Reaching a New Milestone

25 years! We can hardly believe it. There has been a fair share of blood, sweat and tears, but it's mostly been a joy bringing out a magazine as classy as UpperCrust. To be honest, surprisingly, we haven’t made drastic changes in our pages, all these years; we set the standard so high in 2000, when we launched the magazine, there wasn’t much need to. Change for the sake of change is not our style. Being committed and steady is. Here then is a little story, a small history of UpperCrust

Text: Farzana Contractor

25years ago when UpperCrust was born, it was for a very personal reason. And it was almost under duress. Behram Contractor, my husband of 15 years gave me a dictat – “I want a new magazine from you. And immediately.” I toyed with two ideas: sports and food. Sports because it’s in my blood and food because we had the great Busybee in our hive. “Food and wine,” said the boss, “not because of any other reason except that though India needs a good sports magazine, it will not be a commercial success. I know these things.”

So exactly four months later I was ready with UpperCrust, an elegant and sumptuous magazine with the tagline of 'India’s first food, wine and the good life magazine'. The tagline changed later to incorporate ‘travel’ once the average Indian started to travel a lot more.

But bringing out a magazine of such high standards every quarter was not easy. There was the question of time and resources. Those days I was too busy running the Afternoon Despatch and Courier, the newspaper Behram and I had started in 1985. Conceptualising a new magazine and launching it was one thing but producing a new one every three months, while running a daily newspaper was quite another! It seemed like an impossible task. But nothing is daunting in the face of adversity and I managed to do it. With no help at all from Behram (for a reason, which I was to know later). But on the day the magazine hit the stands, Behram gave me a present. A signed copy of UpperCrust!

He had gone to Nalanda Book Store at the Taj Mahal Hotel and BOUGHT one. So like him, to leave behind the 1000s of cling-filmed copies, neatly stacked at Afternoon House to go get me one that he wanted to pay for. Well, a year and four issues later, just one month before he passed away I learnt why he would not help me with any editorial inputs – he said he wanted me to stand on my own two feet. He said he was glad to see that I had proved to him that I could. And then he went on to extract a promise from me; that I would always work hard.

What can I say? Yes, I continue to work hard. Our magazine has done good. Our readers are most wonderful, they appreciate all the effort my team and I put in, our copies are available in every corner of the country, elsewhere in the world, too. UpperCrust is a favourite, our subscriber base in India and abroad is among the largest, and these are regularly renewed.

If UpperCrust has been as successful as it has been, it is because it is very content driven. I am very fastidous about every article that goes in there. Over the years, though the format has remained the same, the magazine, it would seem, found a perfect balance all on its own, organically. It kind of shaped up to what was needed. Adjusting to reader expectation. So our format of food and wine, infused with restaurants and recipes, travel and people, has proved to be hugely successful.

People in the wonderful world of hospitality, like chefs and general managers, 'restraupreneurs', F&B executives, sommeliers and vintners, people who are awesome home cooks and la-di-da hostesses and of course the food connoisseurs, the ones who follow the good life with a zeal and passion.

We have covered it all… 25 years ago, the culinary scene was very different. Fine-dining was available only within the hallowed precints of 5-star hotels, standalone restaurants were a far cry, with the exception of Rahul Akerkars’s Indigo and AD Singh’s Olive. Two gentleman who influenced enormously how Indians ate and drank.

So while the trend of restaurants opening up one a week (and shutting shop just as fast), was still a decade and a half away, UpperCrust concentrated heavily on regional cuisines and home cooking. We wanted everyone to know what Indian food was all about. We wanted to put India on the world culinary map. We went travelling to corners near and far, all over India, discovering people, places and recipes with gay abandon. UpperCrust Destination, we called it. We covered towns and cities extensively. Publishing all the wonderful stories in 30, 40 and sometimes even 60 pages.

When the travel bug caught hold of Indians who started travelling overseas with a vengeance we expanded our destination to cover international getaways. These pages gained immense popularity and going on jaunts recommended by UpperCrust became de rigueur.

It also became our norm to put unusual people on our covers. People who would generally shy away from any publicity.  People who have every reason to be called celebrity. I am fortunate I deal with a subject as compelling as food and wine. Even the most reticent ones will wax eloquent on say, truffles, or where you could sit and drink the best cup of coffee in Paris!                                  

Good content is always good. But if it is not accompanied by good photographs the result could perhaps be dismal. Fortunately that is another area we concentrated on. Food has to look good. And we seriously worked on that. And not just food, but people and places. Pictures in UpperCrust are ‘alive’, they speak to our readers. And they are certainly offbeat, not the standard kind.

UpperCrust has grown in number and quality of readership. Going digital has also helped. Internationally, readers subscribe to our e-copies on Magzter.

The UpperCrust Show, a trade fair we started in 2003, is hugely successful and we are now taking it to different cities of India and even overseas. A division added to our company, namely, UpperCrust Travels, focuses on promoting food and wine tourism. If you want to go on wine trails or join a cookery class anywhere in the world or want the perfect holiday, you know who to get in touch with!

Lastly, we have in the pipeline, the launch of an exclusive, premier club for foodies. The UpperCrust Gourmet Circle. With a 'by invitation only', limited members list. If you truly are a food lover and wish to know more, please connect with me on [email protected].

 As you can see we have enough on our plate to chew on. But we love it.

Enjoy this issue, it’s a mix of past and present, of 25 years. Selected bits from the super stories we have written over the past few decades. For in-depth reading please dive into our archives on the net. Our website, www.uppercrustindia.com is very user-friendly and rather attractive, too.

Thank you for reading us for 25 glorious years, encouraging us to do better. Cheerio.