Chef Irfan Pabaney

Country Head, SodaBottleOpenerWala

This is one fun-loving chef who we have known, and grown to love, for years now. Been there and done that, Chef Irfan is now at the helm of SBOW and Monkey Bar and Olive Bistro, all part of the Olive Group

Interviewed by ASHISH VIRMANI

Humaneness in the Workplace

What's it like growing up in the Philippines? One could ask Chef Irfan Pabaney and listen to his memories of the years he spent there as a pre-teen. Of the times he went to the Jose Abad Santos Memorial School (JASMS) in Quezon City. He may also tell you that he was born in Bogota, Colombia since his father served in the United Nations and that he spent a substantial portion of his formative years moving between countries. That in Nigeria, in the six months the family spent there, their house was burgled thrice! “When somebody is breaking into your house, they don't care if you work for the UN," laughs Irfan in retrospect, adding that the African nation was undergoing many political upheavals during the family's time there.

Yet, quintessentially Irfan is a Bombay boy. The family moved to the city when Irfan was in his teens and lived in his mother's house at Jussawala Wadi in Juhu. He recalls having a whole bunch of Parsis as neighbours, as well as actor Feroz Khan. And it's been Bombay for him ever since. Completing his BCom at Narsee Monjee College in Juhu, Irfan studied hotel management at the Sophia Polytechnic before moving onto his professional life as a chef. In the last 30 years he's been closely associated with premium restaurants such as Under the Over, Seijo and the Soul Dish, Indigo, Hakkasan and Yauatcha.

In 2012 he finally decided to branch out on his own, setting up The Sassy Spoon with business partner, Rachel Goenka. After spending over five years there and delighting Bombay with the restaurant's exquisite gastronomic creations, the chef is currently country head of the SodaBottleOpenerwala (SBOW) chain of restaurants which is part of the Olive Group. “Right now I'm handling a rather wide canvas with eight restaurants at SBOW, plus the kitchens of Monkey Bar and Olive Bistro, all part of the Olive Group," says Irfan.

Chef Irfan says that the thing that spurs him on most is spending time with his staff in the kitchens of the restaurants he's responsible for. “Deciding recipes and menu development energise me. Number crunching decidedly doesn't! I talk to my team of chefs a lot, spending nearly six or seven hours a day – from 12 noon till almost 7 pm – with them on the training aspects of the job. My philosophy for senior management is that it's not just about skill at the given job, but that an individual's behaviour and conduct define team effectiveness. At that level, an employee's ethics are important. If you're in a position of responsibility you also need to sort out your anger issues if any. You can't afford to be an asshole who takes out his steam on the lower-down staff. One has to be kind to one's employees, even to the guy who washes the dishes," says the man whose mother taught him the importance of kindness early on.

Chef Irfan moved into the food business when the landscape in India for food was changing. As food came down to the front and centre of society and more professional denizens sought employment in the food industry, food moved from being a blue-collar trade to a white-collar one, at least in part. Irfan recalls that when he entered the industry, one of the most challenging aspects of being a chef was the misbehaviour of senior chefs, several of them blue-collar, who may have resented the presence of his kind of ‘educated upstart'. “While I was training many chefs thought people like me were privileged (to have had higher education) and didn't treat us well. Those episodes were the most challenging in my career in the restaurant business. But I didn't allow it to change my mind about becoming a chef." He goes on to add, “In our work the issues are more people-related – everything depends on the people you deal with. You may cook the most delicious salmon dish but it won't talk back to you! It's all about your colleagues – we're all on a journey together." Irfan says that is also one of the reasons that he stresses to his staff during their dialogues, the need to be humane in the workplace.

At SBOW currently, he's serving up primarily Parsi and Iranian food for his customers while striving to expand the profile to include Kannada and Goan recipes. “It's important to reinvent the brand without losing one's identity," he says or as he puts it, play with the periphery while keeping the core intact.

Personally, he's not big-time into fusion food or molecular gastronomy. “True fusion food evolves over time when two different ethnic cultures meet and it may take decades or even a century to come about. I'm not in favour of synthetically bringing together food ingredients to create an artificial fusion dish. And I can do molecular gastronomy in a couple of elements, not as my main modus operandi," he says. “I believe in a balanced diet that sticks to the roots and preferably to tradition. As far as food is concerned, it's important not to forget our past – what we have grown up with, what our predecessors have taught us. Especially with regard to Indian food which has a rich and diverse past," he concludes.