Chef Paul Noronha

Executive Chef, ITC Maratha

There would be a rare few who do not take to this gregarious soul. You’ve got to love Chef Paul Noronha, who has been an ITC home body for over 30 years

Text by Lyle Michael

Dyed in ITC Wool

Just a few weeks before his move to ITC Maratha as the Executive Chef, we sit down to coffee and a sandwich at Hornby’s Pavilion with the man who’s the face of the culinary show at ITC Grand Central in Parel. And we listen to the chef who can talk for hours, about work, food, travel, family and pets! Chef Paul Noronha’s amiable personality, a simple, down-to-earth air about him, and his ability to welcome you into his “home” with open arms is what sets him apart from the executive chefs of his time.

Where do I begin,” he quips. How about the beginning, we say. “It all started in 1992, till 1994, as a management trainee, straight out of IHM Mumbai, with my first posting at ITC Maurya Sheraton, starting with Bali High, then Sheraton Towers, then West View, where I was the only man behind the all-ladies team. In 2001, I came to ITC Maratha in Bombay, when it first opened, holding a position as senior sous chef. I was part of the team that opened up the coffee shop, then handled the banquets. What followed was the ITC Chola in Chennai where my first job as an executive chef came to be.” Like we said, it’s been ITC through and through. Chef Paul continues&hellip.

After about five years at Chennai, he narrates how he was sent to Kerala to handle the kitchen operations of a new property, which lasted for about nine months before he was moved to ITC Kakatiya, Hyderabad, as it did not work out in Kerala. He reminisces how the five years there was a fabulous phase and the Kakatiya was the No. 1 property around at that time. Being a banquet man, the events were the highlight of the experience there. And finally, Bombay beckoned…Home sweet home.

“I am a Bombay boy, born and bred, from Dadar, and ITC Grand Central has been ‘home’ since the last five years.” And now, yet again, it’s a Bombay property that will see Chef Paul as its head of culinary operations. ITC Maratha, the grand airport hotel, with the all-new spanking Avartana and our indulgent favourite, Dum Pukht, has the ITC man holding the reins, and no worries there as it’s a job he knows like the back of his ladle.

What after an executive chef, we ask Chef Paul. Where do you go from there? While the executive chef handles the F&B operations of a property – more the beverage than the food – the area chef handles a larger portion of properties, we learn. “ITC has clusters of hotels, so an area chef is more like a cluster chef, and that would ideally be the next role for an executive chef,” he shares. For now, ITC Maratha is where it’s at for the chef who is more than happy to live out his professional life in ITC.

ITC is where Chef Paul has worked with legends like the late Chef Imtiaz Qureshi, very closely so. He shares an incident when Chef Qureshi picked him from a line-up of young chefs and said he would train him and do a “damn good job with him”, when he refused a local chef from the community when in Calcutta (ITC Sonar). “He was very fond of me,” he smiles, “and my life changed after he picked me.” He learnt that there can never be a compromise in your work, your cooking, which is what ITC stands for, no compromise. Only the very best for your guests! Chef goes on to share an anecdote from his time with Chef Qureshi when he first discovered what a kathal biryani was. “One guest asked me what this biryani is, when I was serving it, and I responded saying ‘mutton’ and I got a whack from behind, and in his deep gruff voice, Chef Qureshi said, “Paul, this is kathal (jackfruit)!”

Further memories of his many years with the hotel chain only take him back to the times when guests who were once high-handed are today friends, who come back for the comfort of the experience they find at ITC and in the food served by Chef Paul and his team. “There was once a doctor guest who found the Chinese food too salty, and he brought it to the attention of the team, and I addressed it with him directly. He was very sweet about it though and later messaged to ask me if I play golf, going from my DP, and we connected over that,” he recalls fondly. When he was at ITC Maurya, Chef Paul has served dignitaries such as Madeline Albright, VS Naipaul, the former CEO of Ford International and the like.

The journey has been a memorable one, indeed, influenced largely by his mum, who inculcated the love of cooking in him. Though it was a Goan household, Goan cuisine is not his go-to, yet it is still soul food for him, and ITC has done Goan food festivals in the past where the chef has been able to delve into his roots and rekindle flavours of his childhood. When asked what his favourite ingredients across cuisines would be, the reply comes in with thyme, saffron, clove, yellow chilli powder, peppers…

At home, it’s his wife, Susan, who takes charge of the kitchen – also an ITC employee, ITC Maurya is where Chef Paul met her – while he cooks intermittently. Daughter, Samantha, love his Chinese food, while son, Pierre, his dad and his beautiful Golden Retriever, Shia, are yet to list their favourites a la Chef Paul Noronha.