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]