know your

sense of responsibility it’s very

important to have

that as an important facet of your life

going forward so what i’m going to talk

about now is

um you know a series of events that have

happened but one in particular

i think this was 1993 i was in 10th

standard

and my father used to every year take us

for a gourmet trip around the world

somewhere around the world

he was a food journalist and he used to

go and study places he used to go and

study foods

and he used to get inspired and then

obviously utilize that in building

restaurants and building

in making cookbooks and then working

with the great chefs that he’s worked

with his whole life

and we went to scotland and wales on a

on a you know on a road trip we we

reached uh

england london we took a car uh you know

i remember it was a really fancy toyota

well fancy for that time it was a very

nice new rental car

my father was driving it was me my

brother and me in the back seat and my

mother in the front seat

and we went for a road trip across

scotland and wales

we went and stated about eight to ten

bed and breakfasts

bed and breakfast are small hotels that

are run by families really passionately

run maybe five to six rooms

that’s their bread and butter so people

come they stay they get a family-like

atmosphere really good

home-cooked food and you enjoy your time

and then you then you go

and i remember one specific one that

really stood out for me

it was called the penalty abbey and it

was in scotland and it was

one of those uh beautiful bed and

breakfast run by this loving family

and what this particular episode

really brought out in me is this sense

of

you know a sense of being careful with

your resources

why i’m mentioning sustainability is

because this family used to make food

every day

and the food was so fresh that literally

the vegetables were plucked from the

garden

every day and even the meat was farmed

their own animals were then slaughtered

and served on the bed now i know it

sounds morbid but even the chicken and

and the fish or whatever you eat

is all unfortunately butchered somewhere

before it comes to you

in this particular case it was true farm

to fork it was food that was

alive in the morning served you in the

evening for dinner and

the good thing they did was that they

only slaughtered as much or only plucked

as much as was needed for that night’s

dinner

so they were hugely in touch with their

resources

they grew all their own stuff it was all

organic they had built a certain

you know like a like a tea plantation

style of farm in the backyard where

the the plants were grown in a way where

the soil erosion would not happen

where the food would be very very

flavorful where the animals were

only slaughtered for the amount that

would be required for

for the next day or for the next uh 48

hours and what that really taught me was

not just farm to fork which is a thing

we talked about today and i experienced

this in 1993

but what it taught me was that it’s very

important to be one with your

environment

you should have this sense of

responsibility it is our earth at the

end of the day

we should stop the wastages that we do

there’s so much food being wasted so

much

plastic being thrown into the oceans

there’s so much that’s happening

nowadays

that is terrible for the environment and

this family really gave me the

importance because the whole time that i

was there

three days that we stayed there they

spoke about how they

they are taking care of their farms

they’re taking care of their local

purveyors

they’re taking care of the animals

they’re making sure that there’s no

wastage

and that there’s maximum utilization and

they’re living in harmony with with

their with the nature around them and

that’s not something we do in urban

times

and something really really should focus

on so it’s very important to

understand this and especially for kids

for the young ones that are watching

it’s important that you guys learn to

live in harmony

with your surroundings from a very early

age because

if we don’t do that we’ll eventually not

have a planet worth living in

and we would have done that to ourselves

in fact a very intelligent quote i read

i’m forgetting who wrote it but they

said it is really strange that the

smartest species to ever

walk the planet is destroying their only

home

obviously they’re referring to the human

beings right we’re the smartest species

that have

walked this planet and this is our only

home so let’s take care of it

and the second instance i want to talk

about is innovation

now we’re in the food business guys and

the food business moves at a very quick

pace

literally every three to four months if

you’re not going ahead and

you know innovating coming up with

something new you’ll be

left far behind because a lot of people

very talented people are working very

hard they want to do new things they

want to create new experiences

consumers you guys are getting spoiled

for choice right you have this crazy

amount of innovation happening in food

and drinks and

atmosphere and ambience and music all

aspects of running a restaurant

is seeing great innovation and i think

the one

sure short way of failing is seizing to

innovate

innovation i think guys is the absolute

key if you don’t innovate

not just in the food business in any

business we don’t innovate if you don’t

stay

a little bit ahead of the curve don’t go

too far ahead of the curve because you

might not have a business

or rather you might not have a business

uh market available to you but

in a way be a little bit ahead of the

curve make sure that any new technology

that’s coming your way you’re either

incorporating or you’re showcasing

so i think that’s one of the key things

and this the part of my life that

got this embedded so deeply into my

psyche

was actually a dinner that i had with my

wife

um we had just gotten married uh this is

in 2006

and there was this restaurant called el

bui that’s el space bulli it was the

number one restaurant the world was in

spain

we had just gotten married on 30th of

june

and on 15th of august we were supposed

to go to spain and i chose spain because

i wanted to go to el bui

but being the lazy bum that i that i am

i did not book this restaurant and i

didn’t realize that the restaurant had a

six-month waiting list

so there was no chance i would get this

restaurant but i still wanted to go and

check it out

it was the number one restaurant in the

world it was it had been the number one

restaurant for four years in a row

it was doing something very cool called

molecular gastronomy that i had

no clue what it was but something that

really intrigued me

so i made a few phone calls i called the

matrid literally literally started

laughing at me he said sir this is

elbowing

with the number one restaurant in the

world you think you can call me 10 days

before and get a table

he literally started laughing at me i

got embarrassed to put the phone down

i i got embarrassed i also got a little

upset because that’s not

the way indian hospitality works right

you don’t laugh at your potential

consumer

i called again and this time i used

i tried to use some pull now my father

is a very famous man in the food world

but in barcelona i don’t think anybody

would know about him and especially

the number one restaurant in the world

for them they’re the big big shake

so i tried to convince him i gave him

some information on my father i said

listen i’m coming from india

only for a two-day window i would love

it if you can check

all your cancellations and if there is

one give us a table for two

um we actually were given a table i was

super excited over the moon

that i finally got this restaurant the

hardest restaurant to get in this world

shut for six months only open for six

months and you have to book a year in

advance to be able to get that

slot during that time so we went there

uh we did a little trip but my whole

excitement was around this restaurant

and the restaurant

just blew my mind it was literally like

a bay

like you know one of those pirate cave

pilot coves

where you have this water body and you

have these beautiful mountains

and the restaurant was atop a hill an

independent big structure a huge

building

and you enter the restaurant it’s got

bam right in front of you on the right

side you have

a beautiful kitchen which is lit up like

a like a studio

like an operating theater white light

these wonderfully dressed chefs all

working immaculately

huge tables food being assembled liquid

nitrogen machines and crazy contraptions

everywhere

all kind of you know jeep misery

happening over there and it blew my mind

so when you cross that you could get to

the table i sat down it was a 25 course

meal

and small small bites one one bite but

25 bites of even small ones are big

and 25 courses of the most incredible

stuff that i’ve ever seen i mean i had

an olive that was based out of a gel

you put the olive in your mouth it looks

like an olive but when you eat it

it bursts and it’s got the taste of

olive but it’s not an actual olive it’s

a man-made olive

and the craziness just kept continuing

and i immediately started applying this

to indian food because nobody had done

it with indian food at that time in 2006

nobody had done it

and i really got intrigued i got excited

and that’s where the idea

of introducing molecular gastronomy to

indian food came to me

so innovation is what i thought was what

i learned on this trip

and it became so deeply embedded in my

psyche that i realized

that if you don’t keep changing you will

be left far behind

that restaurant now no longer exists

it’s become a think tank

they it’s a place where they experiment

and build new techniques with food

and just imagine being number one in the

world in 2006

and i think they were number one from

2002 down to 2006

every year they changed the menu

completely except for the few signature

items

so you know it’s about staying ahead of

the curve it’s about constantly

innovating

never staying still and constantly keep

moving and you have to stay ahead of

if you want to stay at the competition

there’s one simple mantra

innovate in a weight and innovate and

now let me talk about

responsibility but i think the one

instance that that i remember the most

is

when me and my father had gone for

an international visit it was uh in

europe

in spain and we had gone for

this culinary meet i was very young and

my father had asked me and my brother to

stay outside he had gone inside for this

conference

while coming out he was followed by a

whole bunch of people he used to wear

you know wonderful immaculate turban so

people in that part of the world in

i think this was in late 80s or maybe

early 90s they had not even seen a

turban so they were very excited to meet

him they thought he’s some kind of

maharaja

he was not a maharaja he was just a

regular guy who wore a turban but they

found it exciting

while they were walking out towards the

car they were having a conversation i

saw my father getting

a little heated a little peeved a little

irritated

with what was going on and i think when

i heard the conversation i understood

why

he was getting irritated and this

happened like i said in the late 80s

somewhere or maybe the very beginning

of the 90s and the conversation was

around indian food

and this other journalist from from uh i

think it was a big

big publication in the uk and my dad who

would come from india as a

counter journalist to cover this

particular conference

they were having this discussion about

indian food and my dad

had this deep sense of passion and

responsibility towards indian food

he always thought and he’s taught me

that it is the greatest cuisine in the

world and i

completely agree with that and i think

eventually the world will agree with

that but

the guy was talking about how everything

in indian food is all the same

it’s all three basic gravies and all the

other dishes are just some

potpourri or a mixture of you know those

three basic concepts

and how you eat and another joke he made

was how when you eat

food in the uk or europe uh with your

fingers there’s so much turmeric

in the in the dishes in the gravies that

your fingers come out yellow and they

remain yellow for four days

my father got really upset about that

and he had a

fairly vociferous and a fairly heated

but

gentlemanly argument with the other

journalists and

my sense of responsibility comes from

making people realize the greatness of

our cuisine

the fact that it’s so incredibly

diverse it’s got so much depth it’s got

so much philosophy behind it it’s got so

much

sophistication i just cannot wait to

share it with the rest of the world

and the way to share it with the rest of

the world is by opening really good

restaurants

by achieving big accolades by making

people realize what we’re talking about

and this sense of responsibility is what

drives us every day and

i think it’s one of those things that is

bigger than the business itself it’s

bigger than anything it’s

it’s about our culture it’s about our

great cuisine that has been built

by our ancestors lovingly over centuries

so

this sense of responsibility is what

really guides me

and it’s what makes us take steps

forward

in in putting indian food on the global

palette making it international

and making it achieve the culinary

status at the top of the ladder

that it deserves so to sum it all up

first and foremost guys try and figure

out something

that you really really care about

something that you feel responsibility

towards

and something that you would like to be

innovative at the moment you guys can

incorporate these three aspects

into your career of choice into your

life’s pursuit

you will 99 achieve great success

and i think that’s the simplicity of it

all we’ve always been told

that if you’re passionate about

something you’ll achieve great results

absolutely goes without saying

but get into the things for the right

reasons and try and have

a bigger cause not just the pursuit of

money or fame try and find a bigger

cause

because that bigger cause will make you

work even harder will get the universe

to come behind you

things will start falling in place and

you’ll start achieving your goals

quicker than you can ever imagine always

get into the business for the right

reasons

entrepreneurship is like jumping off a

cliff

and building an aircraft on the way down

it’s going to be a tough journey

but you got to figure it out you got to

carry on you got to bash on regardless

there’s

there’s always going to be a lot of

people that are going to tell you not to

get into your own stream

there’s always going to be a thousand

reasons to not do something

but there’s always going to be just one

good reason to do it and a true

entrepreneur

follows that one reason so if you’re an

entrepreneur at heart

do not worry about the naysayers there’s

always going to be more naysayers

till the day that you prove them wrong

let that be your driving force

let people say it’s impossible the more

you hear the word impossible

the more you should want to make it

possible steve jobs said

try and make a dent in the universe do

something so big that has a big societal

impact

and i would urge all of you who are

trying to become entrepreneurs

that go ahead take that plunge jump off

that cliff

and build that aircraft on the way down

you will achieve great results

try and search for bigger bigger ideas

innovate

have a sense of responsibility and find

something that you truly truly care

about

and try and be the best in the world

[Music]