INDUSTRY VETERAN CREATES NEW MARKETPLACE FOR SMART LIQUOR BRANDS

January 30, 2021

In the 10-15 minutes of free time he got before my phone call, Rahul Gagerna, co-founder and Managing Director, Boutique Spirit Brands (BSB), had already thought of 10-15 names of future products and asked one of his managers to start getting them registered. Indeed, the former Radico Khaitan top executive...

INDIA’S FIRST ONE-STOP SHOP FOR SAVOURY SNACKS TAKES OFF, AND HOW!

January 30, 2021

Ashish Nichani and Sudarsan Metla laughingly insist they could be characters out of 3 Idiots—they attended engineering colleges, followed by management schools, and ended up in banks, hot in the pursuit of careers riding on money. Till the boredom of their work drove them into the warm and welcoming arms...

A HEARTY WHIFF OF SINGAPORE’S STREET HAWKER CULTURE

January 30, 2021

I have often wondered why Delhi doesn’t have a decent Singaporean hawker-style restaurant, considering how many of us have been to the Hawkers Centre in the spiffy financial heart of the island city and to the seafood shacks that thrive on the East Coast Road. Despite its remarkable story as...

INTO THE ALIMENTARY TRACT OF MUSLIM SOUTH ASIA

January 16, 2021

It took a pandemic to make humankind rediscover its umbilical affection for food. (Now that Rutger Bregman has elevated the collective noun ‘humankind’, I am delighted to reclaim it after its long exile on the charge of being a symbol of excessive political correctness!) Faced with an extended, exhausting spell...

Don’t forget those who gave you joy but have no jobs today

January 9, 2021

As the curtain rises on 2021, there’s one industry that is finding it very hard to celebrate the arrival of the New Year. Few sectors of the economy have been as badly mauled by the Covid-19 pandemic as bars and restaurants. And the shadow of uncertainty that continues to loom...

HONEY, HONEY, YOU DON’T MAKE ME DIZZY NO MORE

December 26, 2020

The next time you move from sugar to honey ostensibly to cut your calorie intake, you might as well be getting a bottle of sugar syrup, which is what the commercially produced honey in the country have been proved to have in abundance by the investigations carried out by the...

ADDING WHISKY & KABABS TO THE JOYS OF AL FRESCO DINING

December 19, 2020

Restaurant operators across the board have been worried about how a large number of diners do not venture into their premises because they fear getting Covid-19. They may have been quick to implement safety protocols, but the average customer is still not convinced, one of their being fears being the...

FIVE-STAR BIRYANI AT STANDALONE PRICES DELIVERED AT HOMEITC

December 19, 2020

It is not enough for five-star hotels to explore the home-delivery route without taking into account the new demographic that they have to court. In the present constrained market, where only online shopping propelled by deals and discounts seems to be on a rock-and-roll gig, the biggest lesson to be...

TIME TO STOP COUNTING CALORIES AND GO BINGEING

December 19, 2020

With just a week left for Christmas, and Grover Zampa making our lives easier by launching the One Tree Hill Mulled Kadha Wine, this is the season to dig the Yule logs, gingerbread men, plum puddings and Alpine nut cakes. And if the cold wave continues to be the way...

ENTERPRISING CHEFS LIFT PALL OF GLOOM OVER COVID-HIT RESTAURANT SECTOR

December 12, 2020

Historians believe that the years of misplaced hope and anarchy spawned by the French Revolution (1789-99) led to the birth and proliferation of the modern restaurant industry. As members of the nobility were guillotined, and feudalism given a violent burial, a whole lot of their chefs, many of whom were...