Chef Vineet Bhatia

On A Global Beat

He is the global Brit-Indian on the go! A chef who is happy to set up restaurants around the world under his formidable signature. Rasoi by Vineet Bhatia is how most of them are called. Undettered, understated,  uncomplicated, Vineet Batia is a successful man


Text & Photographs: Farzana Contractor

The one thing no one can ever take away from Vineet Bhatia is that he was the very first Indian chef to receive a Michelin star. This was in 2001, for his restaurant in London, charmingly named Zaika, which in Urdu means refined taste.
And then he got his second Michelin star,  came along in 2005 for Rasoi by Vineet Bhatia, a venture at Geneva´s Mandarin Oriental hotel, making him only the second British chef (after Gordon Ramsay) to hold Michelin stars in more than one country.
Of course there have been many more awards and accolades that have come the way of this talented chef, who seems almost hesitant to speak about himself, but let me tell you, his road to success hasn´t been easy. It has, in fact been fraught with many an obstacle, ones he has hurdled away with grace and resilience. A man of few words, who speaks more with his eyes and smiles, all he said to the British media when he suddenly and surprising closed down his very respected restaurant in Chelsea, Vineet Bhatia London, exactly eight days after a Michelin star was bestowed upon him, was, "VBL needs to move out for a fresh start."
So here´s the career and life graph, in a nutshell, of a chef who though "arrived´ a long while ago, continues on his journey, apron and toque very much in place!
To start with, Vineet never did think of being a chef. As a boy he always dreamed of becoming a pilot. Influenced as he was by something in the vicinity he grew up in, Juhu in Bombay. Very near the Cambata Aviation air strip, waking and sleeping to the roaring sounds of planes landing and taking off. On his way to school he would look at these gleaming flying machines and his resolve would only strengthen. But fate decided something else for him. He did not make the cut at the entrance exam at the National Defence Academy and joining the Air Force became a pipe dream. Upset, he decided to go for something totally different. Cooking. Perhaps it was his mum´s passion for all things kitchen that pushed him into that direction. He joined the prestigious Dadar catering college and did rather well. But not well enough to be able to join any fancy establishment to acquire his hotel management degree, landing up instead at his fifth choice, which was the IHM in Ahmedabad.
But he did well there, topping his class and arriving in Bombay for his summer training internship; at Trattoria, in Hotel President. "It was here that I learnt to open wine bottles with expertise and pop champagne bottles with a flourish!" reminisces Vineet. "But you know, it was the Library, next door, that I wanted to intern at, I loved tending bars," he smiles and informs.
Vineet never would get to do what he wanted. At an internship the next year, he desperately wanted to train at The Lancers at Oberoi Towers. He fancied he would do well standing behind the bar. Until it was rudely pointed out to him that any decent Lancer must at least be 6 feet tall! "My hopes were dashed, I was a mere 5 foot 4 inches," laughs the chef, who certainly makes up in stature, methinks!
Anyways, he was trotted away towards Caf&eacute Royale to work in the kitchen.
Unbeknown to him, this tryst with Oberoi and the kitchen was to become a long and fruitful association, a bond which to this day, remains steadfast. "True," confirms Vineet emphatically.
So here we are now, Vineet and I, Rashima, his precious wife, indispensible as wife-cum-manager of his life, both business and personal, sitting at a corner table at Ziya, Oberoi in Bombay, the restaurant which has been running under Vineet´s stamp for the past eight years. We are indulging in an endless tasting of his creative new menu and I am delighting in the bubbly company of Rashima, who more than makes up for Vineet´s reserve and for being a man of few words. "Well, his actions speak louder than his words, so that suits us just fine, right?" That´s Rashima, alright. She is someone who does not hesitate to express herself.
Egging Vineet on, I gathered Oberoi was his dream stop. Strolling by the seaside on Marine Drive, he would look up at The Oberoi, spanking new, and hope he would get to work there someday. "You know in those days, for us boys, Oberoi was "it´. We all wanted to work here. As good luck would have it, I was picked off the campus by Sunil Chakraborty, Corporate Chef Oberoi, to join The Oberoi School and after that landed up a job working the kitchens of Mewar and Kandahar. (Ziya is now where Kandahar was). "And did I hone my skills, those were the days!"
But cooking meals in a traditional way eventually became restrictive for Vineet, who on a path of self discovery, found he wanted to experiment with Indian cooking. Do something new, using the same ingredients, but different methods. So he decided to move westward. And was soon winging it to London. His infatuation with airports and aeroplanes was still pretty strong and he says the idea of going to "Heathrow country´ is what set him off to London.
Once there he got a job easily at Star of India in Old Brompton Road, where he stayed put for as long as five years. "I achieved a lot in this period. The Mohammads, a family from Mysore who owned the restaurant were very nice people to work with. I was fortunate."
Which made me ask Vineet to point out the "Milestones´ in his life, wondering if coming to London was one.
"Ah!", he goes. "Well, then the first has to be when I was 9 years old. When I almost died. I had bronchitis and was laid up for seven months. The fact that I lived, becomes the 1st milestone of my life!" I couldn´t agree more.
"And the second...?" I enquire. "Has to be 1985 when I went to Ahmedabad, and the 3rd milestone, 1988 when I joined the Oberoi School. Oh, I was flying so high with happiness in that period!"
"Would your next milestone be 1997, by any chance?" This did not come from me, but Rashima, sticking her tongue into her cheek, she was trying to be casual, playing with the fuchsia pink orchid kept on the table.
"Of course!!" confirms Vineet vehemently. Looks at me, smiles and says, "That´s the year we got married." He is not just affirming it to keep peace, he means it. Says with marriage came a new focus in life, which went beyond work. "My life got set!" beams Vineet.
Rashima is everything to Vineet. And he looks at her with such love, the warmth melts the butter on the very exquisite Pav Bhaji that has arrived at the table. Vineet has crafted this dish very cleverly for the new menu at Ziya. It doesn´t come with the ubiquitous "pav´, yet tastes the same. I recommend everyone to try it.
So now its Rashima´s turn to talk for I demand to know every detail of their marriage which if you will believe, was an arranged one! Vineet came down to Bombay from London, taking leave from Star of Asia, to meet his prospective bride. "Prospective bride! My foot!" says Rashima. "He had to pass the test from my side first!"
Let me tell you about Rashima. The only girl child in the family, she got on splendidly well only with males. Confident, smart, independent thinking, it did not bother her that her Air Force dad was worried her "sell-by´ date would soon be in the past tense. However she did allow him to put an ad in the matrimonial section of The Times of India, to which Vineet´s family responded.
But before that, let me tell you, Rashima had already seen some 200 men. "Many I rejected and many rejected me," says Rashima in an upfront manner. "My dad was getting worked up, but we had a deal. I did not want to marry a doctor and that my no would mean no." Frustrated they had asked her for a visual, like what kind of guy did she have in mind? She tried hard and came up with, "Not like Aamir Khan... too chocolatey, someone down to earth, like Akshay Kumar maybe..." Ah huh, co-incidentally a Bhatia  (Akshay´s real surname) was coming her way.
After the "home´ meeting, Rashima and Vineet went out on their own to see if a "connection´ could be made. "It was a disaster meeting. He brought me to Kandahar where I couldn´t get a word in, edgeways, since the staff kept coming to our table and greeting him. I was quite mad!" "Remember, I had worked here. Word spread that I was at Kandahar and my colleagues from all over the hotel started to drop by!" says Vineet, adding, I guess romantically, "I still remember we sat at Table number 12." A man will be a man and a chef, a chef!
Well at the second meeting, they went to Tanjore at the Taj. A good meal was had, but by the end of it, there was no reference to the actual reason for them being there. Rashima continues, "I was getting mad again, for by now, from my side, in my mind, it was a "yes´ and here was this guy not committing, not saying anything. So finally, in exasperation I asked him, "so what is it?´ And he asked, "what is what?´ I said, what is your answer? And quietly he goes, "It´s yes, it was yes from day one´."
Phew. Like a chapter from a Mills and Boon! A year later they were married. Just for record, the number of girls that Vineet had seen was just three!
So from the Milestone of Marriage it goes to a Milestone of Babies.
"That was in 2002. Here I was, heavily pregnant and my husband goes into a pseudo-pregnancy!" Rashima looks at me wide eyed and explains, "At 4 am he would wake me up and say, "Chaat khaye kya?´ chomping on a green chilli. But it was even crazier later on, when he would cook all sorts of things and stuff me up. In his mind he was feeding a feeding mom and so there was a time I would polish off 12 or 14 chocolate samosas, stuffed with roasted pine nuts, with just one roll of filo, flash fried!" Twinkling eyes, Vineet adds, "I would fry them one after another, so she could eat them, hot-hot!" How I love this Indian expression, we do love our food, hot-hot!
Incidentally, the very same chocolate samosas are Vineet´s signature dessert (Chocomosa) and a big hit, world-wide. Perhaps we should rename them  "Lactating Samosas!´
So only after Varaul, the first born, who today studies at La Roche in Switzerland, came Ronit, who is doing his hotel management, went past their toddler stage that Rashima, always a pillar of strength to Vineet, joined him in business, full time.
If  ´97 was a high point in Vineet´s life, the next year was a bad phase, probably the lowest point. He had quit Star and was working on Cinnamon Club, an ambitious project which never took off. His effort and time went down the drain. However, soon, meaning in "99 he launched Vineet Bhatia, Hammersmith, which sadly shut shop in three months. This wasn´t doing Vineet any good.
But the tide turned and with a partner he opened Zaika in Kensington. Chef Gordon Ramsay who had become a friend was instrumental in helping set up his new venture.
While Zaika and the Michelin star were a new turning point and quite changed Vineet´s life, it wasn´t quite the milestone. That was to happen in 2004, with the opening of Rasoi, his very own restaurant. "Oh yeah... that was something. I can´t express what my feeling then was." I can well imagine, though. For while Vineet was very occupied with Zaika´s success, and had a contract with British Airways and Concorde, had launched One and Only in Mauritius, was involved with The Manor in Delhi, he had become a cautious man. After all he had been let down, his trust had been broken and he had lost a lot of money too.
So it was only logical that he would now want to be independent, the captain of his own ship.
He got a loan of a quarter million pounds, from a small Scottish bank, put up his house as collateral, and went to task. And Rasoi was born in Chelsea which got him a Michelin in the very first year.
That was his biggest milestone year, from where he only rose, though not without a few hiccups. Like when the lease on the Rasoi premises ended and could not be renewed for some reason and it closed down. Or when in its place came Vineet Bhatia London, again a success story which ended abruptly a year later and just a week after Vineet got his Michelin.
One wonders if it was landlord woes again that did Vineet in, but if you read the concluding paragraph of the restaurant review by Ben Mc Cormack in the Telegraph, that I am reproducing here, you will know why London is missing Vineet Bhatia: "This is cooking that is quite unlike anything else you will find in London, delivering combinations of originality and complexity that keep the senses alert rather than overwhelmed. What I love most about the cooking is that it is unmistakably the creation of Bhatia´s singular vision for the possibilities of his native cuisine. Once again, the chef has shown the way for how Indian cooking in the UK can evolve."
For now, Vineet is a wandering chef. Not, as in a wandering chef in search of a quest, but a happily travelling chef. He has 11 restaurants running under his signature, all over the world. Lets count them: Dubai– Indego by Vineet and Indya by Vineet; Qatar– Indego 360 by Vineet and Saffron Lounge by Vineet; Bahrain– Rasoi by Vineet; Saudi Arabia– Maharaja by Vineet in Al-Khobar, Maharaja East by Vineet in Riyadh, Rasoi by Vineet in Jeddah; Mumbai– Ziya; Geneva– Rasoi by Vineet; Mauritius– Amari by Vineet.
The travelling chef is on the road or in the skies, gathering miles, about 10 months of the year. His 11 restaurant contracts hold him to make visits to each restaurant, five days every quarter. That´s five multiplied by 11, equals 55 days every quarter which equals 220 days, in a year that the chef travels. This does not include travel time, extra days here or there...
For now, Vineet is politely refusing offers to open new restaurants in the world. He gets an offer a week. "Well, 95% of the time I refuse, the other 5, I go look!" says Vineet. I ask if South America tempts him and the answer is, "It most certainly does!"
As for me, I am mighty glad we have a restaurant that gets Vineet into Bombay four times a year. What´s important is Ziya has a special place in Vineet´s heart. For him, working on this restaurant is an emotion. It´s an home-coming. It´s where it all started. Ironically, it´s where he had also ended up feeling curbed and controlled and had flown away to indulge in a creativity that he felt was bursting within him. Only to return, to give back to his alma mater that which spreading wings, and taking risks, taught him; a new culinary art.
"Yes, it´s been a journey and where Oberoi is concerned, it´s a full circle and I love it," sighs Chef Vineet Bhatia, contentedly.